Review of Red River (2011) by Jonathan R — 31 Jan 2009

Red River is a classic western. It is the movie were John Wayne transitioned from playing a young handsome lending man to playing the crusty middle age John Wayne character he played in most of the rest of his movies.

It's the story (however fictional) of the first cattle drive on the Chisholm Trial. Although they used short horn cattle and a few long horns (the real cattle drives were all longhorns) they captured the look and feel of a real cattle drive.

The black and white helps convey the grittiness of a cattle drive. The story starts out in 1851 when John Wayne leaves a wagon train in Oklahoma that is on it's way to California. The problem is that the real wagon trains to the California gold fields in 1851 went through Nebraska on the Oregon Trail.

After he leaves his girl friend with the wagon trail John Wayne and Walter Brennan go to Texas with a long horn bull. The wagon train is ambushed by Indians and only a young boy survives with a long horn cow.

He joins up with John Wayne after John Wayne fights off the Indians. Of course the the guns he used were the type used in the Civil War ten years later, but that is typical of westerns in the 1940's through 1960's to use historically inaccurate props.

Later in the movie when it's supposed to be 1865 the cowboys all have guns that were invented in the 1870's. In order to get his land John Wayne has to shoot a Mexican who says he works for a landlord that lives south of the Rio Grande.

I suppose this is suppose to represent the Mexican War and John Wayne represents the U.S.A. Then the story jumps to 1865 and the young boy has grown into Montgomery Clift and the bull and cow to a herd of thousands of cattle.

But then the Texas longhorns really were brought to Texas by the Spanish 200 years earlier and ran wild throughout Texas in the 1860's. All the men in Texas have just returned from the Civil War and are broke and in desperate need of money.

John Wayne decides to organize a cattle drive to Missouri up the old Texas Road that runs from present day Dallas to present day Joplin. The movie tries to make it sound dangerous with outlaw bands waiting in Missouri to steal all the cattle and kill the cowboys.

The truth was that the Texas Road went through the mountains and forests of eastern Oklahoma. The first cattle drives that took that route lost 20 to 30 percent of their herds in the thick blackjack forests.

The Chisholm Trail went through the open plains of western Oklahoma with no trees. The cowboys could see their cattle for miles and lost very few and if they went at the right pace the cattle actually gained weight in the lush grasslands.

When John Wayne hears about the new Chisholm Trail he doesn't believe there is a railroad in Kansas and wants to push ahead to Missouri. After a stampede some of his men desert and when they are caught he wants to hang them.

Montgomery Clift stops him and takes his herd away from him and goes up the Chisholm Trail. In the movie they have already crossed the Red River into Oklahoma; however, the real Chisholm Trial starts in central Texas somewhere south of Dallas.

Anyway they make their way to Abilene, meets a wagon train with dance hall girls on the way. Montgomery Clift falls in love with one of the women in the wagon train. John Wayne collects a posse and follows them to Abilene were there is the final confrontation.

The End.