'Trouble Along The Way' starring John Wayne and Donna Reed (1953)

I have watched a lot of John Wayne movies in my life.  I have over 150 Wayne titles in my DVD collection.  This is one that slipped past me as I had never even heard of it.  I recorded this last week when it appeared on TCM and finally got around to watching it tonight.  I found it to be an almost forgotten gem of a movie.

John Wayne is hired as a football coach to save a struggling college.

Besides John Wayne and Donna Reed, the film also stars Charles Coburn as the head of the college and Sherry Jackson as Wayne's eleven year old daughter.  Jackson was also the precocious daughter on Make Room For Daddy.

Sherry Jackson would later go on to portray  bombshells on shows such as Batman and Star Trek.

Struggling to retain custody of his daughter following his divorce, football coach Steve Williams finds himself embroiled in a recruiting scandal at the tiny Catholic college he is trying to bring back to football respectability.


This is certainly not your typical Wayne movie, but the roll is still typical John Wayne.  Also appearing in the film is Chuck Connors and James Dean appears as an uncredited extra in the film, during a scene in the college chapel. 



If you have never seen it you can watch for it to show up at another time on TCM or you can get the DVD at Amazon. You can also watch it instantly on Amazon for only 5 bucks  It's a movie I'm sure you will enjoy. Also, if you buy it right now you get a copy of it on Amazon on Demand for free!

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