Rio Bravo (1959)

The Hollywood movie western used to be one of the most beloved and romanticized genres in Cinema.   By the end of the 1950s it was still popular but losing some if its originality.    Still there were countless tales told at the time that dealt with a strong pure hero pitted against insurmountable odds and an evil, cruel advisory.    Howard Hawk’s influential Western, “Rio Bravo”, is a straight forward rendering of this basic western premise and has John Wayne, the greatest of all Western stars, as its headlining star.  When John Ford introduced Wayne to movie audiences in his masterful film, “Stagecoach”, 20 years earlier, we were treated to a tall larger than life imposing figure.      When he starred in, “Rio Bravo”, Wayne was already 51 years old but retained his tall strong aura on the screen.    The movie also introduced the wonderful premise of a small group of flawed good guys holed up in a compact closed setting having to fight off an attack of vastly outnumbered adversaries.     Wayne is sheriff, “John T. Chance”, in charge of protecting the small town of Rio Bravo. He arrests and hold in his jailhouse the brother of a powerful landowner after said brother murdered one of Rio Bravo’s townsfolk.   The Powerful landowner has many hired guns and vows to free his brother.   Chance is aided by three deputies.   One is a loser alcoholic who used to be an expert gunman named Dude (Dean Martin in a rare serious role), an aging cripple named Stumpy (Walter Brennan) and a young inexperienced gunfighter named Colorado (teen idol Ricky Nelson).    Also arriving in town is a gorgeous and headstrong gambling lady (Angie Dickinson in one of her first roles).   Throughout the movie Chance conveys an inner strength and wisdom that serves to instill confidence in his allies.    He does not speak a great deal, preferring to watch and allow others to convey his intent.    This required Wayne to have the ability to act in a much more subtle fashion then what was his forte.   He succeeds remarkably well as his Chance moves elegantly between anger, fear and tenderness.  An example is the scene where he wakes up after falling asleep in his friend’s hotel room that is surrounded by the landowner’s gang and finding the gambling beauty guarding his door.   Wayne first becomes startled, then aggressive in self-defense and finally once seeing the pretty Dickinson, soft and gentle.   He conveys this in less than a minute of screen time and without any dialogue.  It is one of Wayne’s best acting jobs from his long illustrious career.   I found the character interaction between Chance and Dude to be fascinating.   Dean Martin was not a great actor having made it to Hollywood by being the singing half of the musical comedy due with Jerry Lewis.   He was however known to have struggled with alcoholism and his portrayal of the conflicted and suffering Dude is spot on.    In the 70s Dean Martin would continue working in Television by lampooning himself as a drunk.    Here, his drunkenness is not funny and feels very real.     The nice part of the interaction between Dude and Chance, is that Chance never preaches to Dude, preferring to be a silent example and allowing Dude the opportunity for self-redemption.      The film has slow and deliberate buildups to action scenes that end in short bursts of violence.   This allows for a lot of foreboding and tension in many scenes, as in the scene where Chance and Dude patrol the town streets at night.    The surrounding danger is felt through the slow pace of Hawks direction.   The glue that is used to allow for this approach is the character interaction between our heroes.   This works wonderfully when Chance and Dude are together.    I was less impressed by the characters of Stumpy and Colorado.    At one point in the film Chance refused help from a middle aged friend because of that person’s age, yet he deputized Stumpy, who is an elderly handicapped person.   Stumpy’ s character was meant to instill a bit of humor, but I found him pretty boring and not very believable.    Brennan hams up his character ruining every scene he appears in.    Nelson keeps his perfect teen idol haircut and unshaven baby face throughout all of the proceedings as his character retained no depth and I kept wanting the plot to somehow move away from him.   All to no avail.   Happily there are enough good scenes that do not include Stumpy and Colorado so that their presence does not total ruin the film.       The movie opens with a five minute opening that is slow, without dialogue and serves to introduce the two most important characters.   It is a wonderful opening that starts the movie off brilliantly following Dude as he desperately searches for a drink he can’t afford and giving us a surprise introduction to Chance through a sudden appearance from off camera to become Dude’s guardian angel.    All in all Rio Bravo is an entertaining film that is never boring while keeping to the straight forward convection of the classic Hollywood Western