El Dorado (1966)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Harry Brown (novel)
Leigh Brackett (screenplay)

Release Date:

7 June 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Western | Action | Adventure

Tagline:

It's The Big One With The Big Two!

Plot:

Hired gunman Cole Thornton turns down a job with Bart Jason as it would mean having to fight an old sheriff friend...

Plot Keywords:

Gunfighter | Swindle | Land Grab | Alcoholism | Beautiful Woman

Cast

John Wayne	...	Cole Thornton
Robert Mitchum	...	El Dorado Sheriff J.P. Harrah
James Caan	...	Alan Bourdillion Traherne ('Mississippi')
Charlene Holt	...	Maudie
Paul Fix	...	Dr. Miller
Arthur Hunnicutt	...	Bull Harris
Michele Carey	...	Josephine (Joey) MacDonald
R.G. Armstrong	...	Kevin MacDonald
Edward Asner	...	Bart Jason
Christopher George	...	Nelse McLeod
Marina Ghane	...	Maria
Robert Donner	...	Milt (McLeod gang)
John Gabriel	...	Pedro (McLeod gang)
Johnny Crawford	...	Luke MacDonald
Adam Roarke	...	Matt MacDonald

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:G (Manitoba/Quebec) | West Germany:12 (f) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Kanab, Utah, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Harry Brown wanted his novel, "The Stars in their Courses", removed from the opening credits because the film bore little resemblance to his book.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Cole shoots the gun out of Milt's hand and tells him to "Pick it up and try again", the gun is about a foot from the front of the cabinet. When Milt and Pedro reach down to pick up their guns a moment later, Milt's gun is now several feet from the front of the cabinet.

Quotes:

Sheriff J. P. Harrah: [Cole has just been treated for a gunshot wound] Doctor, can he be moved?
Dr. Miller: Sure, in a couple of hours, but don't go bouncin' him around.
Maudie: He can stay here. I'll...I'll make him comfortable.
Sheriff J. P. Harrah: Oh, I've got a fine bed over at my place. It's, uh, narrow and it's hard and it's uncomfortable, but, uh, he won't get bounced around.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Something to Do with Death (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

El Dorado

There is some deliberate burlesque in Hawks' "El Dorado."

In the Broken Saloon at El Dorado, two old friends, each with a reputation, meet again… But Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) greets Cole Thornton (John Wayne) with a pointed rifle… Harrah has heard his friend works now for Bart Jason (Edward Asner). Thornton admits Jason offered him good money but he doesn't know what he has to do to earn it…

Harrah explains that Jason showed up here around the end of the war with a pocketful of money and nobody could find out where he got it, but everybody else around here was broke… Having money, he started to grow… But now he needs more water… There's only one place to get it… Trouble is somebody was there ahead of him, about 20 years ahead… His name is Kevin MacDonald (R. G. Armstrong).

MacDonald got four boys and a girl… All worked real hard… They hung together through the rough times and how things were looking up, MacDonald was not ready to sell… So he's holding and Jason was pushing, and the sheriff was standing right in the middle…

Warned that Thornton has gone to Jason's, MacDonald has left his youngest boy out there to do a man's job… He went to sleep… When Cole came by, Luke (Johnny Crawford) woke up, jumped up and started firing his gun… All Cole was seeing was somebody shooting at him from the rocks… Thornton, thinking himself the target, shoots and drops the boy … Luke explains the error then… To escape the pain of his mortal wound, he kills himself…

Thornton takes his body to his fathers' place, and after he explains what happened, his sister, Joey (Michele Carey), a wild cat in buckskin pants who didn't believe him, tried to kill him… Her brother stops her and her father asks her to get in the house…

After Thornton leaves the ranch, Joey (Michele Carey) ambushes Cole at a creek, dropping him with her riffle bullet… He manages to get back on his horse and escapes to Maudie's place, where Doc Miller (Paul Fix) treats him… The bullet was dangerous up against his spine, however, as Doc advises him to find a better surgeon for the bullet's removal…

After a short time, Thornton leaves El Dorado…

One of the best moments in the film came in a Cantina near the Mexican border when James Caan (Mississippi) enters the place and calls one of four men sitting at a dinner table, reminding him if he remembers him or if he remembers the blue hat he is wearing? Mississippi says he caught up with his other three companions and he killed them all, and that he was the last of the four… He asks him to stand up… and as the audience observed, Mississippi wasn't wearing, at all, any gun…

Obviously, when Jason just brought his outfit into town, the action started…

Robert Mitchum is 'the tin star with a drunk pinned on it.' He was too mad to be scared and too sick to worry about it..

Charlene Holt plays Maudie the gambler's widow who throws her arms around Cole, sees Harrah, and bursts out laughing when she finds her old flame and her current one are friends… She tells the sheriff that Cole gave her a stake, and helped her get on her feet…

Michele Carey plays Joey, the wild girl who thinks that Mississippi looks a lot better without that silly hat…

Christopher George plays Nelse McLeod, a dark, thin-faced man with a scar on his eye…

"El Dorado" was the third of four Westerns that Howard Hawks made with John Wayne… Hawks' massive reputation as a director of Westerns virtually rests on just two films ("Red River" & "Rio Bravo") but these two are sufficient to reveal a highly skilled, intuitive filmmaker, and one who has managed to satisfy large audiences and serious critics alike within a commercial system…