Commemoration: Howard Hawks' 'Rio Bravo'

The classic western "Rio Bravo" comes with an extra bonus DVD and this is one of three programs on that disk. It's enjoyable and talks about why this film is a classic. Mostly it consists of interviews (though only one of the stars, Angie Dickenson, was alive to be interviewed for the documentary) with various famous folks and film clips.

The biggest problem with the film--and the reason I didn't give it a higher score--is that the rest of the cast and the director had long since died. Without John Wayne, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan, Ricky Nelson and the director, Howard Hawks, the film does come up a bit short. But the ever-present Peter Bogdonovich (who seems to be in practically every similar film lately, as he's quite the film historian) and the rest try their best and give lots of good background information that make the wonderful film seem even more wonderful. If you love the film, then see this documentary to round out your viewing experience.

This is considered Howard Hawks' "most personal film" and also his "most influential". This brief look at the film's development more than adequately covers why it is both and why John Carpenter says of all the great Westerns, this one "has everything".

What is interesting to me is that before making this film, Hawks looked at television and saw that the appeal of TV was the characters or actors, not the plot. And this is absolutely true -- although television has become more long-form, it used to be a very character-driven 30 minutes each week. Could this be translated to a movie?

I also like how the film was a response to "High Noon", which Hawks felt violated an ethical principle by having non-gunfighters be recruited to defend the town. What is the political message -- collectivism versus individualism? Taking responsibility for yourself and doing your job? Hard to say.