The American West of John Ford is a 1971 television special about movie director John Ford

John Ford

John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...

's career narrated by John Wayne

John Wayne

Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

, James Stewart

James Stewart (actor)

James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...

, and Henry Fonda

Henry Fonda

Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

. Footage of Wayne, Stewart, and Fonda talking with the aging Ford are interspersed with an array of clips from Ford's films spanning more than five decades, including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a 1962 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring James Stewart and John Wayne. The black-and-white film was released by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck was adapted from a short story written by Dorothy M...

, The Searchers

The Searchers

The Searchers may refer to:* The Searchers , a 1956 American movie** The novel it was based on, by Alan Le May* The Searchers , a music group* The Searchers , a 2009 Iranian television show* A comic from Caliber Comics...

, and Stagecoach, each of which is dealt with at some length.

The section on My Darling Clementine

My Darling Clementine

My Darling Clementine is a 1946 western movie. It was directed by John Ford, and based on the story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral between the Earp brothers and the Clanton gang. It features an ensemble cast including Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ward Bond, Walter Brennan, and others.The movie...

features Fonda and Stewart, both of whom played Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...

 in Ford films, interviewing Ford about the director's claim that Earp himself had explained the strategy and chronology of the gunfight at the OK Corral to Ford and Harry Carey

Harry Carey

Harry Carey was an American actor and one of silent film's earliest superstars. He was the father of Harry Carey Jr., who was also a prominent actor.-Early life and career:...

, complete with a sketched diagram, decades before Ford filmed a version of the melee with Fonda as Earp. Stewart's memorable poker

Poker

Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...

 scene as Earp in Cheyenne Autumn

Cheyenne Autumn

Cheyenne Autumn is a 1964 western starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, and Edward G. Robinson. Regarded as an epic film it tells the story of a factual event, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-9, although it is told in 'Hollywood style' using a great degree of artistic license...

, which had nothing to do with the rest of the movie and has frequently been cut by exhibitors and television stations, is also discussed and illustrated with a clip.

The hour long special was telecast on December 5, 1971 over the CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 television network. The show sometimes appears on Hulu

Hulu

Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...

 under the title The Great American West of John Ford. The documentary also briefly features a whip-cracking Andy Devine

Andy Devine

Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...

 during a comedic sequence with Wayne and Ford filmed in Monument Valley

Monument Valley

Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...

.