Saw Rio Bravo a couple of days ago. Another wonderful Hawks movie: a determined group against an overwhelming number of criminals, with nary a townsperson helping them. In fact, none of the townspeople says a word throughout the movie. They are the great majority who don't want to get involved. Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson put in good performances and their duets add to the atmosphere. Great dynamic between Wayne and Angie Dickinson, especially her line about kissing is more fun when two people do it.
The he only downer was that it was on AMC, which has tons of commercials.
Saw Three Godfathers today. It's sort of a variation on The Three Wise Men help deliver the baby Jesus in a conestoga wagon. It's pretty riveting actually but the ending is a bit hokey. I'm not sure Ford knew what to do with it, possibly. However, still a very good film, well worth seeing.
Hell's Bells Brad you and Damian are fast becoming keen exponents of Wayne's movie collaborations with both Ford and Hawks ^&grin
The story 3 Godfathers had already received various silent film outings and Ford had made a version he called
Marked Men in about 1916. Much like his silent version this remake of his contains long stretches without any dialogue which possibly would have detracted from the images he wanted to depict. The story is remarkably simple and- unusual for Ford- hardly any character development. The three protagonists are not really badmen and there is never any doubt that they will do the honourable thing but Ford infused the film with a little too much religious allegory and symbolism. Bibles fall open to meaningful passages, the 3 Godfathers follow the stars to New Jerusalem and the birth of a child leads to redemption of Wayne's character. In fact I always thought the movie was less about godfathering and more about stepmothering.
But to dismiss the film on the grounds that it wears its Christian faith on its sleeve would be grossly unfair for it is still a fine movie and Winston Hoch's camera work is certainly visually stunning. Who knows perhaps Ford was demonstrating the western genre's mythic adaptability away from the historical.
Rio Bravo was Hawks' and Wayne's rebuke to both
High Noon and
3:10 to Yuma. These two liberal "go it alone" westerns were detested by both the actor and the director who classed them as un-American. Hawks wanted the same cast as he had used for
Red River, he got Wayne and Brennan but Monty Clift downright refused to work with either actor again (more to do with their right wing politics than anything else) and subsequently turned down the role of Dude which was then offered to Dino Martin. There are many nods in this movie to the previous collaboration- note Wayne's character John T Chance's belt buckle...... its the Red River D brand. Dino and Nelson's duet of
My Rifle, My Pony and Me is actually "Settle Down" the same song from
Red River only with different lyrics.
Hawks' movie heroes are nearly always marked not as isolates but as individual members of a group and the group is sustained by the mutual benefit it offers to all its members. He put this to good use in this movie as an antithesis to both
High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma where the lawmen in both films rush around trying to raise help to combat the bad guys but receive none. But in
Rio Bravo Wayne's character goes through the film systematically rejecting the help of others yet every crisis he faces, were it not for the intervention of others in the group, Wayne's character would have been defeated.
Bob
