Matt passed away last year (2024), aged 96. Bud is the last Elder left.

grandmabrat.you wrote."my great grandmother was born 1870"
My grandfather was born in 1882. My dad was born in 1929.
My older brother was born in 1958. My sister was born in 1987.
My brother is 29 years older than my sister.kind of unusual.
Though this runs in our family. Both my parents are the oldest and both are 21 years older than their youngest sibling. So to me this movie isn't so far fetched with the age differences.
What I think is very unusual.My sister is in her 20's and her grandfather was born 134 years ago.
I tell her if she could live to 95 she could then tell people her grandfather was born 200 years back.
Wouldn't you know it.I tell this story to an elderly lady sitting in a DR.s office. So she then tells me her story.
She's 93 and her father was 60 years old when she was born. He was born during the civil war in 1863.wow
LOL.what could I say.told her I may stop telling my story for awhile because yours beat it.
I should have asked her when her grandfather was born but wasn't sure they kept records that far back.lol j/k

my great grandmother was born 1870, had her first child in 1890, and her last in 1920. Most of them survived to adulthood, so this is quite possible. Her eldest was 30 at the time of the youngest sibling's birth.

Sounded like "over" to me, but regardless, we're talking about a maybe 6 month difference at most in his age here, almost 18 vs over 18.
That wouldn't disallow the plausability of such an age difference between the eldest son and the youngest. Especially if the mother had the eldest son when she was a teenager, not at all unheard of in those days.
The Eyes of the City are Mine!
Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

Actually when John first arrives he calls Bud a kid and Bud responds that he is ALMOST 18.

I just got done watching the scene where he states his age, and he indeed states that he is "over 18", So he's at least 18 and some months.
It's also clearly stated that he has been to mining college for the past several months. So I think the age difference is around 22-24 years, supposedly, and entirely possible.
The Eyes of the City are Mine!
Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

Sorry, I watched the movie three days ago and did not see that mentioned anywhere. Of course, it's possible I was seeing an edited version and it wasn't there, because there wasn't any mention of his specific age in any scene. I assumed the age due to the fact that he had been to the college for a short time already and had come back home, so I'll defer to your comment on this as being true. Even with that, the age difference is possible if not probable.
The Eyes of the City are Mine!
Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

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You're mistaken, watch the film again. He had already gone to the college for a short time and returned, and didn't want to go back.
And just for the sake of arguement, let's say he was 17. That's still entirely possible to have a 25 yr difference between the oldest and the youngest in a family, instead of 20 yr difference.
The Eyes of the City are Mine!
Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

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Well, the general assumption is that Wayne is in his early 40s and the youngest son in the early 20s. That would have made the son's Mom and Dad in their 60s when they died. The Mom would have been in her 40s when the youngest son was born. This is entirely possible, as it has happened that a woman can have a child in her 40s, and not just in modern times either. The other two brothers would have been in between.
The fact that Wayne was older than his screen age is not unusual either. The life of a hired gun in the old west would have definitely made someone look older than their actual years, or the life of almost anyone in the old west for that matter.
The looks of the brothers is something else. No way do Dean Martin and the younger brother look like Wayne and Holliman. Wayne and Holliman can pass for brothers pretty easily, and Dean Martin and the youngest could as well. If the filmmakers would have thought of it as a problem, the easy explanation would be that Dean Martin and the kid took after the Mom, and Wayne and Holliman after the Dad.
But we all know the reality was to get Martin and Wayne together in the same film, even though they don't look alike. Again, not unusual for Hollywood casting.
The Eyes of the City are Mine!
Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

