Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

This is How Movies Should Be Made

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

An Argosy Picture, dedicated to Harry Carey, "the bright star of the early Western sky." Copyright 17 November 1948 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release. New York opening at the Capitol: 3 March 1949. U.S. release: 14 January 1949. U.K. release: 2 May 1949. Australian release: 22 September 1949. 9,551 feet. 106 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Three badmen make their getaway in a hail of bullets after robbing the bank in the frontier town of Welcome, Arizona. Heading into the desert, the fugitives make for Terrapin Wells. En route, they come upon a surprising sight: a covered wagon stalled in the wilderness. Inside the wagon, they find a newborn baby. NOTES: Previously filmed as Three Godfathers (1916) starring Harry Carey, directed by Edward J. LeSaint; Marked Men (1919) again with Harry Carey, this time directed by John Ford; Hell's Heroes (1930) with Charles Bickford, directed by William Wyler; and Three Godfathers (1936) with Chester Morris, directed by Richard Boleslawski... Location scenes filmed in Death Valley, California.COMMENT: Not one of my favorite Fords; but I don't want to fill IMDb just with my favorites. And this edition of Three Godfathers certainly has its admirers, not least of all Bosley Crowther of The New York Times who commends the film in his supplementary list of the Best Films of 1949. (Incidentally, in his actual review, Crowther correctly points out that the script is based not so much on Kyne's novelette as on Bret Harte's extremely similar short story, "The Luck of Roaring Camp", with all its Biblical parallels). Frankly, I thought it a banal allegory of the Nativity in which the Three Wise Men are turned into three foolish but well-meaning bandits. The trite lines which Wayne, Armendariz and the junior Carey are called upon to deliver are only rivalled by the plot's unconvincing situations and gross sentimentality. Not even the Ford Stock Company of seasoned players like John Wayne, Ward Bond, Mae Marsh, Hank Worden, Jack Pennick, Jane Darwell, Ben Johnson and Francis Ford can wholly save this one, though it must be admitted the picture is not half bad when it gets away from its fatuous Biblical transformations and its rustic antics of what-to-do-with-the-baby.And of course there is always the beautifully-hued color photography of Winton C. Hoch and Charles Boyle.OTHER VIEWS: The film was finely shot with some remarkable scenes set in the Mojave Desert, but the script's sentimentality and rather clumsy Biblical parallels made the picture's total impression lifeless and disappointing. (Lindsay Anderson).

. . . to its beloved hit, THE WIZARD OF OZ, most of the OZ cast was committed to other film projects. Undeterred, Ford plunged ahead by casting newcomer Harry Carey, Jr., as the Scarecrow, with Pedtro Armendariz filling the Tinman's shoes, and John Wayne swishing Bert Lahr's tail as the Cowardly Lion. Unlike OZ director Victor Fleming (or Ford's main rival, Frank Capra, who Helmed IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE shortly before 3 GODFATHERS came out), Mr. Ford was no cock-eyed optimist. As Hollywood's resident cynic, John Wayne's spiritual guru begins the real action of GODFATHERS by having Dorothy Gale die in childbirth, just after Re-meeting her trio of new-found friends, who--of course--promise to Bring up Baby. The Scarecrow, a.k.a., The Abilene Kid, takes charge first, reprising his wild, fresh-off-the-pole dance from OZ--before falling down dead! After this enduring Ford flourish, it's Tinman's turn to lug the baby while recreating Jack Haley's stumbles as "Pedro." And, wouldn't you know it, he too falls down--mortally injured. This leaves it up to the constantly belly-aching, Bible-tossing, threatening-to-fink-out Cowardly Lion to save the day. Can John Wayne rise to this task? Do pigs have wings?

