Rio Bravo ***** (1959, John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond) – Classic Movie Review 2,540

Director Howard Hawks’s classic 1959 Western film Rio Bravo stars John Wayne as the southwest Texas small town lawman Sheriff John T Chance who prevents a killer (Claude Akins) with powerful friends arranged by his rancher brother (John Russell) from escaping out of jail.

Rio Bravo is, supposedly, Hawks’s and Wayne’s reply to the High Noon movie they despised. Unlike Gary Cooper, Wayne doesn’t want any help, but his wild bunch of misfit allies (disgraced drunk Dean Martin, ancient, handicapped Walter Brennan, kid gunslinger Ricky Nelson, bar lady Angie Dickinson, hotel clerk Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez) gradually coheres into a typically Hawks-style self-contained, mutually supportive group – just the communist idea sort of thing Wayne and co were so vociferously against!

Given its dark-toned possibilities, say in a film by Sam Peckinpah, this is an easy-going, good-natured, top-notch Western entertainment, with some rousing action, touches of daffy humour and time for a couple of songs.

Wayne gives a great performance, one of his best, but the movie is beautifully acted all round by its now iconic ensemble. The script was virtually reworked by Hawks as El Dorado, and forms the inspiration for John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13. It is Ward Bond’s last film (as Pat Wheeler) before his death on November 5 1960, aged 57.

Also in the cast are Bob Steele, Estelita Rodriguez, Fred Graham and Myron Healey. Scenes with Harry Carey Jnr, Malcolm Atterbury and Sheb Wooley were deleted.

It is written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, based on the short story Rio Bravo by B H McCampbell.

Ricky Nelson died in a plane crash, aged 45, on 31 December 1985. The US National Transportation Safety Board showed that an on-board heater short-circuiting and catching fire was responsible.

Angeline Dickinson (born September 30, 1931) began her career on TV before her breakthrough in Gun the Man Down (1956) and Rio Bravo (1959), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 2,540

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