by Allan Fish
(USA 1959 141m) DVD1/2
With my sweet good companions
p Howard Hawks d Howard Hawks w Jules Furthman, Leigh Brackett story Barbara Hawks McCampbell ph Russell Harlan ed Folmar Blangsted m Dimitri Tiomkin art Leo K.Kuter cos Marjorie Best
John Wayne (Sheriff John T.Chance), Dean Martin (Dude), Ricky Nelson (Colorado Ryan), Angie Dickinson (Feathers), Walter Brennan (Stumpy), Ward Bond (Pat Wheeler), John Russell (Nathan Burdette), Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez (Carlos), Claude Akins (Joe Burdette), Bob Steele (Matt Harris), Harry Carey Jnr (Harold), Estelita Rodriguez (Consuela), Malcolm Atterbury (Jake), Bob Terhune (Bartender), Ted White (Bart),
Rio Bravo is one for the desert island, Howard Hawks’ final masterpiece (the memorable reworking El Dorado not withstanding) and one of the most beloved films of its decade. It’s been remade by John Carpenter as the excellent Assault on Precinct 13 (on which Carpenter disguised his editing duties under the name John T.Chance by way of homage) and been influential on every film Quentin Tarantino has yet made (he even paraphrased dialogue from it in his Natural Born Killers script when Mickey Knox says “let’s make a little music, Colorado” prior to killing Robert Downey Jnr.). In other words, this is one for the movie connoisseurs, not the intelligentsia. A movie for movie lovers in which, as David Thomson observed, men are shown to be more expressive rolling a cigarette than saving the world. Though in this modern age it could be seen to apply to women, too, but I think Hawks knew that. After all, his women were strong, cynical dames in a man’s world. Rio Bravo is no exception.
Sheriff John T.Chance has his back to the wall. He has a no-good criminal holed up in his cell, but his cattle baron brother wants him out, and threatens all out war on Chance and all those who give him aid. As his band of allies, Chance only has a kid, in it to avenge the murder of his boss, a deputy who’s only just come off the wagon after a two year lost weekend, a crippled old man who guards the jail and a gambling hostess woman who he can’t make up his mind about.
It has been said that Bravo was a response to the supposedly un-American attitude of Gary Cooper’s Will Kane at the end of High Noon throwing down his badge. Yet High Noon was a movie about the west and set in the west that could be no other. Rio Bravo isn’t at its core a western at all, it just happens to be set in the west. At its heart, it’s a paean to friendship worthy of Dumas and there is no greater one in American cinema. The gang may be an unlikely disheveled bunch, but they get the job done and camaraderie is at a premium. They may bicker, argue, point out a few home truths, but they’ll keep on supporting each other and rolling David Thomson’s cigarettes.
It does of course have quite a few throwbacks to earlier westerns, not least Hawks’ earlier masterpiece Red River, right down to Martin singing the theme song from that film, ‘Settle Down’, in the jailhouse with token accompaniment from Ricky Nelson. As for Nelson, if he isn’t Monty Clift, he’s not too intrusive and his lines are kept to a minimum. The rest of the cast, however, are something else. At the time, Dickinson was seen as a weak link, but she has a knowing openness mixed with pure sex which is the Hawks woman personified. Then there’s Brennan’s Stumpy, a caricature of his earlier caricatures, forever exclaiming “why doesn’t anyone ever tell me nothin’?” Wayne, too is a joy, showing a vulnerability that was rare, if unwilling to apologise for wrongly accusing Dickinson of card-sharking, following the advice of his Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Yet the real star of the show is Martin as Dude, memorably transforming from the borrachón of the opening sequences to the able, quick-thinking deputy of old who just needed to hear De Guella one more time to stop him craving that drink. The film, and Dude’s conversion, is personified at the end when Dickinson’s tights are tossed into the street at the feet of Martin and Brennan and the latter says “do you think I’ll ever get to be a sheriff?” Martin replies “not unless you mind your own business.” Pure cinematic poetry.
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If this isn’t Hawkes’s greatest film, it certainly comes close.
I never get tired of watching this film.
A pure cinematic pleasure.
There’s a rare chemistry, a fusion, melded with Rio Bravo that beggars belief. It’s everything Allan Fish has alluded to and more.
You can’t take your eyes of Martin, he oozes a charisma so unique and beguiling, it’s hypnotic. Wayne is reliably stoic but as Allan points out, lovable and even cuddly; the camaraderie, tough love pairing with Martin is one of the all time cinematic buddy duos.
I just love this film, great review.
