Victor McLaglen, the rambunctious leading man and later character actor in American films, especially those of the legendary director John Ford, played so many swaggering drunks and sentimen- tal Irish sergeants that film critics dubbed him the British-born Wal- lace Beery. The film critic David Thomson, who was less than gen- erous in his overall summation of Victor McLaglen’s later film ca- reer, wrote: “Self-pity and barroom Irish bravado were the keys to his work.”