Rio Bravo

Do you have a favorite western? No? What's wrong with you?!? Do a search for top 10 lists, of fans and critics alike pointing out their favorite westerns, and you'll see countless picks. One that pops up often that I'm not a huge fan of is 1952's High Noon. You know who else isn't a big fan? The Duke himself, John Wayne. Working with a deep cast, a talented director and a great script, here's Wayne's response to High Noon, 1959's Rio Bravo.

In the Texas border town of Rio Bravo, Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) finds himself in a bit of a spot. A man named Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) callously shot down an unarmed man in a bar argument and is now sitting in Chance's jail. A murderer in itself isn't big news, but when Joe's brother is one of the richest men in Texas -- and with a small army of gunmen at his side -- that provides some problems for Chance. Burdette has bottled up the town so Chance can't transport his prisoner and he can't bring help in either. All the sheriff is left with is two deputies, Dude (Dean Martin), a drunkard, and Stumpy (Walter Brennan), an aging crippled man, to help do the job. With the town waiting to see what happens, Burdette's gunmen similarly waiting on the streets, Chance goes about putting a plan into action to get out alive and bring Joe Burdette to justice.

Wowza, what a good movie, a western that deserves its classic status. I grew up watching this Howard Hawks-directed western a lot as a kid and recently revisited it for the first time in years. The plot description proved a little rough because....well, the script is excellent, but the story isn't the most well-connected, concise of stories. If there's a complaint, it's that at 141 minutes and with an episodic story, things can be a tad slow at times, but you never really notice it (or I didn't at least). It isn't a comedy western, and it isn't a cynical, ultra-dark western, but somewhere in between as it mixes comedy (the script again), the drama and the action. Old Tucson is a great location spot for the town of Rio Bravo, that archetypal winding, dusty western town. Composer Dimitri Tiomkin turns in a great subtle score -- very whistle-worthy -- and even test runs part of the score he'd use a year later in The Alamo. All key contributions to a winning formula.   

Of all his movies, John Wayne is most associated with the western genre. Many consider his western roles -- The Searchers, Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Shootist -- to be among his strongest. Maybe not the showiest part, but Wayne's leading role here as Rio Bravo sheriff John T. Chance is Wayne at his tough, likable, easy-going best. If not his best acting performance, it's one of his most visually iconic, the vest over the red or blue shirt, the bent-up hat brim, the ever-present Winchester rifle in his hand. In the acting department, this is one of my favorites of the Duke's. He makes it look criminally easy what he's doing. He lets those around him show off more with "bigger" performances, content to do his thing. In the process, you can't help but watch him. He's the tough lead, the lead with some great comedic timing, and has one of his all-time best love interests in the form of Angie Dickinson as Feathers, a young woman with some troubles behind her. That chemistry is perfect, Wayne's Chance more and more exasperated with each passing scene. Just a great underplayed performance.

As a director, one of Hawks' specialties was the bonds and friendships formed among men in serious situations, a life and death drama. I don't know if that dynamic was ever better than it was here. There isn't a weak spot in the bunch with Wayne as Chance and Martin and Brennan as his maligned deputies. Even teen idol Ricky Nelson manages to find a good spot as Colorado Ryan, a young gunslinger looking to mind his business....at first. Facing seemingly insurmountable odds, they bond, put their differences aside and become stronger as a collective group. Their chemistry is evident throughout, their dialogue crackling with each passing scene. Sure, they sing a couple songs together (My Rifle, My Pony and Me, Cindy, listen HERE) but it's Dean Martin! You're rooting for these guys, each of the quartet bringing something different to the table. Just hard to beat, one of the best, underrated casts in a western.

That's where the script steps to the plate. We don't get much in the way of backstory about most of the characters. In a line here and there, we pick up more than you'd think. We learn what drove Dude to drink, why cackling, ranting Stumpy has a limp, why Chance carries a rifle. Good, interesting characters we get to know quickly, and from there, the cast does the rest. Also look for Ward Bond (in his last film role) as Pat Wheeler, a freight owner who offers to help Chance, an underused, sneering Akins at his best, John Russell as his intimidating older brother, Nathan, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez as Carlos, the hotel owner, and Estelita Rodriguez as his wife, Consuela. 

So there isn't the most pointed story here. So be it, Hawks was never interested in the most linear, fast-paced stories. The pacing works here, too many episodic moments to mention. The opener is several minutes of silence as we're introduced to Chance and Dude, ultimately seeing Joe gun an unarmed man down. My personal favorite is a set piece with Chance and Dude following a wounded hired killer with muddy boots into a saloon...only they can't find him. It's a great little scene with an excellent payoff. The movie is full of such great moments, including the finale as Chance and Co. go toe-to-toe with the Burdettes during a prisoner exchange with Old Tucson again providing a pitch perfect backdrop to the western action.

