The real question here is, will the 4K disc be missing any special features that were on the Blu-ray, like National Lampoon's Vacation? One of the consolations was that on the release date, some of those special features missing from the 4K disc were included on Apple TV (iOS/TVOS devices only) and Movies Anywhere.
Jack Elam = western legend
Jack Elam = western legend
I have to say that my favourite of the three is El Dorado. Reading Robert's review I don't get the impression that it's chalk & cheese between the old & new transfers, but Warner can only work with what they have & I'm sure the new one is the best possible effort.
I never got the - stick a DVD in with the Blu-ray - idea, I never bothered to look at the DVD, but I do like the choice between a remastered Blu-ray & the 4K.
Mitchum was the better drunk. With a far better redemption than dude in bravo. " what's wrong same hat, same drunken sherrif, let me hear you laugh... let me hear you laugh! "
I always wondered why Hawks didn't recycle that bit of dialogue in Rio Bravo, as he used so much else from previous films, for instance, Angie Dickinson saying after John Wayne kisses her a second time, "It's even better when you help."
I confess that the handsome, hapless young Mr Nelson was always the constant thorn for me, taking me out of the moment to wonder if director Hawks was aware of the inadequacy during filming, or watching the dailies; could he not find the patience to draw something better from him, or is this, heaven help us, the improved version? I certainly think James Caan took the similar role and gave a far and away more credible performance. It so happens that I saw El Dorado (during its theatrical run) before catching up with Rio Bravo on television, and watching this gave me a deja vu head scratching with the vague notion “haven’t I seen this before somewhere,” except I’d actually never seen it. I finally added two and two, but this was all way before even VHS so details weren’t easy for my teenage self to dredge up. As a result, I’ve been a bit partial to El Dorado over the years, even as late as seeing a mediocre print of this on TCM many years ago. But I suspect seeing this with the improvements noted could well make a difference in perceptions. (As to Frankie Avalon in The Alamo, other than seeming a mite anachronistic, and Fabian in North to Alaska getting an easier pass with light comedic material, neither affected my reaction to those films to nearly the extent Nelson did here, bringing to mind a mannequin with a pleasant singing voice.)
Ricky was such a natural and hilarious when he was young on O&H but got progressively more wooden as the years went on. Weird.
When Joseph McBride interviewed Howard Hawks for Hawks on Hawks, he commented on how funny that Caan was in El Dorado, and Hawks said it was because he never told Caan that it was a comedy. He may have handled Caan differently partly based on his experiences with Nelson (as well as a few others). Hawks was a professional through and through, both onscreen and off, and I don't think that he really liked directing people. He expected them to do their jobs. So he wasn't prone to manipulating actors, but in this case, he realized that Caan was going to be too obvious "acting" funny, so he opted to get the performance that he wanted another way.
True enough, but that's in a slightly different context. In El Dorado, Thornton uses the word to refer to McLeod and himself, not others, as a definition of who they are. It's like in Once Upon a Time in the West, when Bronson's unnamed character actually refers to himself and Frank as an "ancient race." It's a statement of who they are, not of any kind of lack of personal values that other people might have, like Nathan Burdette's men. In the case of El Dorado, being a professional is the personal value.
Yeah, but Thornton and McLeod are hired guns which is why Thornton uses that word as a description because they're professional gunmen. While Chance is a lawman and clearly states to Bond, that Martin, before he started drinking was the best man with a gun he ever worked with. Chance's prism for himself and Martin is that their professional lawmen while going up against hired killers/gunmen that are professional in their choice of employment.
That's why El Dorado makes the point better, because it divorces professionalism from the nature of being a lawman, and with the hero, not with the villains. In El Dorado, the lines between the two blur. Thornton defines professionalism as having the skillset and being able to use it, divorced from notions of law and lawlessness. Whether pilots in Only Angels Have Wings, mobsters in Scarface, or lawmen/gunfighters in the westerns, professionals are as professionals do. That concept is most explicit in El Dorado, and it's serves as an important precursor to the kind of professionalism that Michael Mann would develop in his crime films -- only Mann would completely sever any ties between professionalism and morality. But it's really only a small leap from Thornton and McLeod in El Dorado to Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley in Heat.
IMO, being a lawman is being a professional without having to say it.
Being a lawman doesn't necessarily make you a professional, which is why Hawks reacted so negatively to High Noon. That's why removing the context of being a lawman from the Thornton character was so important thematically. As a reaction to High Noon, Rio Bravo didn't make its points as clearly as El Dorado did. It's all personal preference, and again, I don't consider either film better than the other, because that's a zero-sum game. It's just why El Dorado resonates more with me personally as a Hawks devotee than Rio Bravo does. It's also why I see more good in Rio Lobo than many people do, Hawks included.
To be a good lawman, you have to be a professional. Chance is clearly a good lawman that doesn't want to place non-professionals in harm's way which is why he rejected Bond's request to use his drivers are deputies. However, he was ready to accept Nelson's character as a deputy because he makes his living with his gun. Thus, a professional gunman like Burdette's hired guns.
Christopher george charcter separates the two films for me. That charcter is the missing piece to rio bravo. John Russell and Claude Akins were great bad guys but George has a air of mystery about him. You believe he is good enough to kill wayne and mitchum.
