Set in Seattle, the picture opens with a long sequence where policeman Stan Boyle (William Bryant) guns down several cops, only to be shot in the back himself. Boyle's partner, Lon McQ (Wayne) suspects drug lord Manny Santiago (Al Lettieri) but Capt. Ed Kosterman (Eddie Albert) blames the killings on hippie "radicals," despite little evidence to support his theory. Frustrated by departmental foot-dragging, McQ quits the force but quickly gets a private investigator license through friend and private dick Pinky Farrow (David Huddleston, in the Edmond O'Brien part) so he can continue pursuing his own leads. He questions Boyle's widow, Lois (Diana Muldaur), tails hitmen hired by Santiago, uncovers a network of corruption within his own department (shades of Magnum Force) and eventually learns of an elaborate drug heist in the making. Can McQ stop them in time?

In his late career, Wayne alternated between routine Westerns (Big Jake, Cahill: United States Marshall) and superior, elegiac Westerns (True Grit, The Cowboys, The Shootist) that acknowledged his advancing years and expanding waistline. He occasionally ventured into present-day settings: The Hellfighters (1969) is actually pretty enjoyable but The Green Berets (1968) was awesomely bad, camp of the highest order, while his two cop pictures, this and Brannigan (1975), were critical and financial disappointments.

Brannigan, which took Chicago cop Wayne to London to extradite a slippery crime mogul, was much more cartoonish than McQ and emphasized rather than hid his persona's fish-out-of-water quality. The film wasn't any better than McQ but in its way it was much more entertaining. It certainly made a deliberate effort to incorporate the kind of Dukeisms seen in his Westerns. There was even a slapsticky barroom brawl fashioned after the one in North to Alaska (1960).

McQ, by contrast, really tries to be serious, gritty and urban, and the almost exclusive use of real locations (for both exteriors and interiors) is a bit jarring for a Wayne film. We expect him roaming Hollywood-fashioned Western streets or Stage 6 saloons, or in the wide-open spaces of Monument Valley, not hanging around some sleazy alley in a Trans-Am. The film is no more violent that the Westerns he made around this same time, but it is a lot more cynical and despairing, (spoiler) with many of McQ's friends and law enforcement co-workers turning out to be more corrupt that the drug dealers. Indeed, where Dirty Harry would have simply threatened snitches with information with his .357 Magnum, McQ cozies up to various pimps and prostitutes. In one particularly unseemly scene - it must have shocked Wayne's conservative fans, the Silent Majority - McQ offers aging prostitute Myra (Colleen Dewhurst) cocaine in exchange for information, even though at this point it's clear she's trying to stay clean.

Director John Sturges, in his only film with Wayne, handles the action sequences well, and these include several well-crafted car chases (evoking memories of Bullitt), but mainly the film seems tired. Wayne was himself pushing 70 and looking several years older than that. He's got a bad toupee and a big gut. Under a cowboy hat and sitting on a horse, he could get away with the kind of action he just can't here. Brannigan's very slightly superior script leans more on character interaction and low-impact investigation work than high energy foot chases and late night break-ins. In an attempt to make him cool, or something, somebody had the bright idea of having McQ drive a late model Trans Am, which everyone calls his Green Hornet. This comes off as well as you might imagine.

Wayne's two cop films also miss the family-like atmosphere of his Westerns, populated as they were by such fixtures as Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr., Bruce Cabot, Paul Fix, and others. Seeing the old gang was like a visit with old friends, but McQ is cast like an NBC Sunday Mystery Movie, featuring actors generally associated with TV at the time, like Albert, Muldaur, and Julie Adams, who has one good scene as McQ's ex-wife.

Elmer Bernstein's score is catchy but derivative, with an urban beat and orchestration reminiscent of the Dirty Harry movies or any number of blaxploitation films. Indeed, the film uses a three-note motif quite similar to one heard in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, released later that same year.

Video & Audio

Despite being filmed in that raggedly '70s style, McQ looks good in its 16:9 anamorphic transfer, which preserves its original 'scope (Panavision) aspect ratio. The title elements are a little soft but the rest of the film has reasonably good color (original printing was by Technicolor) and a sharp image. The mono audio is clean and free of distortion. An alternate French track is available, with optional subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

Extra Features

McQ: John Wayne in Action is a full-frame, seven-minute featurette with behind the scenes glimpses of Wayne, Sturges, Albert, and others at work. Wayne admits to feeling out of his element, while Albert praises Wayne's acting ability. Half of its running time is devoted to a much less interesting stunt, but the interviews are a nice extra - if only it ran longer.

The other supplement is a Wayne Trailer Gallery, with original theatrical trailers for Tall in the Saddle, Fort Apache (1948), Blood Alley, The Sea Chase (both 1955), The Train Robbers (1972), Cahill: United States Marshall (1973), and McQ (1974). The trailer for McQ is 16:9 encoded and in 1.85:1 format. It's complete with text and narration.

Parting Thoughts

Die-hard John Wayne fans will want to pick this up. His great screen presence remains undimmed even near the end of his career, but this vehicle isn't worthy of his talents. McQ offers the novelty of John Wayne trading his horse for a sports car, but the results are simultaneously silly and routine.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Los Angeles and Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf -- The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. His new book, Cinema Nippon will be published by Taschen in 2005.