Is it a perfect movie? No, but as far as entertaining movies goes, this one is hard to beat whether it is a western or not. The cast is perfectly used, showing off a chemistry that makes it fun to watch. Some truly funny laughs (Chance calling Stumpy "a treasure" and kissing him on his bald head), some great dialogue and one-liners, and a script that provides some great quotables. Hard to beat, and one of my favorite movies. If you're a fan, check out both El Dorado and Rio Lobo, Hawks basically remaking his own movie twice more.

Rio Bravo (1959): ****/****

The Big Sky

As a fan of westerns, I'm always somewhat taken aback when someone tells me they don't like the genre. Everyone has their preferences. I can understand and appreciate that.  Like any successful genre though, I think you have to give it a chance. Do some exploring, see what's good, what's considered a cult classic, what's bad and what you should avoid. There are little groups of niches within the western of course, one that any movie fan should be able to appreciate, the expansion to the west in the United States, like 1952's The Big Sky.

The 19th Century was an incredibly busy one for the ever-growing United States as hundreds of thousands of people moved west trying to build new lives. American expansion isn't an easily handled topic for a movie with all its epic qualities and large scale and scope, but when handled right, it can be a beautiful story in the end. 'Sky' isn't your typical western, focusing on some of the first explorers into uncharted land more than gunfighters and shootouts. That's a good thing though, a big, expansive western about a chapter in American history so often overlooked. Our history has to start and continue, and this is as good a place as any to jump off from.

It's 1832, and Jim Deakins (Kirk Douglas) is traveling to Louisville when he meets another young traveler, Boone Caudill (Dewey Martin). With so much open land to the west of St. Louis just waiting to be explored, Jim and Boone head west looking to join up with Boone's uncle, Zeb Calloway (Arthur Hunnicutt), a trapper and frontiersman, one of the few men to explore deep into the west and the unknown. They find him in a jail cell and sign on for an expedition up the unexplored Missouri River. Along for the trip is Teal Eye (Elizabeth Threatt), a Blackfoot princess who will be used as a negotiating ploy in the trading process for beaver pelts. Trading seems a long way off though as Jim, Boone, Zeb and the crew of the keelboat must fight off Indian attacks, murdering white men, and nature's ever present danger.

Exploring the untapped American west and all its beauty is one of the most simple, direct and straightforward story ideas ever. There is something beautiful in the simplicity; a land untouched by technology or business.  Director Howard Hawks filmed this movie on location in Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the end result is stunning. Seeing the valleys, the mountains, the rivers, you understand why people would risk it all in the 1830s to uproot their families and move them west. That's the most appropriate word I can think of; stunning. It is a gorgeous movie to watch, even if I wondered what the movie would have looked like in color and a widescreen presentation (2 years too early) instead of the black and white standard presentation. Minor potatoes really, color or not, the Tetons are breathtaking.

Depending on the role and the movie he was in, Arthur Hunnicutt could be so downright homey and folksy, so home-spun and backwoods he drove me up a wall.  There is such a thing as being too folksy if you ask me.  He no doubt had talent though, and this is one of his most understated roles. Yes, there are bits of folksy attitude, but in the right doses it works. His Zeb serves as Sky's narrator, explaining what's going on to our crew of adventurers. The narration has some humor to it and never tries to be anything too over the top. It's just the trials and tribulations of traveling as Zeb sees it, and that's all.  He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, losing to Anthony Quinn in Viva Zapata!, and it's one he deserved. Hunnicutt and his veteran presence -- as an actor and as his part requires -- gives the movie that steady feeling of knowing where it needs to go.

In a variation on the buddy picture, Douglas and Martin are cast together nicely as Jim and Boone, two friends always competing, always getting into scrapes, and always coming out on the other side the better for it.  These aren't characters who develop and change much, just two young men looking for adventure, and that's okay because that's all the story needs. They look to be having a lot of fun, and that's all that matters. Threatt never starred in another movie, strange considering how good she is here, making an easily stereotypical part into something better. Some of the keelboat's crew include Jourdonnais (Steven Geray) or 'Frenchy' to his men, the captain and owner of the boat, Romaine (Buddy Baer), a Goliath of a man, and Henri Letondal as La Badie, the cook. The very white Hank Worden plays Poordevil, a groan-inducing, stereotypical portrayal of an Indian who's touched in the head, while Jim Davis is Streak, a conniving bandit working against the expedition.  

With a story that covers several months on the trail/river, 'Sky' leans more toward an episodic plot than one continuous storyline.  This is both good and bad.  The more interesting parts flow at a quick pace, but the slower ones drag it down. I don't dislike the movie, but at 138 minutes it feels a tad long in places, especially toward the end.  Lost footage has been reinserted into the movie as well so that could have something to do with it. None of this is enough to not recommend this movie though. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is a nice touch, as big and wide as the story it accompanies, and the movie itself is a beauty. It doesn't receive the recognition it deserves so see if you can track a copy down or at least look out for it at TCM.

