While John Wayne had been open about his frustration with having to play the same kinds of characters, his moral compass led him to turn down a different role in a classic war movie. John Wayne movies are a genre of their own, and he was such an immensely popular actor during the “Golden Age of Westerns” that he rarely played anyone other than the straight-shooting and heroic protagonist. Some of John Wayne’s personal best roles are in the Western genre, where he got his career break, but he also appeared in some critically acclaimed war movies.
John Wayne’s best war movies often reflected the wars around the time of filming, and just as in his Westerns, Wayne usually played the hero. Wayne tended to play patriotic characters in positions of authority in his war movies, like Flying Tigers and The Longest Day, as he was extremely patriotic himself. The Dirty Dozen seemed to be a movie that Wayne would be interested in, as the lead role was a war hero in charge of an important mission. However, Wayne firmly turned the part down, going on to star in a different war movie.
Why John Wayne Turned Down The Dirty Dozen
Major Reisman Could Have Been A Chance To Prevent Wayne’s Career Rut
The Dirty Dozen’s Major John Reisman is the movie’s main protagonist, who has won multiple awards for his service to his country. However, the character was written as an adulterer who is having an affair with the English wife of a soldier. The biography, John Wayne: American, explained that to Wayne, the idea of betraying another soldier in this way was “repulsive,” especially as he felt that Reisman had no remorse for his actions. That said, Wayne liked the character and had a discussion with The Dirty Dozen producer, Ken Hyman, about changing the offending scenes.
Wayne appeared in one of t he best D-Day movies ever made, and his name alone drew audiences. However, he grew dissatisfied with his career, feeling that his characters were all the same. Wayne famously described his role in True Grit as “his first good part in 20 years” (via rogerebert.com). Playing a less moral character like Major Reisman could have proven to casting directors that Wayne was capable of playing different roles from his usual heroes. Ultimately, taking on a challenge in the form of a character with values so different from his own could have prevented his later career rut.
John Wayne’s War Movie Choice Led To One Of His Worst-Reviewed Movies
The Dirty Dozen Could Have Been A Very Different Movie With John Wayne (But Not Necessarily Better)
Despite changes to The Dirty Dozen script and removing Major Reisman’s affair, Wayne still turned the part down as he wanted to make a Vietnam War movie. Though Wayne likely had the best of intentions, it was a controversial choice as the Vietnam War was still underway. The Green Berets was the critically panned result, in which Wayne plays an active colonel at a much older age than most soldiers. The movie was derided as a transparent piece of propaganda that ignored the subtleties of the war, and Roger Ebert gave The Green Berets zero stars out of five.
On the other hand, The Dirty Dozen had an all-star cast, and most of the characters were antiheroes rather than Wayne’s more morally upright roles. Reisman was played by Lee Marvin, best known for playing more villainous characters. If Wayne had played his version of Reisman, the movie could have become another “John Wayne movie” with fewer surprises. John Wayne’s most rewatchable movies in the war genre embrace his patriotic tendencies while having a strong ensemble cast to avoid centering on him over the war. However, The Dirty Dozen may not have avoided this pitfall, being a better movie without John Wayne.