Rio Bravo (1959)

[drinkanddestroy]

I don't know who's hotter; but what I care about is what works in a film. And the scenes with Angie work very well here.

Groggy: While I agree that most love scenes in movies are forced and detract from the film, I don't agree that every time there is a love scene it must be wrong...

[cigar joe]

Well, I grew up having to sit through "The Real McCoy's" on TV while waiting for something else to come on and Walter Brennnan was cackling on and on in "Stumpy" mode throughout and it got quite grating, I never appreciated him as an actor till later when I saw "My Darling Clementine", "The Westerner", and "Support Your Local Sheriff".

He most probably latched on to that schtick from this movie, lol.

[drinkanddestroy]

Well, I grew up having to sit through "The Real McCoy's" on TV while waiting for something else to come on and Walter Brennnan was cackling on and on in "Stumpy" mode throughout and it got quite grating, I never appreciated him as an actor till later when I saw "My Darling Clementine", "The Westerner", and "Support Your Local Sheriff".

He most probably latched on to that schtick from this movie, lol.

Rio Bravo was the first film I ever saw Brennan in, and I absolutely love his performance. He plays a similar role in The Far Country, and is very good in that film as well

[cigar joe]

Well see the three I mentioned where he's playing more serious villains and he's downright menacing, they really show his range. They are eye openers.

[stanton]

For me Brennan's best western performances are Rio Bravo and The Westerner. Followed by Support Your Local Sheriff and then Clementine and then the others like Far Country, Blood on the Moon, Along the Great Divide and Red River.

[drinkanddestroy]

Brennan also plays the pastor in Sergeant York. (I didn't see the whole film, but I saw the first half-hour or so, which has plenty of scenes with him). He is so young and unrecognizable; the only reason I realized it was him was his voice/accent!

[Groggy]

Groggy: While I agree that most love scenes in movies are forced and detract from the film, I don't agree that every time there is a love scene it must be wrong...

I always enjoy being misinterpreted.

[dave jenkins]

Groggy: While I agree that most love scenes in movies are forced and detract from the film, I don't agree that every time there is a love scene it must be wrong...

Yeah, even I know Grogs never said anything like that.

[drinkanddestroy]

I always enjoy being misinterpreted.

aww Groggy, sorry if I sounded like gettin' carried away. I know you didn't mean that literally  

RE: your comment earlier that Nelson was a precursor to the bad young sidekicks Wayne would later have: I agree with you there, except that I happen to think Nelson was wonderful here. I agree that eg. Patrick Wayne and Christopher Mitchum in Big Jake were just totally out of place (as was P. Wayne in McLintock!, and in The Searchers). But I think Nelson was great here. When I first watched this film, I had no idea that he was a famous singer back in the 50's, and I still really loved his performance. (Just a normative argument, I guess   )

I also think the singing scenes were good. They may well have been a bow to Martin & Nelson being 2 big singing stars at the time, but I think they work. I mean, they have to do something to pass the time, being holed up in there for all that time. Isn't it normal that they'd sing a bit?

I really hate cheap bows to commercialism and love interests in movies, but I think everything fits really well in Rio Bravo. (It may well be that Hawks's intention was a bow to commercialism, but) there isn't a scene in the film I would do without.  I just think it had the perfect amount of tension, comic relief, claustrophobia, light moments, and Angie really held her own...

And I think any Leone fan appreciates the opening scene, without a word of dialogue... Who knows how much of an influence that may have had on Leone... 

[Groggy]

The problem is that Dickinson's scenes don't really connect with the narrative - they're long and tedious digressions from the actual story. I think the film could cut them out completely without losing much.

[dave jenkins]

The problem is that Dickinson's scenes don't really connect with the narrative - they're long and tedious digressions from the actual story. I think the film could cut them out completely without losing much.

Yep. Angie got hit with a case of Rhonda Fleming Syndrome.

[T.H.]

I don't understand the criticism about the Angie scenes when the movie is built on the relationships between characters. It dawned on me the last time I watched this recently that it's more of an anti-western than anything.

[drinkanddestroy]

I don't understand the criticism about the Angie scenes when the movie is built on the relationships between characters. It dawned on me the last time I watched this recently that it's more of an anti-western than anything.

1. at least it's the anti-High Noon, which is always a good thing  

2. I really enjoyed Roger Ebert's review of Rio Bravo; check it out here http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090715/REVIEWS08/907159989/-1/RSS
 
(btw, he mentions comments John Wayne made to him RE: High Noon. While I  think that High Noon is very overrated, I actually think Wayne is mistaken in one of his criticisms: When he says that if he was the sheriff in High Noon and been refused help from the townspeople, he would have been so disgusted that "I would have just taken my wife and rode out of there..." The Gary Cooper character did indeed initially want to take his wife and ride out of there; he only came back cuz he knew that Frank Miller would eventually catch up with him, so he figured he'd face him down once and for all)

[stanton]

I like both equally, High Noon and Rio Bravo.

