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Title: Rio Bravo (1959)
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| John Wayne | ... | Sheriff John T. Chance | |
| Dean Martin | ... | Dude ('Borrachón') | |
| 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) (scenes deleted) | |
| Harry Carey Jr. | ... | Harold (scenes deleted) | |
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Sheb Wooley | ... | Cowboy (scenes deleted) | |
Sheriff John T. Chance has his hands full after arresting Joe Burdette for murder. He knows that Burdette's brother Nathan, a powerful rancher, will go to any lengths to get him out of jail. Chance's good friend Pat Wheeler offers to help but within 20 minutes of making the offer is gunned down in the street, shot in the back. That leaves his elderly deputy Stumpy, the town drunk Dude - once a deputy and a pretty good shot when he was sober - and a young hand, Colorado, who used to work for Wheeler. Nathan Burdette meanwhile has a couple of dozen men at his disposal. Chance does his best to prepare all the while romancing a pretty gambler who goes by the name of Feathers. Written by garykmcd
Disregarded at the time of its release, and still underrated by many critics, Rio Bavo is finally coming into its own as a masterpiece. One reason that it has been underrated is that,it does not seem a typical western for the fifties. Most of the great westerns of the period were darker and moodier. Witness for example, the great films of Boetticher and Anthony Mann, or-the supreme example-The Searchers.Others were 'revisionist' and often sought to convey a socially conscious "teaching'- High Noon is the paradigm here. In contrast, Rio Bravo is unashamedly reactionary. Hawks actually claimed to have made the film as a reply to High Noon..In addition, there are very few pyschological or moral ambiguities here. Instead, we get a classic Hawksian scenario, also found in Only Angels Have Wings and To Have and Have Not. . in which a groups of misfits and outsiders bands together to defeat evil. Here we have John Wayne- offering a performance of considerable subtlety and self knowledge- as the valiant, yet limited, patriarchal hero, John T. Chance. To save the day, he calls on a cast of standard Western characters:The old-timer( Brennan), the reformed drunk( Martin), The "kid'( Nelson), and the "hooker with a heart of gold( Dickinson).Thanks to Hawks' assured, efficient, direction,All of these actors transcend the stereotypes usually associated with such characters to deliver fine performances which are simultaneously "realistic' and archtypal. Particularly worthy of notice is Dean Martin. John Carpenter once claimed that the scene of Martin's "redemption" was the greatest moment in all of cinema. That may be an exaggeration, but Carpenter has a point. It is both moving and unforgettable.In short, Rio Bravo is a triumph for Howard Hawks and his seemingly artless art.