Big Jim Mclean

So I love a good John Wayne movie as much as the next girl who's daddy made her watch hatari before she saw the lion king. That said, this movie was only good because John Wayne was a man in it. It was anti- communist propoganda at its most blatant and made one wonder if there was even an attempt to veil the obvious overtones of HUAC and patriotism. Even down to the mustachioed villain, this movie was completely predictable.

This movie did place John Wayne with a man bigger than he is, which is atypical for a John Wayne film, where even the villain was taller than he was. The use of height to communicate differences in power and influence to the script was an interesting facet to the film. 

There was also this weird comic relief provided by Mortimer the Bacteriologist that didn't seem to communicate with the rest of the movie, as a slap-stick scene interrupts the otherwise dramatic plotline. 

The film also proffered an anti-racist stream running through the film as there are several images of multi-cultural America, open to cultural difference, just not political difference.