No movie star ever had a better sense of what their audiences wanted, and how to deliver it, than John Wayne. From his breakout performance in John Ford's 1939 masterpiece "Stagecoach" onward, Wayne was considered one of Hollywood's surest box office bets due to his knack for making, generally, Westerns or war pictures that had a little more oomph in the scripting and directing departments. Obviously, it helped that two of his era's greatest filmmakers, John Ford and Howard Hawks, were frequent collaborators, but Wayne identified other directors and writers who could work efficiently and proficiently on programmers that riffed on themes near and dear to the Duke's heart (e.g. family, patriotism, and rugged individualism).

Were the critics always impressed with Wayne's output? Absolutely not. Fortunately, the feeling was mutual. As Wayne once said of critics, "When people say a John Wayne picture got bad reviews, I always wonder if they know it's a redundant sentence, but hell, I don't care. People like my pictures and that's all that counts."

Wayne's bond with the moviegoing public seemed unshakable until the 1960s, when Baby Boomers began to reject his old-fashioned jingoism and retrograde views of other cultures. Though most of his films still managed to turn a profit, younger audiences were far more excited about the explosion of convention-bending Spaghetti Westerns. Finally, as the 1970s set in, Wayne was no longer a dependable draw, and, perhaps most stingingly to the Duke, the movies were starting to feel like retreads of retreads. It ultimately got to the point where he could no longer deny the dip in quality, and, being the outspoken sort, had to say something about it.