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Hondo Overview:

Hondo (1953) was a Action - Drama Film directed by John Farrow and produced by John Wayne and Robert Fellows.

Academy Awards 1953 --- Ceremony Number 26 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Supporting ActressGeraldine PageNominated
Best WritingLouis L'AmourNominated
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Hondo BlogHub Articles:

John Wayne in 3D in Hondo!

By Rick29 on May 1, 2023 From Classic Film & TV Cafe

John Wayne as Hondo. With John Wayne's 1953 3D Western Hondo, you actually get two movies in one. The first is an interesting love story between an tough dispatch rider for the U.S. Cavalry and a lonely woman--with a worthless husband--who operates a ranch deep in Apache territory. The second "movi... Read full article

"Hondo"

By Jeremy Carr on Jul 10, 2013 From Studies in Cinema

When John Wayne made Hondo in 1953, his masculine all-American tough guy persona was already well-established. Rumor has it that after a screening of Hondo Wayne himself said, “I’ll be damned if I’m not the stuff men are made of.” Presumably he was joking (he had a great se... Read full article

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Hondo Quotes:

Hondo Lane: How is he?
Buffalo Baker: He'll make out. Don't know much. Led us into an ambush. But I ain't ashamed of him nohow. Bullet holes are in the front of him.
Hondo Lane: All those youngsters from the Point are like that.
Buffalo Baker: Well, they gotta learn.
Hondo Lane: Partly they learn, partly they die. But I gotta float my stick same as you, I never saw one of 'em I had to be ashamed of.
Angie Lowe: I love you. I suppose I shouldn't have said that with my husband dead so short a time.
Hondo Lane: I don't guess people's hearts got anything to do with a calendar.
Angie Lowe: You were so wonderful, refusing to lie for Vittorio.
Hondo Lane: Oh, he was testing me. Indians hate lies. And I guess I got to feelin' the same way, but once in awhile a fella's got to lie if it'll make it easier on someone else.
Vittorio: You are Apache. Now, hear me. Pony soldiers are near. Soon will be ford-remembered fight. They will come here first. You will not go with them, white man.
Hondo Lane: I will not.
Vittorio: Leader of pony soldiers will question you. You will say you see Apache trailing to the west.
Hondo Lane: [refusing to comply with the additional instruction] This I will not do.
Vittorio: You will not?
Hondo Lane: I will not.
Vittorio: [to Mrs. Lowe] You have good man. Treasure him.
Angie Lowe: Anyway, I don't believe a dog can smell Indians. I mean, as different from anyone else. You and me, for instance.
Hondo Lane: Well they can. As a matter of fact, Indians can smell white people.
Angie Lowe: I don't believe it.
Hondo Lane: Well it's true. I'm part Indian and I can smell you when I'm downwind of you.
Angie Lowe: That's impossible.
Hondo Lane: No, it isn't impossible, Mrs. Lowe. You baked today. I can smell fresh bread on you. Sometime today, you cooked with salt pork. Smell that on you, too. You smell all over like soap: you took a bath. And, on top of that, you smell all over like a woman. I could find you in the dark, Mrs. Lowe, and I'm only part Indian.
Hondo Lane: Everybody gets dead. It was his turn.
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Hondo Facts
Katharine Hepburn was originally planned to have been cast as the female lead, with the idea being that her part and John Wayne's would be roughly equal. However, the female lead role grew less prominent as the script was developed, until it was clearly subservient to Wayne's. Therefore, producer Robert Fellows sent a letter to Hepburn's agent expressing his belief that such a role was beneath a star of Hepburn's stature, and explaining that rather than embarrass her by offering her a part she would be forced to turn down, he decided not to offer it to her at all. The role went to Broadway actress Geraldine Page, instead, while Hepburn and Wayne finally teamed more than twenty years later in Rooster Cogburn.
John Ford directed the climactic battle scenes at the end of the movie, according to a special feature on the 2005 DVD release. Apparently director John Farrow had to leave to start another film commitment and Ford took over. His work was uncredited.
According to TCM, John Wayne won the well-trained dog Sam from his owner/trainer in a poker game after the movie wrapped.
Film debut of Geraldine Page.
In the Married with Children episode "Assault and Batteries," Al Bundy says that Hondo is his favorite movie of all time, and he spends the entire episode trying to watch it in peace.
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