Rio Bravo

Howard Hawks initially wanted to reunite John Wayne and Montgomery Clift who had worked so well together in Red River in his second film with Wayne. Clift however was at the beginning of the slide that would ultimately destroy him in seven years and said no. It was then that Dean Martin was cast as John Wayne's alcoholic deputy.

By the way if Clift had done the part it would have reunited him with Walter Brennan also who is playing a very similar part to the one he did in Red River in relation to Wayne.

In the wordless beginning of Rio Bravo, Wayne while going into the town saloon to fetch Dino, witnesses a cold blooded killing perpetrated by Claude Akins. Akins is the no good brother of rich rancher John Russell who keeps trying to spring Akins from Wayne's jail. He also brings in some hired guns who bottle the town up.

Both Howard Hawks and John Wayne absolutely hated High Noon and made Rio Bravo as their answer to it. This sheriff doesn't go around begging for help from the townspeople he's sworn to protect. He's supposed to be good enough to handle the job himself with some help from only a few good men.

Dean Martin said that the Rio Bravo role for him was one of the most difficult. At that time he was playing a drunk on stage and was not yet into the substance abuse problems that beset him later on. But turns in a stellar performance.

This film marked the farewell feature film performance of Ward Bond who took some time from his Wagon Train TV series to play the small role of a Wayne friend who offers to help and gets killed for his trouble. Fitting it should be in the starring film of his best friend John Wayne.

The only bad note in Rio Bravo is that of Ricky Nelson who is too much the nice kid from Ozzie and Harriet to suggest being a young gun. But Rio Bravo marked the first of many films Wayne used a current teenage idol to insure box office. Later on Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Bobby Vinton all the way down to Ron Howard in The Shootist brought a younger audience in for the Duke.

James Caan who played the Ricky Nelson part in El Dorado was much superior to Nelson. Then again, Caan is an actor. But I will say that Dean and Ricky sung real pretty.

When you hear Dean singing My Rifle, Pony, and Me in the jailhouse, you might recognize the same melody from Red River as Settle Down. Dimitri Tiomkin wrote it and Dean recorded it as well as the title song for Capitol records. At Capitol Dino did mostly ersatz Italian ballads, it was what he was identified with. When he switched to Reprise, Dino started doing far more country and western and it really starts with the songs he did in Rio Bravo.

Rio Bravo is a leisurely paced western, probably one of the slowest John Wayne ever did. But Howard Hawks created some characters and a story that hold the interest through out.

It says much about current cinema that this vintage slice of Hollywood is now considered too long and too slow by the modern generation of movie goers. Howard Hawks labours to create setting, mood and pace introducing genuine characters are colourful for the flaws they have as their positive points presenting heroes one can empathise with, people with three dimensions, not thin caricatures that popular many of today's movies.

No character empathises this more than Dean Martin's broken down drunk Dude. Nicknamed "Borachon" by the Mexicans (Borachon is Spanish for "Drunkard") Dude battles with the demons that drove him to drink as he desperately tried not to let down Sheriff Chance, John Wayne, who believes in him more than he believes in himself. Dude's pouring back of a glass of bourbon into the bottle is one of the most life affirming scenes ever committed to film.

Wayne never really does anything other than play John Wayne and Hawks spins on this playing with the ethos of the man. The same steadfast values that mean Wayne's Sheriff John T. Chance will not release the prisoner Joe Burdette back to his murderous gang leave him stiff and awkward in front of Angie Dickinson's love interest "Feathers" creating perhaps the quintessential John Wayne movie in which the Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett's screenplay explores the depths of the ideals that Wayne stands for. This is a movie about not just about redemption, but about the reasons for a tough redemption in a World in which collapse and lawlessness are easier options.

And when Dude pours his Bourbon back, affirming that even though he cannot be the man he was but he can still be a good man, you will not be wishing it was film in bullettime.

Disregarded at the time of its release, and still underrated by many critics, Rio Bavo is finally coming into its own as a masterpiece. One reason that it has been underrated is that,it does not seem a typical western for the fifties. Most of the great westerns of the period were darker and moodier. Witness for example, the great films of Boetticher and Anthony Mann, or-the supreme example-The Searchers.Others were 'revisionist' and often sought to convey a socially conscious "teaching'- High Noon is the paradigm here. In contrast, Rio Bravo is unashamedly reactionary. Hawks actually claimed to have made the film as a reply to High Noon..In addition, there are very few pyschological or moral ambiguities here. Instead, we get a classic Hawksian scenario, also found in Only Angels Have Wings and To Have and Have Not. . in which a groups of misfits and outsiders bands together to defeat evil. Here we have John Wayne- offering a performance of considerable subtlety and self knowledge- as the valiant, yet limited, patriarchal hero, John T. Chance. To save the day, he calls on a cast of standard Western characters:The old-timer( Brennan), the reformed drunk( Martin), The "kid'( Nelson), and the "hooker with a heart of gold( Dickinson).Thanks to Hawks' assured, efficient, direction,All of these actors transcend the stereotypes usually associated with such characters to deliver fine performances which are simultaneously "realistic' and archtypal. Particularly worthy of notice is Dean Martin. John Carpenter once claimed that the scene of Martin's "redemption" was the greatest moment in all of cinema. That may be an exaggeration, but Carpenter has a point. It is both moving and unforgettable.In short, Rio Bravo is a triumph for Howard Hawks and his seemingly artless art.

The story itself is a composite of all the elements needed to make a great Western: good guys in white hats, bad guys in black hats, townspeople content to stand aside and to let the battle be fought between the outlaws and the man with the tin star, a beautiful woman to distract the hero and finally help him when the chips are down.

The main stars, John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Angie Dickinson all turn in the top-notch performances one would expect from them, and Rick Nelson is a very pleasant surprise as Colorado. It's two others that separate this movie from other Westerns, though.

Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales, as Carlos the hotel-keeper, is a breath of fresh air. His interplay with John Wayne's John T. Chance adds a touch of human reality to the movie that sets it apart.

Walter Brennan in his role as Stumpy, however, is the glue that holds the whole thing together and makes it work. His constant griping under his breath, his goading of Wayne, his dialogue with the prisoner and his general comic relief set Rio Bravo apart from any other Western and put it in a class of its own. Keenan Wynn in Eldorado doesn't even come close.

Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) is holding Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) for killing an unarmed man. Only Joe's brother Nathan (John Russell) wants Joe freed, and he'll use everything in his powers. The only hope Chance has is a drunk (Dean Martin), a kid (Ricky Nelson), and ol' Stumpy (Walter Brennan).

This is classic John Wayne at his finest. He is the great gunslinger facing insurmountable odds who takes on the bad guys with his brains, his determination, and his skills. Directed by Howard Hawks, this is just a great old fashion western. They even have Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson sing-along. Angie Dickinson plays the romantic lead. Sure, it is cliché. The good guys always win in the end. But there's nothing wrong with that.