dave-302

This is a wonderful film, one of great pathos and sensitivity. Orson Welles was drawn to Tarkington's novel because Tarkington had been a friend of Welles' father and Welles identified strongly with the story, seeing something of his own family's history there.

Whether it is better than Kane is a fun question for film clubs to debate (I did once but I don't now), but it is interesting to note that while Orson Welles was particularly bitter that RKO re-shot his ending to make it more appealing to audiences, if you read the novel you will see that it is the novel's ending that RKO tacked on. Welles' ending was of his own invention and would have given the film a completely different tone.

So it is ironic that Welles always seemed to claim that RKO had destroyed the integrity of the novel's story when they only preserved it, if rather poorly in execution.

"Rio Bravo" must be one of the most over-rated Westerns ever. The story as presented is suitable for a TV show, and so are the sets, the lighting and the direction. Much has been made of its "tight story construction" and that Hawks made it to refute "High Noon" (he was right to do so), but take away Dean Martin's and Angie Dickinson's sub-plots and the story arc, a series of repetitious action sequences that lead up to a predictable climax, is flatter than the Texas horizon.

I believe this film really marks the beginning of the end for its two collaborators - Wayne and Hawks. John Wayne in particular, who could be very good in the right role - think of "Red River" and Ford's "The Searchers" only three years before "Rio Bravo" - shows the first signs of acting laziness that would degrade into self-parody over the coming years. He carries his role through the power of his screen presence, which was considerable, but there's little acting there, (or re-acting, Wayne's preferred acting method). He has no connection with the Angie Dickinson character, the absurdly named Feathers, and the resolution of their love story sub-plot is embarrassing and obvious. Miss Dickinson tries hard with an out of date character type that Hawks over-employed in his films - the girl who's really one of the boys. Their scenes together look like early rehearsals.

Other roles are capably handled by solid character actors like Walter Brennan, Claude Akins and Ward Bond. There are near cameos by Bob Steele and Harry Carey Jr. Dean Martin as Dude comes off best in the film. In danger of fading away after the break up with Jerry Lewis (and perhaps feeling the hot breath of the great Duke Mitchell on his neck), he needed to establish himself as a solo performer and thus confounded his critics by demonstrating that he could act, just as Ricky Nelson confounded no one by demonstrating that he could not. Interestingly, it has been rumored for years that Elvis was originally offered the role of Colorado but Colonel Parker wouldn't let him take it. At any rate, Martin is quite good mainly because he has the meatiest role; his is the only character that changes. Other than Dude and anybody who gets killed off, no one is changed by the experience of the story. Well OK, John Wayne falls in love, but who do you think will do the changing in that relationship?

As for Howard Hawks, I see nothing in his handling of this film that I haven't seen in other Hawks films. This can of course be said of Ford and other older directors, but the entire production looks tired and uninteresting. I have watched Rio Bravo many times and must admit its easy to get pulled into the story, but still, I remain mystified by its allure because in the end its a disappointing experience. The fact that one can tune in at any point in the plot and follow along, is, to me, not evidence of classic structure, but a sad indication of its fundamental shallowness.