American movies feature a handful of great actor-director partnerships — Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese come to mind, for example, as do Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. Arguably, no collaboration has been more fulfilling for audiences or more influential for narrative filmmakers than John Wayne and John Ford.
Together, Wayne and Ford created the mature Western with “Stagecoach” (1939) and brought it to its peak with “The Searchers” (1956). Each made sturdy Westerns with others and added to their own list with “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962), which carries a famous line tinged with irony that goes to the heart of the genre: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Wayne and Ford’s productive if knotty relationship is practically a legend in itself. That’s a plus and a minus for Nancy Schoenberger’s new book, “Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero.” At just over 200 pages, it serves as a lean and energetic introduction to a pair of moviemakers who are central to understanding American cinema. For those already keen on the topic, Schoenberger offers a slightly different point of view about their legacy.
Given the many books about the actor and director, the Wayne-Ford relationship is easy to recount. Ford was established in the business by the late 1920s when he became a father figure for Wayne, hired him for some of his first acting jobs, then rescued him from the purgatory of low-budget productions in the 1930s, giving him the chance to shine as an actor. In the decades that followed, Wayne delivered time and again for Ford — after “Stagecoach” they made 13 more movies together — and he continued to work for “Pappy” even after Ford’s gifts had gone stale and Wayne had become the most popular star in Hollywood.
