Rio Bravo

Rio Bravo (1959) begins with a town sheriff arresting the brother of a wealthy landowner. He has to hold the man until a federal marshal arrives, and an entire gang is arrayed against him. All he has is a former deputy who drinks, an old crippled jailer and a very young gunman. The film was made directly as an answer to High Noon. John Wayne considered that film un-American and said he had no regrets about the blacklisting of its writer Carl Foreman. Howard Hawks put his objection plainly: he did not think a good sheriff would go running around town like a chicken with its head cut off asking for help. That counter argument determines the structure. The sheriff does not ask for help, he turns people away; he takes only the three he believes can do the job and keeps the rest out of it to protect them. Part of the casting was aimed at younger audiences. Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson are in it, and Hawks put three songs in the film. In the jailhouse Martin sings and Nelson follows with a short number; it is the scene people remember. It was the highest grossing western of 1959, taking 5.75 million dollars in America. Its influence reached beyond the genre. John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 came directly out of this siege structure. It runs 141 minutes. Good for: the classical western, siege stories built on character, and John Wayne. Less good for: 141 minutes with very little plot; much of the film is waiting. The song sequence stops the narrative entirely. The one woman is written to the conventions of the period.