I have to disagree on this one. It’s a very good movie but to me not a great one, not even one of the greatest Westerns and not Hawks’s greatest film either. I saw it not too long ago and then saw “Hatari!” right afterward and I enjoyed the latter just as much, if not more. I do agree about the strong points detailed by others. All the performers are great, although Wayne is starting to show his age a bit. Brennan is wonderful doing a Western variation of his character from the TV series “The Real McCoys” (and not too far from his character in “Red River”). And I certainly agree that the movie really belongs to Dean Martin, who manages to steal every scene he’s in. A very entertaining movie, but to my mind not one of the top films of the decade.
I remember seeing this years ago, and though I agree with much of Allan assessment of it’s qualities, I’d be hard pressed to think it a great film. An enjoyable one, yes. It’s like a having a really cosy massage and bath and feeling refreshed, or spending time with a group of joshing, amblingly playful friends. But the film was made as a right-wing (i.e. miltaristic) ripost to ‘High Noon’ – which angered both Hawks and Wayne, not too mention the ultra-conservative Ward Bond. But it’s a film devoid of anxiety and fear or any of the darker emotions that propelled High Noon’s trajectory. It has as much to do with the real world as Tarantio’s films. It’s a world in which men are men and do their duty, courage has no place for fear in Hawk’s clean universe of black and white values.
Whereas, courage in the real world is doing the right thing inspite of fear it instills as depicted in Freddy Zinneman’s film.
‘Red River’ is a better film, even though it has one of the greatest cheats and anti-climatic endings of all films. A Greek tragedy that ends with a pip-sqeak escape clause.
Some further thoughts on “Rio Bravo,” which will probably generate dissent: What is Ricky Nelson doing in this movie? He just doesn’t seem to belong there. It makes me think of Fabian in the John Wayne movie “North to Alaska” the next year. Would a director like Hawks have cast him just to attract TV viewers and female teenagers to the movie–two groups that might not otherwise be interested in a John Wayne Western? Or did he really perceive acting talent? Has anyone seen the Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher film “Ride Lonesome” (also 1959)? Its plot is not dissimilar to “Rio Bravo” but the treatment is very different–serious and minimalist. It makes an interesting comparison and makes “Rio Bravo” seem rather old-fashioned.
“Rio Bravo” has generated some reverence. Hawks himself practically remade it with “El Dorado” just a few years later. I saw a spoof of it on the TV sci-fi show “Star Trek: the Next Generation.” And wasn’t that episode of “Red Dwarf” where Kryten is a sheriff in a Western town similar? Do you know, Allan?
Ricky Nelson was in it because of the popularity it would bring, nothing more, but knowing he wasn’t good enough for the effective Clift role, he downplayed it.
Ride Lonesome is an exceptional film, Boetticher’s best, but that was merely exceptional, Rio Bravo is immortal (right there with you, Angelo and Ibetolis). We’ll agree to disagree, R.D.
Excellent historical perspective there Bobby J., and along with R.D., both of you make excellent points againsgt this film being considered a masterpiece. It would seem that none other than Pauline Kael agrees with both of you, as she said it was a “silly” film, although done with “zest.” This summary judgement certainly would not make one think of the word “masterpiece.”
R.D. I am a huge STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION fan (in fact all the Star Trek series) and I know well of that send up!!! Excellent reference point there!
Equally superb point there about the minimalist RIDE LONESOME, which makes RIO BRAVO seem old-fashioned.
And Bobby, I am very very happy you are back. You have been sorely missed with all your authoritative and fecund insights.
Sam, do you get royalties for using the word fecund? And get off the fence, one minute saying it’s close to Hawks greatest, then disagreeing.
Bobby we’ll agree to disagree. Rio Bravo is among the top 10 westerns of all time.
and hello Ibetolis, how goes it my good man?
Yes Allan, I do get royalties for using that word. And as far as my being on the fence, I simply stated that R.D. and Bobby J. made good points.
WHERE DID I EVER STATE BY OWN OPINION OTHER THAN THE FIRST COMMENT?
You need to learn what the word “diplomacy” means, I’m afraid. Kael and many important critics had issues with the film, as did R.D. and Bobby J.
It’s a fact.
WOW..such an intellectually productive conversation. Or should I have said fecund?
Alright I’ll be honest…. I had to look it up.
Diplomacy’s just another word for insincerity. As Ambrose Bierce defined it in his Devil’s Dictionary…
DIPLOMACY – The Art of lying for one’s country.
Oh so you KNOW who is lying and who is not lying?
Impart this very special gift to the rest of humanity then.