John Wayne is most renowned, and rightfully so, for his work in Westerns, but he did work outside the genre as well. Films like The Quiet Man, Brannigan, and The Long Voyage Home, cited by Collider as the best non-Western John Wayne movie, proved there was more to Wayne than a Stetson on his head and a pistol at his side. But what if the Duke traded in that ten-gallon hat for a hockey helmet, his dusty boots for ice skates, and his gun for a hockey stick? I know what you’re saying—”John Wayne playing hockey? Right.”—but in 1937’s Idol of the Crowds, he did just that.
Hockey Is the Key To Renovating a Chicken Farm in ‘Idol of the Crowds’
The New York Panthers are a hockey team at the bottom of the standings and need to make a move to reverse their fortunes before the season is lost. When they hear the tale of a dynamic former amateur hockey player in Maine, press agent Kelly (Russell Hopton) and team manager Joe Garber (Frank Otto) roll the dice and head there in an effort to recruit him. They meet up with the former phenom, Johnny Hanson (John Wayne), who is now a chicken farmer. Hanson has no desire to return to hockey, but a $100 per week salary would pay for some much-needed renovations to the farm, and he agrees, moving to New York with his young orphan friend, Bobby (Bill Burrud).
It proves to be a savvy move, with Johnny leading the team to the top, becoming the talk of the town with each successive win. One night, he meets Helen Dale (Sheila Bromley) and is smitten (not hurt by having the same dream of owning a chicken farm). Only things turn sour the night before a championship game, when the owner of the local roller rink, Jack Irwin (Charles Brokaw), tells Johnny that he’s bet $200,000 on the opposing team and offers $5,000 if Johnny throws the game, only for Johnny to reject the bribe. Then, Johnny discovers that Helen had been working with Irwin, and, chicken farm be damned, he ditches her.
Meanwhile, Irwin doesn’t take kindly to Johnny’s refusal, and orders his goon, Spike (George Lloyd), to ice Johnny. Spike, however, inadvertently injures young Bobby by accident, after which he threatens to get him next. The threat rattles Johnny, and during a game he feigns injury and is sent to the hospital. He’s fine, of course, but doesn’t leave Bobby’s side as he goes through a serious operation. Once Bobby’s safe, Johnny rejoins the team on the final night of the championship, and wins the game for the team. Irwin and Spike are sent to the penalty box, and Helen and Johnny make up, get married, and return to the chicken farm with Bobby.
‘Idol of the Crowds’ Wasn’t Easy for John Wayne
The period of time spent as a B-movie actor before his breakout role in Stagecoach is one that Wayne rarely talked about. He did, however, talk about Idol of the Crowds—released two years prior to John Ford’s classic—but not warmly. Biographer Scott Eyman, who wrote John Wayne: The Life and Legend, found this nugget from Wayne about the film: “I’m from Southern California. I’ve never been on goddamn skates in my life. I was in the hospital for two f**king days after that.”
Eyman likened it to a fish-out-of-water experience for the actor. Riding horses was second nature, but hockey was completely foreign, and in the days before television (and 30 years before the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings), it was likely that Wayne had never even seen a hockey game. As far as Wayne’s skating, Eyman says he gets away with it, adding, “He’s okay as long as he’s moving in a straight line.”
Idol of the Crowds did court a little controversy, both during production and following its release. The original title for Idol of the Crowds was Hell on Ice, a no-no as far as the Draconian Hays Code was concerned, hence the change. Then, in 1938, Madison Square Garden Corp. took Universal Pictures to court, asserting that the film falsely represented the hockey games in the film taking place in the esteemed arena, besmirching its reputation for hosting clean sporting events and hurting its chances of selling picture rights in the future. They lost.
As far as hockey films go, Idol of the Crowds… is one. It’s certainly not one of the best at least, with reviews placing it somewhere between fair to average. But it does have some cred. There are no more hockey-friendlier names than “Bobby” and “Johnny,” for starters (still in our hearts, Johnny Gaudreau), and if the surname “Hanson” rings a bell, it should. It’s the surname of the three volatile, hard-hitting Hanson brothers on the Charleston Chiefs in Slap Shot. For the record, the star of that film, Paul Newman, skated every day for two months to prepare for his role as Reggie Dunlop, even enlisting his hockey-playing brother for help. Take that, Wayne.