I had not seen this film for some time and I had forgotten what a lovely film it is. I feel this one should be up there with John Ford's masterpieces for the photography and the wonderful performances by the actors. Especially Pedro Armendiaz and John Wayne. This is another film that goes in the category of why do people think John Wayne can't act because when you see him in something like this you just know he is a wonderful actor. When he screams "Steal a man's burro in this county. They string ya." You feel all the agony of that walk. And that long scene Wayne does almost without a break "That ain't the worst of it." It takes a real actor to be able to do that without even a cut away and to show how much frustration. And when Bob and Pete walk away from the kid's unburied body, it just hurts. The pain almost comes off the screen like the sun.Wonderful moments in this film. Harry Carey singing. The whole caring for the baby scenes. The expression on John Wayne's face when Pete and the kid read from the book that the NURSE should grease the baby and they both look at Wayne. John Wayne sitting uncomfortably on a chair to small for him, trying not to cross his legs as he holds the baby. Pete sitting on the edge of the wagon after he delivers the baby, just dying inside because he cannot save the mother. The argument between Bob and Pete over not breaking their promise to a dying woman. Lots of nice foreshadowing there when they both talk about growing long white beards in Yuma penitentiary and then later Bob's confident belief he can do twenty years standing on his head. And more foreshadowing when they find the woman and Bob declares it can rain "until I get religion", meaning forever and of course he gets religion.There are some great tributes to Harry Carey and in not jokes exactly but moments. Ward Bond blows the smoke away from the rifle he fires at the water bag, just like Harry Carey did. In the scene where the ghosts of Pete and the Kid walk with Bob, Pedro calls Bob a saddle tramp which is the role Harry Carey most played. And the way Wayne asks for a cool cool beer "for me" is almost a mimic of Harry Carey.Also the names of towns, clearly biblical Damascus, Jerusalem and Cairo. Also the Marhall mentions Dobe ( Harry Carey Jr's nickname) and (I think) Tres Hermanos ( three brothers).Its also pretty clear where MarmaDUKE comes from. I would bet that Pearly is an in joke too but don't know that one.It also rather fun to try and see when it really is John Wayne's hands with the baby. The baby is not much bigger than his enormous hand. (Check the size of them when he hold's Mildred Natwick's hand in his) Pretty sure its him greasing it. Sounds like the sort of thing Ford would make him do. And also him in the barroom at the end where the baby holds his finger.

Nice to watch this hoary old (Christmas) chestnut at Yuletide, almost exactly 60 years after its original release. And yes, while it is guilty of a number of sins by way of corniness, improbability and sentimentality, it still works for me and proves you don't need tinsel and snow to evoke the Christmas spirit. Here old Papa Ford relates his Christmas parable against the background of the searing heat of the Arizona desert as Duke Wayne struggles against the odds to deliver orphan child Robert William Pedro to safety, bang on, wouldn't you know it, Christmas Day. All the usual Ford staples are here, the panoramic scenery, male camaraderie, bawdy humour and of course big John Wayne himself in yet another barnstorming lead role. I'm not the biggest Wayne fan going, but Ford invariably got the best out of the big lunk and he certainly carries the film (and the baby!) manfully. His two confederates, the youthful Harry Carey Jr and TexMex Pedro Armendariz both of whom sadly expire along the way, offer effective and humorous counterpoint to big John's proselytising. Ford cleverly doesn't reveal his hand too quickly with only the odd Biblical reference alluded to early on but by the time the three amigos are spotlit gazing out at the camera having just accepted the dying mother's infant child into their care, it piles on from there. Along the way the humour and sentimentality are mixed up lightly with a little (not too much) dramatic tension as Wayne completes his epic journey (like he was ever going to fail!), spurred on by the ghosts of his fallen colleagues and completes his own spiritual regeneration in accepting with good grace his jail sentence at the end in exchange for a guarantee that he'll be reunited with his infant charge once his sentence is complete. Noting that the film is Ford's own remake of his earlier silent movie production of the same story would help explain why some of the scenes are somewhat static and staged tableau-style. Wayne gets to walk more than he talks, no bad thing, and the rest of the cast are all at home under the director's loving eye. All told, then a colourful (check the blue filter shot Ford employs to evoke the desert at night) and festive treat. But surely this child wasn't the Son of God...?!