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Rating:
The ease with which Howard Hawks navigated through various film genres—from western to screwball comedy, passing through noir, biopic, gangster movies, and adventure films—achieving results that oscillate between beautiful and masterpiece, would suffice to crown him the prince director of Hollywood's golden age. A different era, unrepeatable, where writers like Faulkner and Hemingway (of whom Hawks was a friend) and screenwriters like Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman collaborated on film productions. "Rio Bravo" (Rio Bravo) does not belong to this era; it is from 1959, in color, and is the last stroke of the aging master who would go on to create two remakes, or rather variations on the same theme ("El Dorado" in 1966 and "Rio Lobo" in 1970), always with John Wayne.
John Wayne is John T. Chance, a former gunslinger now a respected sheriff of a small village on the border with Mexico. Helping him are his two deputies, Dude and Stumpy: Dude (Dean Martin), nicknamed Borachon by the Mexicans, was a nimble gunslinger before a woman, by betraying him, reduced him to a nervous drunkard with debilitating hand tremors; Stumpy (three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan) was a farmer before Nathan Burdette, an arrogant landowner, swallowed his small farm by methods we can imagine. Brennan so skillfully characterizes his role, an old rubicund man with a fast and shrill talk and ready wit, making it an indispensable stereotype in future westerns. On the sidelines, Angie Dickinson (and what a sideline!) in the role of a gambler's widow, still sought after despite redeeming herself long ago, wandering to lose her tracks, and the 19-year-old singer Ricky Nelson ("Hello Mary Lou"), a young prospect of the Colt.
"Rio Bravo" is what Joe Burdette provocatively throws into the spittoon, challenging Dude, who desperately needs a drink, to retrieve it. But Chance kicks the spittoon away, repulsed by how low a man can sink: a brawl erupts between Joe Burdette, his men, Dude, and the sheriff himself, during which Burdette fires point-blank at an unarmed man who was merely trying to calm things down. Burdette is arrested on charges of voluntary manslaughter and incarcerated: he is decadent and boastful and knows that his brother Nathan (mentioned above) will free him soon, at any cost. This is the casus belli that leads to the final decisive showdown between the two factions—the 'good' guys of Chance and the henchmen of Nathan Burdette. In the meantime, there is anticipation and many small stories, among which stands out for its intensity, the tale of Dude, who gradually, with many ups and downs, manages to climb back up and stay away from alcohol. Brilliantly written and acted, "Rio Bravo" was conceived by Hawks and Wayne as a response to "High Noon," which both deemed inferior to its reputation. It's a classic-style western, moralistic without excess, psychologically balanced, adopting tones of comedy enriched by brilliant dialogues, which is characteristic of Hawks' stylistic mark. Entirely shot in American shot (from the knee up), it contains only one close-up focusing on Dean Martin's tremulous hands, who wanted to prove in this film that he could do more than just be the comic sidekick of Jerry Lewis, hitting the mark. It excites because it doesn't take itself too seriously, because it laughs at its stereotypes while firmly resting on the pillars of the genre: friendship, revenge, courage, and general virility. There's space for a few songs, but we are light-years away from rhetoric, and all told, it would be worth seeing solely to enjoy the camera movements, the directorial insights, and the brisk pace of the narrative.
For the series "Whatever happened to cinema of the past?"
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