Edwin Pereyra
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 1998
- Messages
- 3,500
It’s time for a Western to grace this series.
When one asks what are some of the best John Wayne western films, The Searchers, Stagecoach, Red River and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance often get mentioned along with Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo.
Rio Bravo is the story of Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) who must try to keep a man in jail for a murder charge for a week until the U.S. Marshall arrives in town. He is aided by an old semi-crippled jailkeeper Stumpy( Walter Brennan) and Dude (Dean Martin), a recovering alcoholic, from those who would go at any length to get the murderer out of jail. Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson also join the cast.
I found Rio Bravo to be good and entertaining primarily because of its character driven narrative. It manages to be suspenseful, funny, romantic and dramatic all at the same time. One would think that for a film, which looked like it was shot entirely in a studio backlot, without any location shootings and a running time of 141 minutes, that it would drag. But it never did. The story held my attention throughout the entire film to which I have to credit the writers and Howard Hawks. Hawks certainly has this creative talent as evidenced by his other films, which includes His Girl Friday, Red River and The Big Sleep.
Ricky Nelson is probably the weakest link in the entire cast but I did not take his character too seriously other than a young man with idealistic notions in his mind. All of the performances in this film actually worked for me. With two well-known singers in a major motion picture - Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson, I was wondering when the singing was going to start. I was glad to see that the musical numbers were restricted to no more than two.
In a way, I prefer Rio Bravo over High Noon because this Howard Hawks feature is the complete antithesis of the Fred Zinnemann 1952 film, and represents the values to which I can relate to. High Noon has been criticized as being un-American as Gary Cooper’s character is unable to round up a single posse to help him deal with four ex-convicts, even after serving the town for so many years. There was even a rumor that John Wayne didn’t like that film and had to make this one along with Hawks to make a statement. (See, I knew I wasn’t alone on this one, so there.
)
If I were to rank the five John Wayne films mentioned above, it would look like this:
1.Red River
2.Stagecoach
3.Rio Bravo
4.The Searchers
5.The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
- - -
Film Greats – A continuing quick look at motion pictures that, in one way or another, have been called “great films” by some. Other Films In This Series: Frank Darabont’s http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum9/HTML/007712.html http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum9/HTML/006466.html
[Edited last by Edwin Pereyra on November 01, 2001 at 12:32 AM]
When one asks what are some of the best John Wayne western films, The Searchers, Stagecoach, Red River and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance often get mentioned along with Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo.
Rio Bravo is the story of Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) who must try to keep a man in jail for a murder charge for a week until the U.S. Marshall arrives in town. He is aided by an old semi-crippled jailkeeper Stumpy( Walter Brennan) and Dude (Dean Martin), a recovering alcoholic, from those who would go at any length to get the murderer out of jail. Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson also join the cast.
I found Rio Bravo to be good and entertaining primarily because of its character driven narrative. It manages to be suspenseful, funny, romantic and dramatic all at the same time. One would think that for a film, which looked like it was shot entirely in a studio backlot, without any location shootings and a running time of 141 minutes, that it would drag. But it never did. The story held my attention throughout the entire film to which I have to credit the writers and Howard Hawks. Hawks certainly has this creative talent as evidenced by his other films, which includes His Girl Friday, Red River and The Big Sleep.
Ricky Nelson is probably the weakest link in the entire cast but I did not take his character too seriously other than a young man with idealistic notions in his mind. All of the performances in this film actually worked for me. With two well-known singers in a major motion picture - Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson, I was wondering when the singing was going to start. I was glad to see that the musical numbers were restricted to no more than two.
In a way, I prefer Rio Bravo over High Noon because this Howard Hawks feature is the complete antithesis of the Fred Zinnemann 1952 film, and represents the values to which I can relate to. High Noon has been criticized as being un-American as Gary Cooper’s character is unable to round up a single posse to help him deal with four ex-convicts, even after serving the town for so many years. There was even a rumor that John Wayne didn’t like that film and had to make this one along with Hawks to make a statement. (See, I knew I wasn’t alone on this one, so there.
If I were to rank the five John Wayne films mentioned above, it would look like this:
1.Red River
2.Stagecoach
3.Rio Bravo
4.The Searchers
5.The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
- - -
Film Greats – A continuing quick look at motion pictures that, in one way or another, have been called “great films” by some. Other Films In This Series: Frank Darabont’s http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum9/HTML/007712.html http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum9/HTML/006466.html
[Edited last by Edwin Pereyra on November 01, 2001 at 12:32 AM]
