Rio Bravo

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Howard Hawks
Starring:	John Wayne, Dean Martin
Release date:	18 May, 2004
List price:	~~$14.97~~
Our price:	$11.23 that is 25% off!

Rio Bravo

Average rating: Stars

One of the Top Ten Westerns on Any List

One of the great Westerns. Sheriff John T. Chance, Sheriff of a small Texas town, has big trouble on his hands. Joe Burdette, whose brother is the richest man in town, has just killed a man in cold blood. Chance arrests him, and Nathan Burdette hires an army of gunmen to spring Joe out of jail. Chance has got only three men and a woman to help him: Dude, the drunken ex-sheriff; Stumpy, a lame old man who cleans the jail; Colorado, a young gun with more enthusiasm than experience; and "Feathers," the dance hall girl with a heart of gold. It's the same old story of the good guys vs. the bad guys, but rarely has it been done so well within the context of the Western genre. It's a movie with many, many great lines, like "Murder?" "No other word for it." Or when Stumpy tells Joe: "Don't worry, if anything happens, you'll be the first man killed." This is a story about a tough band of professionals, the kind of film that director Howard Hawks did best. This movie is one of the top ten best Westerns ever made. (Trivia: (1) Quentin Tarantino had frequently hailed this as his favorite movie. (2) Hawks used this same premise for two more films: "El Dorado" in 1967 and "Rio Lobo" in 1970.) Don't miss it!

Rio Bravo - John Wayne, Dean Martin

Bravo for Rio Bravo!

"Rio Bravo" is a very entertaining and quality film suitable for the entire family.

The film boasts an all-star cast that boasts a wealth of talent. John Wayne is the tough sherrif John T. Chance, who has to hold a prisoner charged with murder in his small jail awaiting the arrival of the territory judge. Wayne gives one of his best performances. Dean Martin plays Wayne's troubled drunk deputy. Martin surprises everyone by showing just how wonderful an actor he is. In a difficult role, Martin excels. Angie Dickenson is Wayne's love interest. Dickenson's role is also an emotionally challenging bit of acting, but she pulls it off easily with room to spare. Walter Brennan is Wayne's crippled deputy and he also excels and provides comic relief. Brennan is so convincing as the crippled leg deputy that many fans of Brennan believed that he was actually crippled in real life. Brennan walked as good as anyone and it is a tribute to him that he convinced all of us that he had a bum leg! Rounding out the cast is the very young heartthrob Ricky Nelson, who plays "Colorado", a trailhand with a good gun. Nelson is in over his head here as an actor, but was probably included in the film for his ability to bring in the female audience. Ward Bond and Claude Akins round out the excellent cast.

Director Howard Hawks uses the cast to his advantage. His directorship keeps the film moving along at a steady pace. Interestingly, the first several minutes of the film has no dialogue at all! John Wayne speaks the first line about 4 minutes into the film after much action has already taken place.

This film represents Hawks' and Wayne's response to the movie "High Noon", which both men despised. Wayne and Hawks were disturbed by "High Noon" as no townspeople came to the help of the sherrif who had to face down a gang of thugs by himself. Both men believed that the good men and women of the community would rally to the side of good and face down evil. In 'Rio Bravo", Wayne's sherrif does not go it alone, but gets help from several sources.

Dimitri Tiomkin's score is a good one, originally made for the classic western, "Red River". Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson combine their vocal talents in the duet "My Rifle, My Pony, And Me". Believe it or not, Walter Brennan adds his vocal talents in a song that follows!

"Rio Bravo" is a very satisfying and entertaining film fit for the entire family. There is no profanity, love scenes are done discretely, and the expected violence is not graphic or gratuitous. As a kid, this was one of my favorite "John Wayne" movies. As an adult, it continues to be a favorite, and I believe it will be a favorite of yours too. Out of 10 stars, I'd give it a solid 9.

