I don't know how many times I have seen this film, and it always makes me smile. Get a wild west lawman and set him loose in London to deal with a few baddies, and if that lawman is John Wayne then you know he is going to cause a bit of damage before the movie is over.
The idea is exciting, but it came ten years too late. At 68 Wayne was way too old to play a cop, too overweight, too slow. And that shows.
The Duke arrives in London in pursuit of nasty gangster John Vernon, who is showing off staying at The Dorchester, strolling openly around town and visiting an exclusive gentlemen's club at Mayfair. Ten years earlier he would have been a dear guest of the Krays.
The British police know who he is, but you know how things are done here: he hasn't done anything wrong yet, so the extradition process is painfully slow and in the main time he may fled to South America, so hopefully we get a thorn off our back without intervening, and remain buddies with our Yank friends. And God save the Queen.
But with Wayne being Wayne, that is not going to be. Cultural stereotype clashes are inevitable, with the very toff and politically correct Attenborough chastising Wayne for carrying a gun and, worst of all, shooting it, "we don't do this things in here, we're British!"; cars driving on the "other" side of the road; villains dressed in Savile Row suits and driving Jaguars, and, of course, a bar brawl. Could you imagine a John Wayne movie without one? And when he gets a confession out of Brian Glover, he says to Judy Geeson "I didn't understand his accent".
Certainly not one of the best Wayne movies, but decent enough and with a few laughs.
The idea is exciting, but it came ten years too late. At 68 Wayne was way too old to play a cop, too overweight, too slow. And that shows.
The Duke arrives in London in pursuit of nasty gangster John Vernon, who is showing off staying at The Dorchester, strolling openly around town and visiting an exclusive gentlemen's club at Mayfair. Ten years earlier he would have been a dear guest of the Krays.
The British police know who he is, but you know how things are done here: he hasn't done anything wrong yet, so the extradition process is painfully slow and in the main time he may fled to South America, so hopefully we get a thorn off our back without intervening, and remain buddies with our Yank friends. And God save the Queen.
But with Wayne being Wayne, that is not going to be. Cultural stereotype clashes are inevitable, with the very toff and politically correct Attenborough chastising Wayne for carrying a gun and, worst of all, shooting it, "we don't do this things in here, we're British!"; cars driving on the "other" side of the road; villains dressed in Savile Row suits and driving Jaguars, and, of course, a bar brawl. Could you imagine a John Wayne movie without one? And when he gets a confession out of Brian Glover, he says to Judy Geeson "I didn't understand his accent".
Certainly not one of the best Wayne movies, but decent enough and with a few laughs.