Happy Thanksgiving From John Wayne

Have you ever heard of some fellows who first came over to this country? You know what they found? They found a howling wilderness, with summers too hot and winters freezing, and they also found some unpleasant little characters who painted their faces. Do you think these pioneers filled out form number X6277 and sent in a report saying the Indians were a little unreasonable? Did they have insurance for their old age, for their crops, for their homes? They did not! They looked at the land, and the forest, and the rivers. They looked at their wives, their kids and their houses, and then they looked up at the sky and they said, “Thanks, God, we’ll take it from here.”

An early example of the political philosophy of John Wayne from the movie Without Reservations (1946).  A light-hearted romp, Claudette Colbert portrays the author, Kitt Madden, of a best selling novel  Here Is Tomorrow which features a hero who bears a striking physical resemblance to Marine Corps Captain “Rusty” Thomas, portrayed by John Wayne.  On her way to Hollywood for the making of a movie on the novel, Madden learns to her dismay that Cary Grant has turned down the role of the hero of her novel.  When she meets “Rusty” Thomas she decides that he should star in the picture.  One problem:  Thomas hates the book!  The film is very funny and an interesting satire on both novelists and Hollywood.  (I wonder if Kitt Madden was supposed to be an anti-Ayn Rand, who was shopping her novels around Hollywood at the time.)  Wayne and Colbert have magnificent chemistry in the film in spite of their different world views.  (Ironically in real life both Wayne and Colbert were conservatives and staunch Republicans.)  At the end of the film when Madden and Thomas admit their love for each other, Madden looks heavenward and modifies the line first uttered by Thomas, “Thanks God, I’ll take it from here!”.