The Big Sky <---trailer (1952): ***/****

Only Angels Have Wings

Movies are right at home, the old bread and butter, when dealing with characters running away from something, looking for another shot after some horrific mistake was made in the past.  If movies have taught us anything, for an American in this situation, there's two options...both equally deadly.  One, enlist in the French Foreign Legion where you will most likely get killed in a nasty massacre in the desert.  Two, go to South America and waste away in some dingy, damp village.  That's not the whole premise of 1939's Only Angels Have Wings, but it's close.

Reading the description of this 1939 flick from Columbia Pictures, my first reaction was how similar it sounded to the French classic The Wages of Fear and its American remake Sorcerer.  'Angels' obviously came first, but it deals with a similar topic.  Deep in an unnamed South American country, a group of Americans -- displaced by their choice or someone else forcing their hand -- working for a struggling company.  For one reason or another, they're all running from something in their past, now forced into doing a job that will just as likely kill them as make them rich.

Waiting for her ship to depart, American singer Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) stumbles upon a little haven of back home in a South American port city. A complex owned by a European immigrant, Dutch (Sig Ruman) and run by an American pilot, Geoff Carter (Cary Grant), has a restaurant that serves good, old-fashioned American food with a runway outside the building. Bonnie is quickly drawn to the smooth, suave, most definitely aloof Geoff, only to find out how perilous the situation is.  Dutch and Geoff have signed a contract to deliver the mail twice a week by plane to cities inland for six months and then receive a big payday.  If they fail to deliver, the contract is void.  With their stable of American pilots and World War I era planes, they've managed to make it five months and two weeks.  They're close to their goal, but the flights become ever more dangerous, and the only way through to the next city is a flight through the fog-covered, looming mountains inland.

I watched this movie over a couple of sittings -- stupid work, getting in the way of my movie watching -- and certainly enjoyed it enough, although I didn't love it. My complaint here is one I usually have with movies released in the 1930s.  Hollywood was still figuring out what worked and didn't work with movies, what audiences wanted and what they didn't want.  For the most part, the acting isn't over the top as the cast thankfully turns down the theatrical stage touches.  It is filmed completely on an indoor set which limits the scope of the story, but in an effort to balance that out, there is some great footage of these rickety looking planes flying through the mountains, taking off and landing, canceling out some of the cheaper effects to illustrate the planes "flying" through rough weather conditions.  So what was wrong with this flick? I'm not sure, but something was missing.

Director Howard Hawks carved quite a nice little niche for himself in a career that includes over 40 movies, many of them held in high regard among fans and critics. His stories often focused on a group of men brought together through unlikely, strenuous circumstances having to band together to accomplish a similar goal, bonding in the process and putting their differences aside.  'Angels' is right at home with that premise.  Grant is the tough but fair owner and chief pilot of this motley "airline," if you can call it that.  His pilots include the always reliable and entertaining Thomas Mitchell as Kid Dabb, a veteran pilot struggling with vision loss, Allyn Joslyn, Noah Beery Jr., Victor Kilian, John Carroll, and Don Barry filling out the ranks of this misfit outfit.

Through all the slower portions of the movie with the pretty awful love triangle, Geoff's crew and their story carries the movie.  Grant is at his suave, roguish best, Mitchell is as reliable as ever as the smart-mouthed sidekick, and Rugan and Co. fill in the holes wherever necessary.  A key subplot has a new pilot, Bat MacPherson (Richard Barthelmess) arriving to fly, only to find out he's got a past with Mitchell's Kid. The men hold his past decisions against him, but MacPherson rises to the occasion as he desperately attempts to prove it was all a mistake.  That's what works so well here.  All these men are running from something so whether they realize it or not, they're all in the same boat.  If this business have any hopes of succeeding, they will have to work together and put their differences aside.  For Hawks, it's a tried and true formula, and as usual, it works.

Now Hawks used that formula a few more times during his career, but he also threw in those awkward, unnecessary love triangles too.  Arthur's Bonnie falls for Cary Grant almost right away so then we get two hours of her trying to figure out if she belongs with him.  Then MacPherson's new bride (21-year old Rita Hayworth) ends up being a woman from Grant's past to complicate things.  Oh, no! Two women in love with the same man?!?  If you have an iota of intelligence, you know who he is going to end up with, but my goodness, it takes awhile getting there.  Thankfully, there's enough positive going on to outweigh the dull, slow-moving negatives. You can watch it at Youtube, starting HERE with Part 1 of 12.

