J.B. Books, a legendary gunman (John Wayne) visits Carson City, Nevada in 1901 to get a second opinion from Doc Hostetler (James Stewart), who'd patched him up after a gunfight years before. He has cancer, a death sentence in that era. He is given laudanum, an opium based painkiller, and goes to the boarding house of Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall), initially hoping to spend his last days in peace. He becomes a father figure to would be tear away Gillom Rogers, (Ron Howard), Bond's son. But Books is faced with not only the certainty of an agonizing death, there are all kinds of vermin hoping to be known as "the man who killed J.B. Books", or trying to profit off his reputation. And he has outlived his time, so he decides to go out with a final gunfight, picking a lethal faro dealer (Hugh O'Brien), an old enemy (Richard Boone), and a gunfighter wanna-be (Bill McKinney) for his final opponents, partly to find out which one has the stuff to kill him, and partly to take them into eternity with him if none of them do. Things don't QUITE work out how he expects (but he's predicted how he'll go earlier in the film), and Gillom finds out gunfighting isn't a good way to grow old....
While it's an urban legend that John Wayne was dying of cancer making this movie (he didn't have stomach cancer until some two years later), his 1964 battle with lung cancer played a large part in his wanting to do this. He realized he wasn't getting any younger, and his health was declining, but he never intended this to be his last movie. He did, though, intend this to be his dialogue with death and an admission of his own mortality. He specifically requested co-stars like Stewart,Bacall, Boone, John Carradine, and Hugh O'Brien (who wanted to do this for free),all of whom had done movies with him in the past, and all of whom agreed to appear. His health and image concerns caused some tension with Don Siegel, the director, who was none the less proud to have directed Wayne's last film The final film was a fitting last bow to the iconic star, and one of his best performances ever.
While it's an urban legend that John Wayne was dying of cancer making this movie (he didn't have stomach cancer until some two years later), his 1964 battle with lung cancer played a large part in his wanting to do this. He realized he wasn't getting any younger, and his health was declining, but he never intended this to be his last movie. He did, though, intend this to be his dialogue with death and an admission of his own mortality. He specifically requested co-stars like Stewart,Bacall, Boone, John Carradine, and Hugh O'Brien (who wanted to do this for free),all of whom had done movies with him in the past, and all of whom agreed to appear. His health and image concerns caused some tension with Don Siegel, the director, who was none the less proud to have directed Wayne's last film The final film was a fitting last bow to the iconic star, and one of his best performances ever.
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