Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo

Upon first viewing this way back when, its longueurs made me mostly antsy apart from perking up for Dean Martin & Ricky Nelson, "My Rifle, My Pony and Me". But there is something insidiously atmospheric about it the gets under the skin, the way Dmitri Tiomkin’s “Degüello” gets into the ear. So it seems like there must be a reason Robin Wood put it at number one one year in a Sight and Sound poll and wrote a BFI book about it which I haven’t read, as well as there being a dedicated fan base on this borad. Among other virtues, Dean Martin is fantastic.

The consideration given to behavior and doing a job, hallmarks of Hawks, was put to best use here.

Havent seen this in ages but I remember loving the languor and patient pace. Gotta be the best Dean Martin performance, among the subset of films where he actually attempted acting.

IIRC, even The Wild Bunch is slow in lots of places.

There was basically some kind of cinematic equivalent to The Loudness Wars over the decades.

Auteurist heresy - I think I prefer El Dorado over Rio Bravo, or at least enjoy it just as much (I prob saw ED before RB, or Rio Lobo, which I concede is the least of the three versions). Mitchum and Caan as good as Deano and Ricky imho, tho obv Angie Dickinson is unmatched by anyone in the other films.

Nice that you avoided the (other) easy pick of Red River.

https://imgur.com/a/XHH6NTj

sorry

https://i.imgur.com/GwoKFn1.png

Forgot about that!

https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=272191&forum=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PMMN0AVWdM

it's too long but never actually sags as such

Wayne is stilted and delayed in a lot of his delivery but he works

we won't hear a word against Dickinson obv

Martin is stagey but really effective

Nelson is better than you'd expect

the reliables in the supporting cast are excellent

our bad guys aren't in it much, but the pairing of a fairly meatheaded brother and an icy executive brute force wielder hasn't been done better too often

some of my favourite lines are almost-asides from this- Wayne breaks a guys jaw as a light admonishment and protests "I wasn gonna hurt hem", our heroines mix of tease and plead, Nelson's cool decline of a hopeless cause

it's a top tier western of the type and top five personally

and my rifle pony and me is magic

"We'll need some blankets, plenty of tobacco, and matches"

^^^

that's how I usually plan on holding out a few days until the marshal arrives as well!

Ha, yes exactly,

So there's a story out there about how Sergio Leone asked Ennio Morricone to write him some "Dimitri Tiomkin music" for A Fistful of Dollars and Morricone was inspired by or copped "El Degüello" from RB which is heard throughout this whole movie, although if you aren't paying attention you might miss the important plot point as to why.

http://colorfulanimationexpressions.blogspot.com/2013/03/morricone-bits-and-pieces.html

So not copped, but sort of played in a similar style.

The RB degüello:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3dTQyEEgYA

The ZZ Top version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDEyk6DRtz8

Theme from AFoD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iui3ZV5NAQk

It even sort of makes some sense to think of RB as a proto-Spaghetti Western.

Just got to the blanket scene in The Searchers.

zztop are a spaghetti western also

Of course.

Ultimate hangout movie.

Pretty funny that it was supposed to be an answer to High Noon - Hawk's contention being that a REAL MAN doesn't go running around asking for help. So instead in RB alliances are just made organically but it's taboo for anyone to voice out loud that they need help. Entirely puerile worldview but makes for great watching.

OTM. On the one hand, of course they are badly outnumbered and doomed to failure. On the other, it is written and directed so well that each little stratagem is, maybe not believable or plausible, but acceptable and well thought out.

Is there even one "western landscape" shot in this?

https://tucson.com/news/retrotucson/photos-expansion-of-old-tucson-and-filming-of-rio-bravo-in-1958/collection_391e45fa-cc16-11e8-8f34-f37811b456e2.html

*tosses coin into spitoon for paywalled content*

FYI Old Tucson is now a theme park. I was going to check it out awhile back but didn't wanna pay the $20 or whatever it was nor deal with the swarms of families already there so I only viewed it from the parking lot.

Actually it's apparently "closed indefinitely" now

Rogert Ebert questions the justification of the musical moment, ultimately accepting it, but to me it is roughly equivalent to the dancing in a John Ford movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MXcL1F3OMs

Don't think I linked to this yet: http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2010/01/robin-wood-and-rio-bravo.html

I watched El Dorado again the other night, it's pretty fab but I still prefer this one tbh.

Still haven't seen that one.

the drunk character in it is in a more advanced stage of alcoholism. The crazy old coot character is much less annoying, but I prefer the more annoying one tbh

Time to watch El Dorado, I guess.

Over the last couple of weeks I watched all four: Red River, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, and Rio Lobo. All this time and I've never seen any of them. Pretend I wrote a long-winded reason why, but it's really just pure omission on my part.

Red River: I'll be Captain Obvious as this was my favorite and one I immediately connected with and wanted to watch again. 77 years later, there's still an incredible energy in every scene. John Wayne being a jerk. Montgomery Clift being a movie star. John Ireland's character feels contemporary and worrysome: all wound up, only wants to talk about guns.

Rio Bravo: John Carpenter has talked at length about how much this movie means to him and he's absolutely right - within the first thirty minutes I blurted out loud "this is every Carpenter movie." Psychically though, it's every movie that it has influenced in it's wake - like experiencing deja vu only chronologically backwards. Dean Martin is so all-in that I wondered if a far more serious movie just barged in.

El Dorado: I heart Robert Mitchum but goddamn this thing looked like it was made for television. A slog.

Rio Lobo: Unexpectedly great. A full-color noir? Nest of angry hornets as murder weapon totally squick-inducing.

Oh man I hated Rio Lobo when I saw it, need a rewatch maybe.

Yeah El Dorado is def diminishing returns from Rio Bravo. Mitchum was like "Dean Martin already played this role the best it can be, what do I do?" and Hawks went "play it for laughs".

i aint gonna hurt him is the hardest line in movies

i havent seen rio lobo but i’m intrigued

i also just finished Karina Longworth’s podcast ep on Hawks latter career on You Must Remember This (highly recommend) so this revive feels kinda timely!

Yah, in some respects I was preparing for that YMRT episode. Separate thread revive but apparently I have to see John Ford's 7 Women now