The Duke Meets Google Magic

January 3, 2012

So we are hard at work on our icon issue and we found a photo in our archives of John Wayne with no information about which movie it is from. It wasn't one of the logical easy ones, like The Searchers, or Rio Bravo. It was much earlier. Could have been anything. Production was stymied, but not Meghan Saar.

Our intrepid editor dropped a jpeg of the John Wayne photo into a new program launched by Google this year. After a few seconds of grinding, the image info came bursting on the screen. The photo is from The First Rebel (1939).

Now that is scary-amazing.

What's next?

Kramer: "I was a rebel, Jerry."

Seinfeld: "No, Johnny Yuma was a rebel."

BBB: "Well, according to this photo this is The Duke from 'The First Rebel.'"

Yikes!

"Any new technological advances are indistinguishable from magic."

—Old Vaquero Saying