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IMDb > Rio Bravo (1959)
Rio Bravo
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Overview

User Rating:
8.0/10   14,761 votes
Director:
Howard Hawks
Writers:
Jules Furthman (screenplay) and
Leigh Brackett (screenplay) ...
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Release Date:
4 April 1959 (USA) more
Genre:
Western | Romance | Drama more
Tagline:
John Wayne The big guy with the battered hat... and Dean Martin the ragged woman-wrecked castoff called Dude... and Ricky Nelson The rockin' babyfaced gunfisted kid... And Time Was Running Out Through Bullet Holes At Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" more
Plot:
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a cripple, a drunk, and a young gunfighter... more | add synopsis
Awards:
2 wins & 1 nomination more
User Comments:
Western Tai Chi more

Cast

 (Complete credited cast)

John Wayne ... Sheriff John T. Chance

Dean Martin ... Dude ('Borachón')

Ricky Nelson ... Colorado Ryan

Angie Dickinson ... Feathers

Walter Brennan ... Stumpy
Ward Bond ... Pat Wheeler
John Russell ... Nathan Burdette

Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez ... Carlos Robante (as Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez)
Estelita Rodriguez ... Consuela Robante
Claude Akins ... Joe Burdette

Malcolm Atterbury ... Jake (stage driver)
Harry Carey Jr. ... Harold (scenes deleted)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sheb Wooley ... Cowboy (scenes deleted)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (UK) (complete title) (USA) (complete title)
more
Runtime:
141 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English | Spanish
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono (RCA Sound Recording)
Certification:
Canada:PG (Ontario) | Australia:G | Australia:PG (DVD rating) | West Germany:12 (nf) | USA:Approved (certificate #19034) | South Korea:15 (2007) | Finland:K-16 | France:U (re-release) | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | UK:U (original rating) (cut)
MOVIEmeter: ?
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Fun Stuff

Trivia:
On May 8th, just one week into shooting ‘Rio Bravo’, Ricky Nelson celebrated his 18th birthday. As a gift, John Wayne and Dean Martin gave him a 300 lb. sack of steer manure, which they then threw Nelson into as a rite of passage. more
Goofs:
Continuity: After Dude is captured the first time, and Burdette's men ride up the street, the shadows change direction between shots of them approaching and Chance standing out in front of the Hotel with Colorado. These shots were obviously filmed at different times of day. more
Quotes:
[first lines]
John T. Chance: Joe, you're under arrest.
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in "The Sopranos: For All Debts Public and Private (#4.1)" (2002) more
Soundtrack:
Rio Bravo more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
53 out of 66 people found the following comment useful:-
Western Tai Chi, 6 February 2005
10/10
Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City

When Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) murders a man on a whim, Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) arrests him and puts him in small Texas town's jail. The problem is that the U.S. Marshall is a week away from taking Burdette off his hands, and Burdette's brother, Nathan (John Russell), won't see his brother put away. Complicating the situation even further, Burdette is rich enough to hire a score of thugs, and the only support that Chance has is from a drunk, Dude (Dean Martin), and an elderly crippled man, Stumpy (Walter Brennan).

Rio Bravo is a sprawling pressure cooker. For anyone not used to the pacing of older films, this is not the best place to begin. Uninitiated audiences are likely to find it boring--the plot is relatively simple, and they would likely have a difficult time remaining with Rio Bravo for its 2 hour and 21 minute running time. It's best to wait until one is acclimated to this kind of pacing, so as not to spoil the experience. The film is well worth it.

John Wayne was an enthralling paradox, and maybe no film better demonstrates why than Rio Bravo. He had almost delicate "pretty boy" looks and a graceful gait that were an odd contrast to his hulking height and status as the "action hero" of his day. He speaks little, and doesn't need to, although he is the star and thus the center of attention. He tends to have an odd smirk on his face. Wayne's performance here interestingly parallels the pacing and tenor of the film--that's not something that one sees very often, or at least it's not something that's very easy to make conspicuous.

And he's not the only charismatic cast member. Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan and Angie Dickinson are equally captivating. Even when the full blow-out action sequence begins (and that's not until about two hours into the film, although there are a few great shorter action scenes before that), the focus here is still on the interrelationships between these characters, with Brennan the continually funny comic foil, Nelson the suave, skilled youngster, Martin the complex and troubled but likable complement to Wayne, and Dickinson as the sexy, forward and clever love interest.

Director Howard Hawks seems to do everything right. He guides cinematographer Russell Harlan in capturing subtly beautiful scenery--like the mountains in the distance over the tops of some buildings, and a great sunrise shot--and asks for an atmospheric score (such as the repeated playing of Malaguena by a band in the background) that shows that plot points weren't the only element of the film that influenced John Carpenter (who partially based his Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) on this film). But most intriguing is probably Hawks' staging/blocking. You could easily make a study of just that aspect of the film. The characters are always placed in interesting places in the frame, and they're constantly moving in interesting ways throughout the small collection of buildings and streets that make up the town. There is almost a kind of performance art aspect to it. Wayne, for instance, repeatedly touches base at the jail, then picks up his rifle, circles around to the hotel and back, almost as if he's doing some kind of western Tai Chi.

Rio Bravo is nothing if not understated, and as such, it may take some adjustments from modern, especially younger, viewers. But it's a gem of a film, and worth watching and studying.

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