Sons of Katie Elder

John Wayne recovered from his first bout with cancer to appear in this 1965 film as the brother of Dean Martin, Earl Holliman, and Michael Anderson Jr. All four characters are wandering souls prone to trouble, but after the funeral of their frontier mother, they set out to avenge her death. Directed by Henry Hathaway (Wayne's director on True Grit), the film moves like a conventional, latter-day Western, with good performances from Wayne and Martin, who'd already costarred with the Duke in Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo. Nice support from Dennis Hopper (who had a legendary conflict with Hathaway on this film), Strother Martin, and George Kennedy. --Tom Keogh