RIO BRAVO
A
USA (141 mi) 1959 d: Howard Hawks
While this is generally considered the model for John
Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976), that’s putting it loosely, as much
more of the action in this movie takes place outside the jailhouse where a
sheriff, a cripple, and a drunk are keeping a prisoner locked up, despite the
best efforts of his brother and his “extended” family of hired guns who have
blocked off the town from the rest of the world and are lining the streets just
waiting for their opportunity to set him free. Hawks was angry with Gary
Cooper’s performance in HIGH NOON (1952), thinking he did not represent the
bravery of the actual sheriffs in the West, especially considering he spent
much of the time asking people from the town for help rather than make do with
whatever he had. In the language of the West, brave men never asked for
help, but only accepted it when it was offered. John Wayne is just such a
sheriff in this film, one of his more likeable roles as a hardened, crusty,
rifle toting man who demands respect from anybody who tries to go up against
him, so few people try. Yet in the opening sequence, which is played out
slow and tense, gauging a humiliating and disturbingly sadistic moment in a
saloon, somebody whacks him over the head, which kept him from preventing what
happened next, as a man at the bar (Claude Akins) shoots another man in cold
blood. Wayne catches up with him in the next bar, introducing himself by
whacking him with the barrel of his rifle, knocking him out cold, hauling him
off to the jail where the sheriff and his two deputies remain considerably
outnumbered.
The film is surprisingly easy on the eyes, as it has a
terrific cast shot during the prime of their careers, all delivering among
their career best performances. Wayne is solid as the no nonsense Sheriff John
T. Chance, as his decisions are sensible, carefully reasoned, where he
continually looks after the interests of others over his own personal welfare,
perfectly expressed to the Wagon Train master Ward Bond early in the
film. Bond offers to help, and gets himself killed in the process.
Dean Martin is barely recognizable as the Dude (yes, before Jeff Bridges!), a
nervous, sweaty, rather shifty kind of deputy who can startle you with his
shooting accuracy, where almost Columbo-like, he takes people by surprise, as
for the past 2 years (after losing a girl) he’s been on a drunk, but since this
murder he remains sober, though going through the shakes through most of this
film. The Dude’s best moment is entering a bar filled with a dozen or so
of the prisoner’s friends and having to pick out the man who shot Ward Bond, no
easy feat, especially when they continue to ridicule him for being a drunk, but
he impressively sizes up the situation perfectly. The other deputy is
Walter Brennan, a grizzled old man who walks with a limp and has one of the
most recognizable voices in show business, often imitated by impersonators, but
he gives a stellar performance here. Add to this cast two stragglers who
came in on the stage, Ricky Nelson as Colorado, a hired gun working for the
Wagon master, and Angie Dickenson as Feathers, a notorious card shark listed as
a known associate of a man on a Wanted poster who was caught cheating at cards,
identifiable by her preference for wearing feathers. Both are
outstanding, especially Dickenson, where in every scene with Wayne she
literally knocks his socks off, a smart headed woman, a whirlwind of sexual
energy who steals every scene she’s in. She’s a dynamo.
What makes these characters so useful is the way each one is
used, as they carry the action when the camera is turned on them, as there’s an
underlying story of a jailhouse that is surrounded and outnumbered, a sheriff
who hasn’t a clue how to hold his prisoner as they wait for a federal marshal
to arrive in six days. How do they hold them off? Rather than focus
on the tension, which is established early, the director clearly delights in
the infectiously appealing nature of pairing off different personalities,
letting them each have brilliantly extended scenes together, where the bravado
performances only color the already heightened tension. Hawks is really
in no hurry to deliver the inevitable showdown scene, which he delivers in
spades, but the film is actually everything leading up to that moment, where
the people become the story, where they have to stand their ground and take
stock of one another, where they may occasionally wobble a bit in their belief
in themselves, but they’re surprisingly supportive in the way they relate to
one another. It’s impressive how Hawks works a few songs into the works
while sitting around the jailhouse, where Dean Martin sings “My Rifle, My Pony,
and Me” accompanied by a guitar-playing Nelson, with Brennan on the harmonica,
and all three chime in to Nelson’s “Cindy.” The entire film is superbly
written and directed, brilliantly acted, perfectly paced, with some terrific
naturalistic sounding dialogue. The bad guys and the owners of the hotel
may be stock characters prone to stereotypes, but they don’t infect the
psychological intrigue that is established early, as the film is surprisingly
intricate, establishing a protective and harmonious community before our eyes
through the complex interplay of such appealing characters.
