In The Cowboys, John Wayne is Wil Andersen, a cattle-rancher who loses his ranch hands when they get wind of a gold rush, and give up the back-breaking work of bringing cattle to market for the opportunity to get rich quick. With time not on his side, the Duke is persuaded by Anse Peterson (Slim Pickens) to consider using local school kids to take their place, and given his limited options, he decides to take the young boys on the hardscrabble 400 mile trail ride, where he teaches them to become young men – and school is in session.
Bruce Dern plays the most sinister character in his acting canon as Long Hair, a rejected ranch hand that leads a gang of cattle rustlers that’s bird dogging the Duke’s cattle drive. John Wayne famously told Dern during shooting that audiences would “hate” him for playing such a pitiless character, and Dern has said his career suffered for the extreme prejudice he exacts on the screen icon.
