Wayne’s secret weapon was always his generosity and humility as an actor, his penchant for binding himself and his ego to the needs of a picture.

I'm sure all you kids are too young to remember this, but, I think it was 1973 or 74 or thereabouts. The Duke was invited to speak before the Harvard student body. He accepted (he'd been in Boston for cancer treatment earlier that year). On the appointed day, and I shit you not, he was driven through Harvard Square standing up in an armored personnel carrier and deposited at Memorial Hall. He took the stage, just by himself, sitting on a straight-backed chair, and he answered questions from the audience for an hour with good and self-deprecating humor.. When it was over, he got a standing ovation from all those leftwing, hippy kids from Harvard. They loved him.

You couldn't imagine two people with more different politics that John Wayne and Henry Fonda (well, you can add Fonda's best friend, James Stewart on the Wayne side of the divide). There was some poltical issue that arose one time and Fonda found himself pitted against Wayne and Ward Bond (they were all veterans of John Ford westerns). Years later in a Playboy interview, Fonda was asked about it. He said that Ward Bond never spoke to him again. How about Wayne, the interviewer asked, "Ah not Duke," said Fonda, "he was too good natured to stay angry with you for any length of time." And that's how I've always thought of him.

[T]he great writing of Leigh Brackett.

She, with Lawrence Kasdan, also wrote The Empire Strikes Back.

The counterpoint was the plot: It's the job of sworn professionals to protect the citizenry.

It's generally understood, or was at one time, that High Noon was a veiled attack on the House Unamerican Activities Committee and defense of the blacklisted artists of that era. If the Duke was upset with the movie, maybe it's because he got the subtext. The townspeople in the movie were taken by some to stand for the Hollywood actors, writers, and directors who spilled their guts in front of the Committee, not to save their lives, but, as Orson Welles put it, to save their swimming pools.

Now about that gun-butt scar on Claude Akins' temple....

(Chuckle)

Personally, I'd consider Rio Bravo a failure, in that it was intended as a counterpoint to High Noon, yet does so by simply ignoring any of the issues raised by that movie.

The counterpoint was the plot: It's the job of sworn professionals to protect the citizenry. See my July 2003 post, "High Noon for U.S. Army," for a more detailed discussion.

I hope the author mentions the great writing of Leigh Brackett. To refresh your memory she was the writer who completed The Big Sleep after William Faulkner fell into a bottle.

He mentions both Brackett and The Big Sleep, but only in passing.

they practically remade the picture a couple of years later. It didn't start out that way but Hawks kept saying “Remember that great scene from Rio Bravo? Put one in like that.”

Yes, "El Dorado" - 8 years later. And every bit as enjoyable. For that matter, Hawkes and Brackett collaborated on "Rio Lobo" (1970) too. Also a perfectly good flick.

She wrote intelligent, snappy dialogue (especially male-female dialogue) and she was so sympatico with Howard Hawks that they practically remade the picture a couple of years later. It didn't start out that way but Hawks kept saying “Remember that great scene from Rio Bravo? Put one in like that.”