Why John Wayne Thought ‘The Wild Bunch’ Was so ‘Distasteful’ – Old western – My Blog


Actor John Wayne had no problem commenting on popular media in his day, including Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch . The film hit the silver screen in 1969, interweaving action and drama into a two-time Oscar-nominated film. Wayne called The Wild Bunch “distasteful” for very specific reasons that turned him away from Hollywood’s shift to include more mature content.John Wayne didn’t want to star in ‘petty’ roles

“I don’t think it hurts a child to see anything that has the illusion of violence in it,” Wayne explained. “All our fairy tales have some kind of violence – the good knight riding to kill the dragon, etc. Why do we have to show the knight spreading the serpent’s guts all over the candy mountain?”John Wayne kept traditional views on the Western genreWayne evolved the industry himself in the way that he instilled fighting “dirty” into his Western heroes , but he didn’t enjoy how movies like The Wild Bunch were changing the cinematic landscape. He believed that movies continued to try and top one another in regards to how far they could push the boundary. The end result is a continuation of “vulgarity.”This is incredibly evident with the way that Wayne viewed actor Clint Eastwood when he came onto the scene. He made a name for himself with the spaghetti Westerns, such as A Fistful of Dollars . He turned the Western lead into an anti-hero, unafraid to quickly turn to lethal violence as a solution. Wayne was angry regarding this representation, believing that he incorrectly portrayed what the West was all about.