I am reliably informed by about two billion people that the repetition of the line โ€œI thought you were deadโ€ originated not in Escape from New York, but in a John Wayne movie called Big Jake. I dimly recall seeing Big Jake when I was 11 years old and it didnโ€™t make much of an impression on me. You want good late John Wayne, you gotta go with the criminally underrated The Cowboys.