Jim Konedog Koenig

John Wayne, Dean Martin - Rio Bravo

Wonderful Rio Bravo

In any listing of movies that have stood the test of time, surely Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" is up there among them. Generally underappreciated as just a "popcorn picture" or "routine Wayne vehicle" by the so-called perceptive reviewers of the period, "Bravo" was anything BUT that...and has proved such again and again over the years. In truth, "Rio Bravo" is a gem of a western...and a gem of a MOVIE. Period .

The genesis of this film lies in "High Noon", a film which people such as Duke Wayne, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and even writer Louis L'Amour disliked (though not Gary Cooper's performance IN it). L'Amour cited the fact that these townsmen of the old west were by and large Civil War veterans. They had faced mini-balls,cannon balls,black powder explosions,flying shrapnel, cold-steel cavalry charges, bayonet charges, and more in places like Chickamaugua,
Shiloh, Petersburg, Gettysburgh, and Cold Harbor. A look at the movie "Gettysburg" would show you what kind of people these were.
These are the kind of people who lived in Northfield, Minnesota, when the James-Younger gang came to raid there. Did they run and hide and leave everything on the shoulders of the local law? Not a bit of it. They turned out in force and shot Jesse and Frank's bunch to pieces...and sent the survivors packing. Same kind of people lived in Coffeyville, Kansas, when the infamous Dalton Gang tried the same thing there. Result? There WASN'T a Dalton Gang anymore when the gunsmoke cleared.

These were the kind of "take your best shot" people who REALLY
comprised the citizenry of an Old West Town.

And this is what shows in "Rio Bravo". This is a warm movie, full of very REAL people...not the cardboard cowards of "High Noon". These people are stalwart and resolute. They know what their situation is and they know they have to face it the best way they can.

And they do.

The cast is marvelous. Duke Wayne is just plain Duke Wayne;
stoic, shrewd, gruff but kind-hearted, bearish but sentimental.Just the way John Wayne is SUPPOSED to be!
Dean Martin is awesome as Dude, the drunken ex-deputy struggling to get himself "off the sauce" and redeemed in his own eyes and those of his friends. It has been said that that this is one of Dino's finest performances and I agree. Absolutely. Martin should indeed have gotten an oscar for this.

Comedy here comes from three sources: Walter Brennan as "Stumpy", the town jailer (carrying his "Amos McCoy" tv persona...and his trademark cackle... to iheir full potential),Wayne's awkward "courtship ritual" (even if he doesn't realize it) with Angie Dickinson; and Jose Gonzales-Gonzales's performance as as Carlos, the hotel owner, delivering spot-on hilarity in vignettes involving...or related to...his young & fiesty wife.

Dickinson is superb as "Feathers", a good-hearted gambling gal with a questionable past and her heart set on snagging Wayne's "John T. Chance" ( I carried a crush on Dickinson for YEARS coming out of this movie)and Ricky Nelson does a wholly acceptable turn as "Colorado Ryan", a young fast gun trying to do the right thing. Nelson and Martin do a duet of "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me" in a jailhouse sequence that works well. It also raises memories in viewers because the instrumental version of that same song wends its way all through the earlier Hawks-Wayne "Red River". Another song, the old traditional folk number "Cindy", becomes a trio piece as Walter Brennan joins in for it.

The baddies in this movie are mainly Claude Akins as "Joe Burdette", a swaggering bully, and John Russell, as Joe's brother
"Nathan". Russell would be on Wayne's side of the badge for the tv series "Lawman", and later would portray the evil killer-marshal-for-hire gunned down at the end of "Pale Rider" by Clint Eastwood's "Preacher" character. Familiar1940s/50s "B" western and tv western character actor Myron Healy shows up in a bar scene taunting Dean Martin's "Dude" with a coin in a spittoon, and comes to regret it. And the great Ward Bond shows up as old Wayne friend , freighter "Pat Wheeler", for a time in this film, oddly enough wearing the EXACT SAME clothes/Costume he wore as "Major Seth Adams" on his own tv show, "Wagon Train" .

This is a great movie, full of menace and compassion, comedy and tension,romance and suspense, action and acting. A well realized production WELL worth watching. Made by Howard Hawks, but so close to John Ford as to be uncanny.

"Rio Bravo"? It's a WINNER.