I noticed that John called her Katie not mom several times in the movie. Which makes me wonder if she was his stepmother. Meaning the dad had John first way before the rest of the boys, and since she raised John from childhood he considered his mom.
That could explain the wide differences in John and Dean Martin and the rest.
However, if Katie was mother to all then why not this?
Katie is typical of women back then, she got married early and had a child at 15 or 16. My gosh people hardly lived past 45-50 especially women, in the OLD WEST.
If we say John is 50 at the time of the movie this works.
And don't forget Dean Martin says to John that "he has not aged well," explaining to the audience right in the beginning, why John looks too old.
So if John is 50, and Katie had Dean Martin at 18, that makes Tom 47-48.
Add about 7 years before the next birth and Matt is born and is now 40 which Earl Holliman certainly looked in the move.
If Katie then had a change of life baby at say 48, Bud would be only 17 at the time of her death.
John-50
Tom 47
Matt 40
Bud 17
There could have been a gap of 23 years before she ever had Bud and believe me a lot of women in their late 40s and early 50s have been surprised. Thinking they were thru with all that and suddenly they are pg.
For me it works because we have to explain WHY John Wayne is old enough to be Bud's father and actually Tom too.
I am 14 years older than my brother with two sisters in between. My mom was only 37 when she had my brother and women can have babies into their 40s. So actually she could have become pg much later on and my bro and I could be more than 20 years apart instead of 14.

I think we're pretty much agreed that in 1898, John was about 46 and Bud was 17. That's a 29 year gap. That is not unheard of, especially for the late nineteenth century. In real life, there probably would have been quite a few other children, who died young. That was VERY common then. My great-grandmother, who died in 1969 at age 99, had about 15 kids, 8 of whom survived to adulthood.

• henry

Because it was Texas, and still frontier.
"I thought you was dead" - "Not hardly"

Very true!! There were even some motorcars, primitive at best, but there were some more technology things by the turn of the 20th century.
An excellent old movie . . . . if you don't nitpick too much!!
Anachronisms are fun to look for though!!

What it looks strange is that in 1898 the west is still looking so "old" and "wild"

Back then a lot of people got married and had kids at a younger age
http://www.moola.com:80/moopubs/b2b/exc/join.jsp?sid=4d6a55744d7a45794e544d3d-2

Katie married Bass when she was but 14 and bore John Elder when she was 15. Katie, was 4 years younger than Bass, so she was 60 when she died. That means that John was 45 years old. Now I don't know about you, but my wife and I are 54 and look nothing like our grandparents at the same age. Easier life, better medical care, etc. makes us look middle aged, not old, like our grandparents, who had a hard life. Think back to the mid 19th century and the west and just how easy of a life did anyone really have? John Wayne looked as a man would look who has lived all his life outdoors, working and fighting, who would be in his mid 40s. So with Bud being "almost 18" a 27 year gap between youngest and oldest is not unheard of. How many children did she bore that died in early childhood? At least that's my take on it. Besides, it's a damned good movie, even with all of the above and the 14 shot revolvers!

It makes about as much sense as the Cartwright clan, with father Ben and son Hoss close to the same age.

Very nice.
But here is my theroy
John is 35
Tom is 33
Matt is 26
Bud obviously 17

I went to high school with a kid, when we were 16 years old his oldest brother was 54, so it's quite possible to have a large gap in ages

The problem is that John Wayne doesn't look 44; he looks about 60. The other brothers can pass for the right ages, but Wayne looks MUCH older than the others.

You know, I could be mixed up here, but in an earlier post, Spearlet posted "If you read any history books (hey, it's still true today), women married and had their first kids when they were still kids themselves. Some as young as twelve! My mother had eight. She was 17 when she had my oldest brother and 47 when she had my youngest sibling."
So, if thats you, then that doesn't make sense, because you just wrote "my mom had my oldest brother when she was 17 (almost 18) and me when she was 42, so there is 24 years between her oldest and youngest child. I never have seen the age gap of the brothers as a problem. I LOVE this movie!!!"
It just seems too much of a coincidence. So either you're lying about something, or I'm wrong, in which case I'm sorry
@_@ LUFFLEBUNNY!!!!!! (Mine!) @_@

Hey, my mom had my oldest brother when she was 17 (almost 18) and me when she was 42, so there is 24 years between her oldest and youngest child. I never have seen the age gap of the brothers as a problem. I LOVE this movie!!!