| The Fighting Kentuckian | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | George Waggner |
| Produced by | John Wayne |
| Written by | George Waggner |
| Starring | John Wayne Oliver Hardy Vera Ralston Philip Dorn Marie Windsor |
| Music by | George Antheil |
| Cinematography | Lee Garmes |
| Editing by | Richard L. Van Enger |
| Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
| Release date(s) |
September 15, 1949July 31, 1964 (re-release) |
| Running time | 100 min |
| Language | English |
The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) American comedy action film starring John Wayne and Oliver Hardy. The movie was written and directed by George Waggner and made by Republic Pictures. The film was also known as A Strange Caravan and Eagles in Exile and also features Shy Waggner, the director's daughter, in a cameo.
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The story is set in Alabama in 1818, including the city of Demopolis, which was founded by Bonapartists. The Bonapartists had been exiled from France after the defeat of Napoleon I at the Battle of Waterloo. Congress authorized the sale of four townships in the Alabama Territory in March 1817 at two dollars per acre, and Marengo County was created on February 7, 1818 from lands that had been taken from the Choctaw Nation. It was named after Spinetta Marengo, Italy where Napoleon defeated Austria in 1800 in the Battle of Marengo. The county seat, Linden, Alabama, was named after Hohenlinden, Bavaria where Napoleon won another victory against the Austrians. The Bonapartist colony did not succeed overall, in part due to surveyance issues that contribute to the plot of the film and in part due to practical difficulties in establishing the vineyards.[1][2][3]
John Breen, a Kentucky militiaman falls in love with French exile Fleurette De Marchand (Vera Ralston). He discovers a plot to steal the land that Fleurette's exiles plan to settle on. Throughout the film, Breen's soldiers sing...
Only four hundred miles more to go
Only four hundred miles more to go
And if we can just get lucky
We will end up in Kentucky
Only six hundred miles more to go
Although when the song is first heard, there is eight hundred miles to go
This is one of three films in which John Wayne wears a coonskin cap in substantial portions of the movie, the others being Allegheny Uprising a decade earlier and The Alamo a decade later. Allegheny Uprising and The Fighting Kentuckian are frequently mistaken for one another as a result.
This is one of only three times that Hardy worked without partner Stan Laurel after they'd teamed up as Laurel and Hardy. Hardy also appeared with Harry Langdon in Zenobia (1939) and with Bing Crosby in Riding High (1950). It was the only time that Hardy appeared in a film with John Wayne, though the two had worked together onstage a year earlier in a touring charity production of What Price Glory? starring Wayne, Ward Bond, and Maureen O'Hara, and directed by John Ford.[4]