But the angie scenes are indeed a bit  too extensive for the good of the story. I don't like in Rio Bravo some of teh typical weak Hollywood humour, which unfortunately is in every Hawks adventure film (not to mention the Ford westerns).
And I'm not talking about Stumpy. He's a great character with  great lines.

Apart from that Rio Bravo is excellent.

[drinkanddestroy]

Just watched Rio Bravo for the 3rd time. Still love it. For a while, I said it was my favorite AW. Now, I don't want to say that for sure -- I still love RB, but there are so many other great ones, I don't wanna pin myself down with a single greatest. But it's up there.

-- Although i hate the love aspects of so many AW's, I still think Angie's scenes work here. I could do without the one where she gets all hysterical after she helps Wayne and Nelson kill the 4 bad guys. But otherwise I think she is fine. I just wish the idiots at Wardrobe had dressed her in something better than that awful brown checked suit and yellow shirt outfit that she wears for the first couple of days. I thought she'd be better in red and black... and indeed, she does wear those colors later in the movie   That brown and yellow outfit was atrocious.

-- I think all the characters were terrific. There are a few moments of Nelosn's dialogue that I don't think he did very well -- he sometimes speaks in a monotone, which I don't like. Specifically a couple of bits of dialogue in that final shootout. But otherwise, I think he was very good, as was the rest of the cast. Wayne, Martin, Dickinson, Nelson, all terrific; Brennan was hilarious, as was Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez (what a great name  )

-- RB and Red River probably have my two favorite scores for an AW -- (though I love the military music in Ford's Cavalry trilogy and The Horse Soldiers, so they are in the conversation as well). Of course, both RB and RR were Hawks movies scored by Tiomkin, and use some of the same music (arranged very differently). The singing scene with Martin and Nelson was great as well -- they're cooped up in a little jail for days... they have to pass the time somehow. (Though I thought the second song was silly). Some people automatically criticize the singing as some cheap commercial shtick, but I think it fits well with the movie and, as Roger Ebert said, "I wouldn't do without it."

-- DVD: I saw the Special Edition dvd. And this was after reading Beaver and seeing his screencap comparisons with the single disc. So i was looking out for it, and definitely, the color seems way too dark in the SE. I just ordered the single disc from Amazon dirt cheap, so I'll compare it once I receive it. Based on the screencaps from Beaver (as well as the clips of movie in the special features that IMO were taken from the earlier edition), it seems to me that while the SE may be too dark, the single disc may be too light; the colors aren't nearly sharp enough on that one. So pick your poison. I will have to watch the old one when I receive it and report back.

-- ASPECT RATIO, CINEMATOGRAPHY, and EDITING: According to imdb, the negative was in 4:3 though the movie's intended aspect ratio was 1.85:1. So I guess that after shooting and developing the film, they chopped off some of the top and bottom of the picture, to get it to a 1.85 aspect ratio. (Actually, the SE is 1.78, fitting the HDTV screen exactly, so I guess they either chopped a drop off the sides or show a bit more on top on bottom, compared to the theatrical 1.85:1 version). Anyway, you'll notice on the movie's trailer, which is in 4:3, that there is much more head room, and there are wider shots. So basically they chopped much of that head room, which effectively "zooms" in the picture somewhat, and voila, you have a 1.85:1 movie, mostly in medium shot. My problem here is that very often, parts of the actors' heads or hats are cut off, and it is annoying. Unless you are filming a closeup (of which there are virtually none here), IMO you should basically always see the whole head and hat of the actors. I don't know if Hawkes intended to cut off part of the head/hat when shooting, or if that;'s how it worked out when cropping the film; but it gets annoying to see the top of the picture frequently cutting off the hair or hats. And basically the whole movie is filmed in medium shot. The camera is very unobtrusive. I certainly have no problem with a director who doesn't want the camera to be obtrusive (Billy Wilder said, paraphrasing, "If a viewer grabs his friend and says, "what an amazing shot that is," then I have failed as a director.") But I wish there had been some more closeups,  and maybe a few more wide shots, rather than having almost everything in medium shot.

-- The movie was shot on the Old Tuscon set. The set had been dormant for some time; after Hawkes used it for RB, it was revitalized; it was then used for many more, some of which added new structures to it. Old Tuscon is perhaps my favorite Western location not built by Carlo Simi. Very sad that a fire in the 90's destroyed much of it. I hear it's still open for tourists; if I ever get out to Arizona, I'll be sure to check it out.

-- Some may criticize a Western that doesn't have any landscapes (other than the credits sequence, which shows a wagon train passing through the mountains, the entire movie takes place in the town). But that is the whole point of this movie, the claustrophobia felt by Chance and his deputies: they are stuck watching a prisoner in a jail, with the bad guys bottling up the roads and watching throughout the town; any step outside the jail is dangerous. Those who argue for landscapes for the sake of landscapes is missing the point of the movie


Anyway.... awesome movie