Review of Rio Bravo (1959) by Allan C — 18 Jun 2016

My favorite non-John Ford directed western. Howard Hawks directed this film out of his dislike of the anti-McCarthyism Gary Cooper western, "High Noon." Star John Wayne hated that film because of it's politics, while Hawks reportedly disliked the film over it's namby-pamby sheriff who has to go around asking for help and can't man-up and do it himself.

As with most Hawks films and just about every Wayne film, it's a very masculine picture. Wayne's Sheriff John T. Chance arrests no good Claude Akins, who drunkenly kills someone. However, Akins is connected and part of a powerful family, so Wayne has to hold off Akins' brother and his henchmen from busting Claude out of jail.

Wayne does have the assistance of the town drunk, Dean Martin, and old man, Walter Brennan, a new kid in town, Ricky Nelson (who does sing a duet with Dean at one point), and also the very leggy Angie Dickinson.

Ward Bond is also around too. The film honestly does meander at times and is a western that would seem dated to modern viewers, but for me, it's just a perfect western that has been influential on so many action films, everything from John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13" to James Cameron's "Aliens" to Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino's "From Dusk Till Dawn.

" Also of note, the film was written by Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. On a more personal note, "Rio Bravo" was my go-to movie for testing girlfriends. And for those who know me, my wife did pass the Rio Bravo test, sitting all the way through it's 141 minutes of it and pretended to like it.