3 GODFATHERS

This may be a bit heretical but I'll go ahead and say it anyway. I think John Ford is among the most overrated American filmmakers of the twentieth century. While I haven't seen all of his films, the ones I have seen fall into three categories: great, good and terrible. I rate STAGECOACH (1939), THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962) among the great with the worst being HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941) (a film I wouldn't watch again with someone else's eyes), MOGAMBO (1953), MISTER ROBERTS (1955), DONOVAN'S REEF (1963) and 7 WOMEN (1966). All of the other Ford films I've seen fall somewhere between these two extremes. 

And while I haven't seen every John Wayne movie ever made, I've seen a lot of them over the years and find the majority of them to be entertaining and worth watching at least once.  

I can now add to my list of good John Ford films 3 GODFATHERS (1948) starring John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey Jr. Wayne plays an outlaw for a change of pace. He's Robert Hightower, who, along with Pete (Pedro Armendariz) and William Kearney (Harry Carey, Jr.), plot to rob the bank in the small town of Welcome, Arizona. Kearney is wounded in the getaway and Sheriff Buck Sweet (Ward Bond) is soon on their trail with a posse in tow. The men strike out across the desert and soon run out of both water and horses before stumbling upon a deserted wagon wherein a pregnant woman (Mildred Natwick), who is also Sheriff Sweet's niece, is about to give birth. The men assist with the delivery and she asks each of them to serve as godfathers for the infant boy. They agree, she dies and the men must now take care of a newborn baby while trying to keep themselves alive.

The gag of three incompetents saddled with a troublesome baby is usually the fodder for comedies. The Three Stooges tried to take care of a babe found abandoned on their doorstep in one of their two-reelers while THREE MEN AND A BABY (1987), was a blockbuster hit. Here, what starts out humorous quickly turns grim as first Kearney and then Pete succumb to their injuries, leaving Bob alone to care for the child. Kearney tried to impart some faith into his companions by reading from the Bible before he died and it's the Bible that Bob turns to, reluctantly, when he's at the end of his rope. He reads the passage about Jesus commanding his disciples to go into a village and find a donkey and her colt and bring them to him. Just then, miraculously, a donkey and colt appear to help transport Bob and the baby to the nearest town. All of this happens on Christmas Eve with a bright star in the heavens to guide him on.

Filmed largely on location in California's Death Valley, 3 GODFATHERS is a lush, Technicolor western that mixes humor with grim drama as Bob finds redemption from his life of crime by becoming a loving, caring father of his young godson. Ford regular Jane (THE GRAPES OF WRATH) Darwell has a bit part as a train station boss while young Ben Johnson is a member of Bond's posse. 

3 GODFATHERS is far from the best work of either Ford or Wayne but it's an engaging, handsomely mounted film that Judy and I thoroughly enjoyed watching. Thumbs up.