Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition)
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List Price: $14.98
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Features
• Closed-captioned
• Color
• Dubbed
• DVD-Video
• Special Edition
• Subtitled
• Widescreen
• NTSC
In Theaters : 04 April, 1959
DVD Release : 22 May, 2007 |
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Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition) description
When it comes down to naming the best Western of all time, the list usually narrows to three completely different pictures: John Ford's The Searchers, Howard Hawks's Red River, and Hawks's Rio Bravo. About the only thing they all have in common is that they all star John Wayne. But while The Searchers is an epic quest for revenge and Red River is a sweeping cattle-drive drama ("Take 'em to Missouri! Yeeee-hah!"), Rio Bravo is on a much more modest scale. Basically, it comes down to Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne), his sobering-up alcoholic friend Dude (Dean Martin), the hotshot new kid Colorado (Ricky Nelson), and deputy-sidekick Stumpy (Walter Brennan), sittin' around in the town jail, drinkin' black cofee, shootin' the breeze, and occasionally, singin' a song. Hawks--who, like his pal Ernest Hemingway, lived by the code of "grace under pressure"--said he made Rio Bravo as a rebuke to High Noon, in which sheriff Gary Cooper begged for townspeople to help him. So, Hawks made Wayne's Sheriff Chance a consummate professional--he may be getting old and fat, but he knows how to do his job, and he doesn't want amateurs getting mixed up in his business; they could get hurt. This most entertaining of movies also achieved some notoriety in the '90s when Quentin Tarantino (director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Jackie Brown) revealed that he uses it as a litmus test for prospective girlfriends. Oh, and if the configuration of characters sounds familiar, it should: Hawks remade Rio Bravo two more times--as El Dorado in 1967, with Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and James Caan; and as Rio Lobo in 1970, with Wayne, Jack Elam, and Christopher Mitchum. --Jim Emerson |
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Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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A movie so good that Hawks later remade it - twice!
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This is a Western (Waynestern) that people either love or dismiss. I love it. For me, many of the things people complain about are its virtues. John Wayne has an important role as Sheriff John T. Chance, but there is plenty of room for the other stars. Dean Martin gives one of his better performances as Dude. Martin shows some real depth as a drunk trying to find his way back. Ricky Nelson was such a youngster, but he pulls off the role of the outsider who finally has to pick a side and joins the right team. I have to tell you, though, that seeing him light all those cigarettes, well, I can imagine that it caused a bit of a scandal back then. While I don't have any direct memory of it, he was such a teen idol that I can't imagine that parents were seeing him smoking at 18.
Angie Dickinson was spectacular as Feathers. She was amazingly beautiful, but not in a model or dollhouse way. In many ways, Feathers is Slim Browning from "To Have and Have Not" and more than a few of her scenes are obviously based on scenes from that movie. Howard Hawks admits it, many critics have noted it, and even Angie Dickinson has commented on her discovering it years later when watching the movie on TV.
Remember, back in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, movies were not brought back to the theaters very often and were not yet played on television (at least not much) until the 60s. So, reusing effective plots and dialogue would only make sense. Many have noted that Hawks tweaked the plot of this movie in "El Dorado" and "Rio Lobo". The similarities are easy to spot. Does this make them lesser movies? I don't think so. Does Handel's having reused earlier compositions to create "Messiah" so quickly diminish the majesty, beauty, and popularity of that oratorio? Of course not! They are just products of a certain time and set of cultural expectations.
The opening scene of the movie (almost five minutes long) has not a single word and is wonderfully effective. Dude (Dean Martin) is obviously sick for some whiskey and thinks he is being offered a drink, but the vicious Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) mocks him by throwing a dollar coin in a spittoon. As Dude gets down to reach into the slop inside the spittoon to get the dollar, Chance (Wayne) kicks it away. In the ensuing fight, a man is killed and Burdette is taken into custody. The central plot of the movie is how Chance, Dude, and Stumpy (Walter Brennan in a marvelous performance) have to hold Joe in the jail while his rich and powerful brother, Nathan (John Russell) tries to spring him. The several side plots are Dudes struggle with withdrawal from booze, Feathers and Wayne developing a romance, Whether Colorado will join the right side or view the struggle as someone else's problem.
Another famous performance from the movie was from the diminutive Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez as Carlos. Some find his performance too caricatured and politically incorrect, but I think he was just a charming guy that people related to. I don't see anything in the character to laugh at except his predicaments. The sight of him against Wayne (more than foot taller) is always a hoot, as well.
The pace of the movie seems slow to modern audiences, but I really enjoy the way the movie develops it characters with conversations not directly tied to the action. When the action scenes do come the fury and quickness gives them great power without having to resort to gore or extreme violence (although characters are killed in the movie). Most of the emotional tension comes in scenes setting up the action scenes, which tend to be over quickly. The final confrontation is a classic and is always fun to watch.
A good family film, too. While the relationship between Feathers and Chance caused some concerns in 1959, but people today would be hard pressed to figure out why. Besides, it is the way all loner men and their women get along in Westerns, isn't it?
The extras on the second disk are quite good. There is a tribute to the works of Howard Hawks that is most interesting. Another feature on this movie that I quite enjoyed, and a short on the way Old Tucson has been used in many Westerns past and present.
The voice over commentary has Richard Schickel and John Carpenter. They are not speaking together, but their comments are edited in as appropriate. Carpenter's comments are much better than Schickels. Schickel seems to be talking off the cuff and gets several things wrong. For example, he says this movie was Hawks' reaction to "3:10 to Yuma", but Hawks says in the other extras that it was the Sheriff running around for help in "High Noon" that he disliked so much. He also says that it is Glenn Ford as the Sheriff in that movie trying to get help to move his prisoner that upset Hawks. But it is Glenn Ford who is the bad guy and Van Heflin, a failing rancher trying to save his ranch, his marriage, the respect of his boys and himself that leads him to take the risks. Schickel also notes that Wayne uses a pump action rifle in "Rio Bravo", but it is obviously a lever action rifle. I believe it was a Winchester with a short barrel, but I am not a gun hobbyist. These are small things, but they affect that value of the commentary. It sounds as if he was just talking off the top of his head without preparation. My advice; don't do that.
The color of the movie looks great and I recommend this movie and extras very much.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition) dvd movie.