Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Byrdz Am currently reading "Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company" by Harry Carey, Jr. Chapter One deals with the ordeal of making "The Three Godfathers". This is "Dobe"'s first film made with "Uncle Jack" and quite a baptism by fire it proved to be. Not only was it actually filmed in the heat of Death Valley but it was directed by a sadistic bully of a man who loved to make all of his actors look and feel stupid when not actually on camera. Carey came to love John Ford but how ? I have no idea. All this aside. The Three Godfathers has an entertaining story. William, Robert and Pedro all do just fine as do Ward Bond, Ben Johnson (in a very tiny role) and all the other supporting players. Jane Darwell as a man-starved desert woman with an amazing laugh is terrific. Who is that lovely little woman playing Pearly Sweet's wife ? It is none other than MAE MARSH ... the "little sister" in Birth of a Nation ! The other reviews have pretty much said all that needs saying about the story, religious parallels, implausible and distracting staggering and falling but hey, they worked. I liked the ending of the silent version with Carey, Sr. better but this one was OK too. . I was surprised to note that "Ice Age" can be seen as remake but then, why not,it sort of is.Entertaining film and watching the support given by Wayne to his co-stars is great knowing what was happening, director wise.

ma-cortes First-rate Western masterfully directed by the great John Ford that results to be a marvelous retelling of Peter B Kyne's saga dealing with three desperate who take a newborn baby in the desert , as the group come across a dying woman and her infant child and they promise the woman that they will take care of the child and get it to safety, even though none of them knows anything whatsoever about children or babies . After robbing the local bank , three outlaws named Robert Hightower (John Wayne) , William Kearney (Harry Carey Jr) and Pedro Roca Fuerte (Pedro Armendariz) on the run to evade the local Marshal (War Bond) and his posse . In the wilderness they then find an abandoned wagon in which there is a dying woman (Mildred Natwick) who asks for help the men . The bandits take care of her child and they swear to bring the infant to safety across the desert , even at the risk of their own lives. The outlaws set out across the desert to deliver it to safety and then decide to do their best by the newborn and not all will survive and for those who get , prison likely awaits them.This nice Western contains interesting characters , full of wide open space and dramatic moments . This classic , sturdy picture ranks as one of the most sentimental of John Ford's work . It contains Ford's usual themes as familiar feeling , a little bit funny humor, friendship and and sense of comradeship among people and ample shots on desert landscapes ,specially on Mojave . Thought-provoking , enjoyable screenplay portraying in depth characters and brooding events with interesting issues running beneath script surface by Laurence Stallings and Frank S. Nugent , Ford's usual . Multiple highlights as the raid bank at the beginning and of course the sensible final farewell on the train station . Outdoors are pretty good and well photographed by Winton Hoch and filmed on location in Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, Carson & Colorado Railroad, Owens Valley, Death Valley National Park, Mojave Desert,Zabriskie Point and RKO Encino Ranch Los Angeles ,California . Dedicated to the filmmaker's first actor , Harry Carey Sr . This excellent film featuring a magnificent performance by whole casting , including a top-notch support cast . Awesome John Wayne in a larger-than-life character along with his two likable partners Harry Carey Jr and Pedro Armendariz . In the film appears , as usual , Ford's favourite actors as Jack Pennick , Jane Darwell , Ben Johnson , Francis Ford , Guy Kibbee , Mae Marsh , Hank Worden, and of course Ward Bond as obstinate sheriff who sets off in pursuit . Sensible and emotive musical score including wonderful songs by Richard Hageman . The movie is stunningly produced by Merian C Cooper - Argosy Pictures Production- and magnificently filmed by Ford . Remade for TV as ¨The Godchild¨ (1974) directed by John Badham with Jack Palance , Keith Carradine, Ed Lauter and Jack Warden . This may not be Ford's best Western , as many would claim , but it's still head ad shoulders above most big-scale movies .You'll find the ending over-melodramatic according to your tastes , though it's lovingly composed by John Ford who really picks up the drama and sensibility towards the ending . Rating : Better than average , worthwhile watching . .

bobsgrock I can't say much for the storyline of 3 Godfathers as much as I can say for its visuals and imagery. For many, it is an allegorical tale with its heavy use of the Bible and other symbols throughout. However, I had a problem with the realism of the story, something this kind of plot needs to rely heavily on. Here we have three rough and tough men, by no means weak or unable to take care of themselves. Still, what they go through in this film along with trying to take care of a newly born infant, it boggles my mind as to how it is possible and perhaps it isn't.I think I am reading too much into this and am missing the point John Ford was trying to make. So, I will try to understand the movie in its simplest terms. That would be that Ford was a master of imagery and using it to further the story. Here, every shot of the desert and swirling winds captures perfectly the atmosphere and mood, making the audience feel as if they are in the desert. It is most effective and does pick up some of the slack such as when the three men are first taking care of the infant or the final ten minutes in deciding Wayne's fate. All in all, this is not one of the great Ford Westerns. But, it shows once again his ability to control the mood and tone of his films and that can go a long way in providing leverage to an audience.

MisterWhiplash 3 Godfathers is beautifully directed, as are most of John Ford's pictures, but I wonder how much the story benefits from having all of the Jesus/Christmas/3-Wise-Men allegory attached to it. What makes it work isn't so much the religious connotations, which if anything are actually depicted by Ford as hallucinations and mirage-like visions (the bit where Duke comes across the mule at the end of the cavern is one such moment), but in how the supposed 'bad-guys' are humanized through their arduous trek through the desert and lack of water and through the simple act of taking care of a newborn. While one might feel the shiver of a contemporary 'comedy' like 3 Men & a Baby as Robert, William and Pedro take care of... Robert William Pedro Hightower (because, you see, the mother named the baby after the three men around her as she faded from life), it surprises how touching some of this really comes off, and how the usual 'bad guys will have to get justice' is kind of turned on its head in the face of innocence.Wayne, Harry Carey Jr. and Pedro Armendariz are bank robbers who unintentionally blow their cover to a friendly Marshall, and are tailed by them more or less as they run out of town into the desert. Following a long sequence that seems like it probably served as inspiration for a similar sequence in the Good the Bad and the Ugly, Wayne and his two guys go through the desert- young guy Carey with a bullet wound- and lacking water and/or proper water tower. Then they come across a derailed wagon, a woman about to give birth, and are saddled with her baby. This could be handled really contrived by any other director, but John Ford takes his time with the direction, drawing out shots of the long walking stretches and tired but determined faces of Duke and Carey and Armendariz, and the sparse setting they're in, and it's sometimes really breathtaking film-making.The only problem then, from my perspective, is the occasional spouts of sentiment, sometimes verging into flat-out sentimentality, peppered by the obvious religious allusions. This works up to a point, actually, when regarding Carey Jr's character who has a lot of attachment to the good-book and quotes from that as much as the baby-instruction book. But only when it gets in the way of the story, and starts to turn it into an unintentional allegory and near Christmas movie, does it get a little silly. And yet I can't disregard how well crafted 3 Godfathers is, how (dare I say it) John Wayne fills in this role better than usual, if about as good as he could get with 'Pappy' Ford at the helm, and some really juicy, memorable cinematic moments in the Western genre. In fact, it's such a well-told story I am almost willing to forgive the film for any of its faults- almost. It's actually kind of, well, sweet, which is rare for a fugitive bank-robber flick which wallows in the horror of nature that is the desert which, in a sense, automatically puts into proper perspective the scope of the Marshall vs. the 3 criminals.