They Came To Cordura (1959)

Adelaide Geary: Heroes? Saints living in the desert? My God, they tried to rape me! And blackmail you! It's a wonder they haven't shot you already! No, Thorne, they're only men - and damned poor specimens at that!
Major Thomas Thorn: I have less right than any man on earth to judge them.
Adelaide Geary: Or to judge yourself either.
Major Thomas Thorn: [pauses] You may be right, what you say. They're human beings. But they're more than that. They have one thing in them that is a miracle and a mystery. It redeems them. They don't know what it is themselves, but they have it. I have to save it.
Adelaide Geary: You really believe this?
[he nods]
Adelaide Geary: If you do, Thorn, if you do... you may be worth all of them.

---

Sgt. John Chawk: [of a hand-pumped railroad cart] Ladies and gents, this is the Spitball Express. Heroes ride free;
[eyes Adelaide suggestively]
Sgt. John Chawk: ladies at their own risk. As far as majors are concerned, the end of the line comes a lot closer than they think. All aboard!

---

Adelaide Geary: I wouldn't give him my sweat if he was dying of thirst.

---

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In a 1960 interview John Wayne criticized this film and Montgomery Clift's Suddenly, Last Summer, both of which treated homosexuality (in this film because of an implied homosexual relationship between the characters played by Gary Cooper and Tab Hunter), as "poison polluting Hollywood's moral bloodstream." The latter, he said, was "too disgusting even for discussion."
John Wayne criticized what he perceived to be a "lack of patriotism" of this film, saying "How they got Gary Cooper to do that one, to me, at least, it simply degrades the Medal of Honor. The whole story makes a mockery of America's highest award for valor, the whole premise of the story was wrong, illogical because they don't pick the type of men the movie picked to win the award, and that can be proved by the very history of the award."
During filming Gary Cooper arranged for his daughter to "date" gay actor Tab Hunter. He had previously arranged for her to "date" gay actor Anthony Perkins while they were filming Friendly Persuasion, a film he hated.
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