Only Angels Have Wings <---trailer (1939): ***/****

Air Force

As part of a themed day a few weeks ago, Turner Classic Movies aired a handful of World War II movies honoring the heroes of December 7, 1941 when the Japanese led a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Almost 70 years since one of the biggest, most violent on attacks ever on American soil, it's still hard to wrap your head around the immensity of the attack and how it drastically changed the course of human history.  Some movies like From Here to Eternity focus exclusively on the attack, but others use December 7th as a jumping off point, like 1943's Air Force.

Watching a movie released in 1943 in the U.S., you have to know what you're getting into.  Made with the backing of the U.S. Air Force (and most likely the U.S. government), this is a war story dripping with propaganda.  It was made to encourage the home front, make sure Americans knew what our armed forces were fighting for.  Overall, the movie doesn't overdo it with its message until an unnecessary gruesome finale, but the first 90 minutes is a perfect example of how good a movie can be even with an incredibly one-sided story.  Flag-waving in just about every scene and a can't beat the U.S. mentality end up working toward the positive here.

Taking off from a runway in San Francisco, a B-17 bomber named 'Mary Ann' piloted by 'Irish' Quincannon (John Ridgely) and Bill Williams (Gig Young) heads out over the Pacific bound for Hickam Field in Hawaii. With several new members of the nine-man crew, they have little experience working together but quickly find themselves needing to get on the same page.  They fly into Hawaii on the afternoon of Dec. 7, 1941 just hours after the sneak attack by the Japanese Navy that almost cripples the U.S. Pacific fleet.  They land and are are quickly given orders to continue flying to the west.  Reports of Japanese attacks throughout the Pacific have the High Command on a major alert, and every man, pilot, and plane is needed to hold back the advance if the U.S. has any chance of staying in the conflict.

Director Howard Hawks did a wise thing setting this story in and around the opening days of the U.S. involvement in World War II. Looking at the story as simplistically as possible, we get a tour of the Pacific in the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor.  We see Battleship Row still in flames, we see the heroic defenders of Wake Island as they await a Japanese attack, we see military bases in Manila falling back under waves of Japanese attackers.  It serves two purposes, one being a jumping off point for everything that's going on, and two, it shows these heroic efforts put forth by American soldiers, Marines, sailors, civilians and pilots throughout the Pacific against impossible odds.  And make no mistake, many of the people on Wake and throughout the Philippines were either killed or captured by the Japanese.

The propaganda is held in check for the most part with two major exceptions.  A machine gunner on the back of a small fighter plane is forced to bail and attempts to parachute to dry land.  Floating back to the ground, he is machine-gunned by a Japanese pilot.  Then as he lies dying on the ground, the pilot flies over again and finishes him off in brutal fashion.  First, there's documented cases of Japanese pilots doing this throughout the war.  Subtle it is not, but in terms of portraying the Japanese in as brutal a depiction as possible, this gets the job done.  Second exception, 2001's Pearl Harbor syndrome. Instead of just telling the story of Pearl Harbor, the 2001 movie adds on the telling of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo because us Americans, we need our happy endings. Here in Air Force, Hawks depicts a fictional, very one-sided depiction of the American Air Force destroying a Japanese invasion fleet on its way to Australia.  It's overdone and just tries too hard, reveling in the defeat of the Japanese.  I understand this might have been a necessary ending in 1943, but now in 2010 it just doesn't work.

Those complaints aside, I loved the movie starting with one of Hawks' biggest strengths as a director.  He had a knack for working perfectly with predominantly male, ensemble casts, and Air Force has a good one.  Ridgely and Young play the pilots of B-17 Mary Ann with the crew including Harry Carey as veteran crew chief Robbie White, John Garfield as new machine gunner Joe Winocki, Arthur Kennedy as bombardier Tommy McMartin, Charles Drake as navigator Monk Hauser, George Tobias as mechanic Weinberg, Ward Wood as radioman Peters, Ray Montgomery as newbie Chester, and James Brown as tag-along fighter pilot Tex Raider. With such a big ensemble, we only get tidbits of info about each man, but they cover a melting pot of the Americans fighting in WWII.  They bond through their common goal and will to survive, doing whatever they can to take the war back at the Japanese.

When propaganda works, it is typically because it hits a nerve.  I've long been a fan of war movies across the board, and you can't help but root in patriotic fashion for this B-17 crew.  For a start, they're very easy to like, all of them.  When one of the crew dies following a Japanese attack, you see the others throw caution to the wind in hopes of reassembling the plane so they can rejoin the war effort.  Carey and Garfield cradling machine guns in their arms fighting off Japanese Zeroes hits you in the gut.  It's over the top and hammy, but it's perfectly portrayed. Obviously now in 2010, we know the Allies won WWII.  But in 1943 the war was still up for grabs, and Americans could always use a positive jolt.  This certainly qualifies.

Air Force <---trailer (1943): *** 1/2 /****