Quotes

There's action only if there's danger.

A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.

I'm a storyteller--that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!

When you find out a thing that goes pretty well, you might as well do it again.

Cary Grant was so far the best that there isn't anybody to be compared to him.

John Wayne represents more force, more power, than anybody else on the screen

When [John Ford] was dying, we used to discuss how tough it was to make a good Western without [John Wayne].

[on John Wayne] He never squawks about anything. He's the easiest person I ever worked with. Because he never says anything about it, he just goes ahead and does it.

I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.

If you don't get a damn good actor with [John Wayne] he's going to blow him right off the screen, not just by the fact that he's good, but by his power, his strength.

[John Wayne] is underrated. He's an awfully good actor. He holds a thing together; he gives it a solidity and honesty, and he can make a lot of things believable.

Rio Bravo (1959) was made because I didn't like a picture called High Noon (1952). I saw "High Noon" at about the same time I saw another western picture, and we were talking about western pictures and they asked me if I liked it, and I said, "Not particularly". I didn't think a good sheriff was going to go running around town like a chicken with his head off asking for help, and finally his Quaker wife had to save him. That isn't my idea of a good western sheriff. I said that a good sheriff would turn around and say, "How good are you? Are you good enough to take the best man they've got?" The fellow would probably say no, and he'd say, "Well, then I'd just have to take care of you". And that scene was in "Rio Bravo".

I don't think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody has seen every plot 20 times. What they haven't seen is characters and their relation to one another. I don't worry much about plot anymore.

[on Rio Bravo (1959)] After we finished we found we could have done it a lot better . . . and that's why we went ahead and made El Dorado (1966).

[on Rio Lobo (1970)] I didn't think it was any good.

[on the initial critical reception of Only Angels Have Wings (1939)] A certain critic said, "It's the only picture Hawks ever made that didn't have any truth in it". I wrote him a letter and said, "Every blooming thing in that movie was true. I knew the men that were in it and everything about it". But it was just where truth was stranger than fiction.

[on John Wayne] Way back on Red River (1948) he asked my theory about acting and I said, "Duke, you do two or three good scenes in a picture and don't offend the audience the rest of the time." So even today he says, "What's coming up next?" and I say, "This is one of the ones that you're liable to offend them. Get it over with as soon as you can. Don't do anything."

[on working with James Caan on El Dorado (1966)] He's a damn good actor and we started rolling the more we got into it. He got a lot of laughs playing it perfectly serious. He didn't know he was playing it perfectly serious. He didn't know he was playing comedy.

[on Clark Gable] Women liked Gable best when he played a heavy with a grin.

[on Lauren Bacall] We discovered Bacall was a little girl who, when she becomes insolent, becomes rather attractive. That was the only way you noticed her, because she could do it with a grin. So I said to Bogey [Humphrey Bogart], "We are going to try an interesting thing. You are about the most insolent man on the screen and I'm going to make this girl a little more insolent than you are."

[on Humphrey Bogart] He was an extremely hard-working actor. He'd always pretend that he wasn't, that he didn't give a damn, but that wasn't true. One day I said to him, "Bogey, you're just a great big phony." He put his finger to his lips and grinned at me. "Sure," he said, "but don't tell anyone."

Most of the leading men today, the younger men especially, are a little bit effeminate. There's no toughness. [Steve McQueen] and [Clint Eastwood] don't compare with [John Wayne].

If I want to have fun at a party I'll tell The Duke [John Wayne], "See that guy over there? He's a Red!"

Frank Capra, until he went into the army, was one of the greatest directors we ever had. Made great entertainment. After that he couldn't make anything. He started to analyze his pictures, and put messages in them. He put messages into his other pictures, but he didn't think about it. He did it naturally. When he got to thinking about his messages, oh brother, he turned into really . . . ah, no good.

But politics has gotten to where they want to control and tell you what kind of movies, what kind of books, what kind of everything. Who the hell is qualified to do it? I don't know how through movies you're ever gonna get to tell people how this corruption works in the country. Because the whole media is just quoting all these people. It's a story for them. You know, I write a story and then somebody comes along and they say, "You're changing that." Well, I wrote the goddamned thing. "I know, but what are you changing it for? It's printed on there. Why not keep it . . . " You know, they read stuff in the newspapers, they see stuff on television. I don't know what you're gonna do, but you're not gonna be able to do it through movies, I don't think.

If you want to make pictures and enjoy making them, you better go out and make something that a lot of people want to see. And then they'll turn you lose and let you make what you want. And then maybe you can do some of the things that you want to do. But as a beginner, you haven't got a chance.

I guarantee you that two directors that are any good can take the same story, change the name of the characters, change the name of the town and make an entirely different picture.

For me the best drama is one that deals with a man in danger.