Big Jim McLain (1952)

Fantastic!

A different way of telling a story

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This one has Wayne playing the heroic patriotic persona that most of his fans will recognize. However, this is clearly a propaganda film that will have most people rolling their eyes in light of what has been revealed to be the truth about this episode in history. Thus, this is another Wayne film you must look at in the context of the times in which it was made. John Wayne plays the title role of Jim McLain, a federal agent working for the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee in search of a pesky ring of Communists believed to be operating in Hawaii. I resist the urge to call this movie good campy fun mainly because of all of the lives and careers that were ruined in the actual investigations. However, history aside, it is an entertaining film perhaps for all the wrong reasons. Notice that the people hunting the Communists are all portrayed as good-looking, athletic, and well-liked while the Communists, on the other hand, look like they spent too much time indoors as children and are unlikeable introverted types, hungry for the flattery and attention of their Soviet masters. Who knew bullied kids could grow up to be so dangerous? And Alan Napier, the beloved Alfred of the 60's Batman TV series, as the murderous Sturak? Holy (retrospective) strange casting decision Batman!

That's what a Japanese nurse tells House on Un-American Activities Investigator John Wayne (as the title character) about her feelings towards Communism when he questions her about her Communist ex-husband. Wayne's obsessively conservative politics take over his likable box-office appeal in this unfortunate political drama that only paints part of the picture. Halliwell's "Film Guide" described this film as a "Curious and rather offensive star vehicle in which the right-wing political shading interferes seriously with the entertainment value". I do not profess to be an expert on communism, but I do understand that the Red Scare of the late 1940's and 1950's was an era in Hollywood that destroyed many innocent people, and films like this, "The Red Menace" and "I Was a Communist For the FBI" are just as manipulative as the dangers they are preaching against. Layered with an unfortunate narration by Wayne in character, and a prologue of alleged communists being questioned, it is rather obvious from the beginning and ultimately self-serving.Wayne, an All-American hero whose appeal cannot be denied, was certainly entitled to "Freedom of Speech", but with the preachiness of this screenplay, he totally looses credibility. When Communists are seen, they are as obvious as the stereotypical Nazi's of those propaganda filled World War II movies. In the more serious war films, the most dangerous Nazi's were actually those who were cultured yet evil when it came down to performing their mission. Had Hollywood presented a different side of the "Red Scare", rather than just always one, these films might hold up better today. James Arness is perfectly cast as Wayne's co-hort (they seem like brothers), while Veda Ann Borg and Hans Conreid offer amusing supporting roles. I actually began to like the film just a tad bit more every time the blowzy Borg came on screen, especially in her drunken restaurant scene. "72 Inches of a Real Man!" she coos at Wayne as only she could in that femme fatal way. The humor, though, is utilized really to sidetrack the viewer. Filmed in black and white, the photography makes the film really uninvolving considering its Hawaiian setting.

"Big Jim McClain" is distinctive in several ways. First, it features three of the tallest men in the movies. John Wayne (six-feet, four inches), James Arness (six-feet, six inches), and Allan Napier (seven-hundred-and-twenty-two feet). Second, this, along with "The Green Berets", is the most political movie that John Wayne has ever made. It reflects accurately Wayne's view of the Communist Menace. This is the John Wayne who carried a cigarette lighter inscribed "**** Communism." Boy -- are they shifty -- and ruthless too.Allan Napier is the Russky head of the Hawaiian cell. He says something along the lines of, "I hate these domestic communists. These 'committed' party members. But we need them until we take power. Then -- liquidate." This is a staple of spy movies. They sacrifice one another remorselessly for the good of the cause. They're getting in all over too. After a professor takes the fifth, Wayne grumbles, "Now he's free to go back to teaching economics at the university and contaminate more young minds." We never learn about the nature of the contamination. There is a lone reference to Marx and several bitter comments about "the party line" and "all that baloney," but all we ever see of the Red Menace is that they plot to infect everybody by releasing a horde of sick rats in Honolulu. They could be pod people from outer space. They're pure e-vil.Wayne and Arness are members of the House Un-American Activities Committee, sent to Honolulu to uncover these Red moles who have infiltrated the unions. There is also a plot hatched by Napier to unloose all sorts of evil on the islands and halt shipping -- what with strikes and those infected rats. Arness is accidentally killed by the commies, but Wayne and the Hawaiian police capture the evildoers.It's a terrible movie but fascinating too. Never dull. It's hard to generalize about the acting. Some performances are decent, others are ludicrous. Wayne exudes his usual John Wayneness. Arness, who was The Thing in Howard Hawks' "The Thing From Another World," is likably competent as the sidekick. Nancy Olson is beautiful, in an extra-ordinary way. She plays a medical student and she should know how to do it, medicine having been demystified by her physician father. Captain Liu of the HPD cannot act. Neither can a couple of other members of the cast. An elderly Polish refugee is played like a character role in a movie from the early 1930s -- only badly. The lack of talent on display is embarrassing.As if in compensation the movie takes us on a tour of the sights. See the Pali? Notice John and Nancy riding the surf in a catamaran at Waikiki. Aren't the little native girls cute, doing a slow, hip-swinging hula? It's those darned Russkies who cause trouble in paradise.The intent of the flag-waving should reach the most "low-information" of voters. The opening scene has Daniel Webster practically rising from his grave and asking, "Neighbor, how stands the union?" The chief narration is by Wayne, who sometimes seems to shout his apoplectic, angry pronouncements into the microphone. He gets extra points for believing what he says.There's a humorous interlude involving Veda Ann Borg as a good-natured, alcoholic, nymphomaniac who refers to Wayne as "76" because he is 76 inches tall. "Oh ho, manama nui!" It's at once gripping and hilarious to see Wayne try to shepherd her through a dinner at the Royal Hawaiian.It occurred to me, as Wayne's plane is about to land and the stewardess announces that several fancy hotels can be seen on Waikiki through the window -- the Manoa among them -- that when I was a teaching assistant at a semi-exclusive university, I had cause to counsel a student who was agonizing over her low grades in my class. She didn't want to fail because she'd have to leave and attend a state university and it would kill her father. He was the manager of the Moana Hotel. I never could afford to see the inside of the Moana but years earlier I stole an over-sized towel with the Moana logo from its beach front. I squeaked her through, partly out of guilt.All apologies for that digression into the ironic but, really, it wouldn't have been much more helpful if I'd stuck to a discussion of the movie. It is to film what Grandma Moses is to painting.It's an awful movie, but you might enjoy it. I know I did.

As somebody rightfully remarked under Trivia, the German version runs the whole thing as a Drug Enforcement Story with J. Wayne and J. Arness following the trail of the drug ring to Hawaii. It is quite perplexing to see, that the whole story could be so easily streamed to a complete different thing with proper dubbing and off screen comment by the Duke. Just as perplexing is it, that something like this could be produced and distributed and carry such an a priori moralic attitude of the Government being right and the methods used as well, even if some basic laws need to be bended or broken along the way. That stuff is not worth more then 4/10.