Rio Bravo

[4.5
stars] [IMDb Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

It's the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Rio Bravo. The movie was made as an angry response to High Noon; Howard Hawks and John Wayne felt that Gary Cooper should not have gone around begging the townspeople to help him, and they were disgusted by the final scene where Coop threw his badge on the ground. So they decided to "do it right".

John Wayne plays Sheriff John T. Chance, who's jailed sadistic murderer Joe Burdette. But unfortunately, Joe has rich brother Nathan on the outside. Nathan's unscrupulous and rich, vows to break Joe out of prison, and mobilizes a gang of professional killers to make that happen.

Chance only has two guys on his side: there's "Dude" (played by Dean Martin), an alcoholic teetering on the edge of self-destruction. And there's "Stumpy" (Walter Brennan), an old crippled man who's physically and chronologically challenged. So things are looking grim. Enter two unlikely allies: "Colorado" (Ricky Nelson), a gunslinger, and "Feathers" (Angie Dickinson), a beautiful card player.

There's a lot of sheer super-manliness here from John Wayne. But there's a considerable amount of humor too.

The only sour note—sorry, Duke—was Ricky Nelson, who had no discernable acting talent. (I remember Ricky from The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; even by my low standards when I was nine years old, I thought he was a lousy actor back then.) To make up for it though, Dean Martin has one of his best performances ever.

In addition to the normal links above, interested fans will want to check out Leo Grin's adulatory essay at Big Hollywood, interesting in its own right, and a rich source of links to further reading.


Last Modified 2024-01-31 5:20 AM EDT