MovieChat Forums > The Villain (1979) Discussion > Follow-up to THE WAR WAGON

Follow-up to THE WAR WAGON

posted 14 years ago by x-ramubay
6 replies | jump to latest

The Villain is Hal Needham's follow-up to a movie he made with Kirk Douglas in 1967 called THE WAR WAGON. It's one part remake and one part sequel. The War Wagon was directed by the king of comedic westerns Burt Kennedy (Support Your Local Sheriff) and starred John Wayne trying to recover his gold from a cross-country armored stage coach with the help of hired gun Kirk Douglas. Stuntman/Actor Hal Needham played one of the guards on the stage. Wayne and Douglas blew up a bridge, hired an Indian tribe to attack the stage and in a final attack Kirk Douglas leveraged a giant boulder off a cliff ala WIle E. Coyote. Needham and Douglas spoke for years of bringing back Douglas' character and when Needham became a director that's exactly what he did. The Villain restages some of the scenes and plays it more for laughs than the John Wayne film. It is interesting to read so many reviews of people who have never seen The War Wagon. It would be like seeing Rocky 2 without seeing Rocky 1.

[–] Blueghost 13 years ago

Interesting, what's your source?

[–] Blueghost 10 years ago

No source, therefore no credibility, therefore it never happened and the OP was just making it up.

If you're going to BS on the boards at least make it sound like you know what you're talking about.

[–] steelywulf 9 years ago

Doesn't need a source. OP simply used logic to come to a conclusion.

[–] Wuchak (8079) 3 years ago

No source, therefore no credibility, therefore it never happened and the OP was just making it up.

The OP didn't need a source to draw a probable conclusion: Director Hal Needham and star Kirk Douglas both worked on "The War Wagon" (1967) where Needham did stunt work & acted in a small role. Since that time Needham became a successful director with "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Hooper." Noting similarities in the two Westerns, the OP hypothesizes that Needham and Douglas teamed up to do a more comedic quasi-sequel of "War Wagon." It's not rocket science.

[–] S_Leone 13 years ago

they might have used similiar scenes and character but the 2 films are very different

[–] jztzt 12 years ago

It's also a sort of follow-up/tribute to Lonely Are The Brave (1962) which starred Kirk Douglas. The connection between these two films is that the horse in that film is also named Whiskey. Also similar is that Kirk's character in that film had a deep relationship with the horse. I am guessing Whiskey was Kirk's tribute to that film, which was his labor of love.