Attention Western fans: Tonight one of the classics of the genre is on television, in which John Wayne sets off on what may be his last, dangerous journey. In The Devil’s Captain he convinced his regular director John Ford of his talent once and for all.
The western classic with John Wayne is part of a trilogy
The year is 1876: aging cavalry captain Nathan Cutting Brittles (John Wayne) is facing the sunset of a career that has now become his life. Because he has lost his wife and child. Then the insignificant captain receives a dangerous assignment: He is supposed to escort his commander’s wife and niece to a stagecoach station, to avoid impending conflict with Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. What follows, however, is not a triumphant adventure, but rather a journey of setbacks that presents Brittles with his greatest challenge.
Warner
The devil captain
John Ford’s western came to cinemas in 1949 and marks the Middle part of the so-called cavalry trilogy, which began a year earlier with Until the Last Man and culminated in Rio Grande in 1950. You don’t need to have seen the other films to understand them, as they each tell their own stories. The unifying elements are Ford, Wayne, author James Warner Bellah and the era in which they are set: the period after the end of the Civil War, viewed through the eyes of cavalry soldiers.
The Devil Captain is one of Ford and Wayne’s best films
Until the Last Man is considered the best film in this series, but The Devil’s Captain is also one of the (many) peaks of the work of John Ford and its leading actor. On the one hand, the vibrant colors of the Technicolor system are still impressive today. On the other hand, Ford tells us here one of his most touching stories, characterized by sentimentality, romanticism and the longing for a traditional idea of heroism. John Wayne was rarely better, which gradually became clear to his director.
Ford had helped John Wayne out of the swamp of B-Westerns in 1939 with Hell’s Journey to Santa Fé, but it wasn’t until he saw Red River (1948) by colleague Howard Hawks that he recognized Wayne as a truly capable actor.
After filming of The Devil’s Captain was completed, Ford presented his star with a cake, according to a biography by Ronald L. Davis. The inscription read: “You’re an actor now.”
This is how you can watch The Devil Captain
The Devil’s Captain will be broadcast on Servus TV today, November 28th from 10:20 p.m. The repeat runs on Wednesday night from 2:05 a.m. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to stream the film in Germany.