This sounds like a movie I saw called Faces in the Mist. Does Ward Bond die puffing a smoke cloud and John Wayne get Shanghaied at the end?
In this world theres two kinds of people my friend, those with loaded guns and those who dig
No.
"Sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet."
You are close enough that I say yes. Ward Bond's character does smoke and blow smoke rings just before dying and another crew member gets shanghaied, but not John Wayne, at the end.
shareYes, Yank (Ward Bond) dies of a punctured lung and has a smoke shortly before expiring. Ole (John Wayne) is the subject of an attempted shanghai but is rescued. Driscol (Thomas Mitchell), one of the rescuers, gets taken instead when he's knocked out by one of the captures.
KS