McLintock! is a 1963 American western and comedy film, starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. The film co-stars Wayne’s son Patrick Wayne, Stefanie Powers, Jack Kruschen, Chill Wills and Yvonne DeCarlo (billed as Special Guest Star). Loosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, the project was filmed in Technicolor and Panavision and produced by Wayne’s company Batjac Productions.

Plot
Cattle, timber and mining baron George Washington “G.W.” McLintock (John Wayne) is living the single life on his ranch. He is estranged from wife Katherine (Maureen O’Hara), who left him two years before, suspecting him of adultery. She has been living as a socialite back East while their daughter Rebecca (whom G.W. calls “Becky”) (Stefanie Powers) is completing her college degree.

He hires one of them, an attractive widow named Louise Warren (Yvonne De Carlo), as his cook and housekeeper. G.W. welcomes both her and her two children into his home, including grown son Dev (Patrick Wayne), who is handy with his fists, good with cattle, and is an excellent chess player, who had to leave Purdue University on account of his father’s death.
Jack Kruschen, John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara and Chill Wills

Katherine (a.k.a. Katie), returns to the town of McLintock, seeking a divorce from G.W. He declines to give her one, having no idea why she has been so angry with him and why she moved out two years ago.

Following a misunderstanding which leads to a Comanche subchief nearly being lynched by a hotheaded settler father who believes his daughter has been kidnapped, there is a gigantic brawl at the mud slide by one of McLintock’s mines. Surprisingly, Katherine gets involved in the brawl, fighting on her estranged husband’s behalf as she takes a quill from her hat and sticks It in one of the participants backsides. She attempts the same maneuver on G.W. However, this backfired as G.W. Inadvertently knocks Katherine down the mudslide, causing her to get muddy in the pool at the bottom. McClintock soon follows, knocking Katherine in the mud again, which she gets up and yells furiously at G.W. “You and your friends.” The fight eventually stops when “Running Buffalo” tells McClintock from the top of the mudslide “Whoooa Maclin, Whoooa, Marlin, good party, but no whiskey, we go home” as the Indians disperse from the area.

Rebecca “Becky” McLintock returns to town, along with her banjo-playing love interest, “Junior” Douglas (Jerry Van Dyke). Junior is approved of by Katherine but not G.W. However, she soon falls for Dev (of whom G.W. approves wholeheartedly), and they become engaged after he takes her across his knee and spanks her with a coal shovel following a sharp exchange between them. Becky had accused him of insulting her honor and asked G.W. to shoot him. In her words, “If you’re my father, if you love me, you’ll shoot him.” To which he replies that he is her father and he does love her. Grabbing a small pistol from a case in the living room, he aims and shoots Dev in the chest. He falls to the floor and Becky is totally shocked that G.W. actually did it. However, Dev is fine – the gun was loaded with a blank and used to start races. Becky races to Dev’s side to comfort him, whereupon he becomes angered at her insistence that G.W. shoot him. This leads to the spanking, G.W. handing him a coal shovel and then casually strolling out of the room as the spanking commences. Days later, when the young couple announce the engagement, G.W. and Mrs. Warren both give their blessings.

The same train that brought Becky home from college also brought back Chief Puma of the Comanche tribe, an honored enemy and blood brother of G.W., who has been released from prison by the federal government. The territorial governor is out to force the local Comanche tribe off their lands and onto a reservation near Fort Sill.

At the request of Chief Puma, McLintock acts as the spokesman for the Comanche, translating Puma’s speech into English at the kangaroo court hearing organized by Governor Humphrey. The governor announces that the Indians will be moved to Oklahoma, and Chief Puma and his subchiefs are imprisoned again. Disgusted by the mistreatment of Puma and his people, G.W. arranges a break out and an Army train is looted of a cargo of Krag-Jorgenson rifles and ammunition. The Comanche head out on what Puma had called “the last fight of the Comanche,” hotly pursued by the local troop of U.S. Cavalry. This has the effect of bringing what Humphrey and Agard, the local Indian agent, have been doing to the attention of Washington. It is implied that both will shortly be removed from office, and that the Comanche will not be slaughtered.

At the Fourth of July celebration during which the Comanche breakout takes place, Katherine gets “tarred and feathered” with molasses and goose feathers in the general store. When she leaves to change clothing in the hotel, McLintock has finally had enough of Katherine’s bad behavior. Everyone tells him to spank her, which he doesn’t believe in. But following one too many insults, G.W. pursues Katherine (who is now dressed in nothing but her corset and slip) through the streets and shops of the town like Nemesis. After an epic chase, during which Katherine loses her slip and is down to bloomers and corset, G.W. learns why she left. As a compromise for his friend’s requests, he finally catches her and decides that he will spank her bottom with a coal scuttle shovel as punishment – the same one Dev used on Becky. He paddles her in front of the entire town, flops her onto the ground before him, and tells her that now she can have her divorce. He then hands the coal scuttle to Dev saying, “Here, you may need it.” However, Katherine finally decides she does not want a divorce after all, and she and G.W. happily reconcile.

Cast
Yvonne De Carlo as Mrs. Warren
John Wayne as George Washington “G.W.” McLintock
Maureen O’Hara as Katherine McLintock
Patrick Wayne as Devlin Warren
Stefanie Powers as Becky McLintock
Jack Kruschen as Jake Birnbaum
Chill Wills as Drago
Yvonne De Carlo as Louise Warren
Jerry Van Dyke as Matt Douglas Jr.
Edgar Buchanan as Bunny Dull
Perry Lopez as Davey Elk
Strother Martin as Agard
Gordon Jones as Matt Douglas
Robert Lowery as Gov. Cuthbert H. Humphrey
Hank Worden as Curly Fletcher
Michael Pate as Puma
Bruce Cabot as Ben Sage, Sr.
Edward Faulkner as Ben Sage, Jr.
Mari Blanchard as Camille
Leo Gordon as Jones
Chuck Roberson as Sheriff Jeff Lord
Bob Steele as Train Engineer
Aissa Wayne as Alice Warren
“Big” John Hamilton as Fauntleroy Sage
H.W. Gim as Ching