by Tim Webb

Created on: August 03, 2008

I guess for me watching Sunday afternoon TV after a roast dinner always meant sitting down to watch a western. It had to be John Wayne, and one of my favourite films is Rio Bravo. If I had to produce a top ten if films this would easily be in the top four without a doubt.

Made in 1959, Rio Bravo tells the story of John T Chance. A sheriff of a small town in southwest Texas, who must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape from jail. After a friend of the Sheriff is killed trying to muster support for him, the Sheriff and his Deputies, made up of a disgraced drunk called Dude played by Dean Martin and a cantankerous old crippled man called Stumpy played by the legendary Walter Brennan, must find a way to hold out against the rancher's hired guns until the US Marshal arrives. In the meantime, matters are complicated by the presence of a young gunslinger called Colorado played by Ricky Nelson who thinks it is better to take risks rather than sit and wait, and Angie Dickinson, a mysterious beauty who just came in on the last stagecoach named Feathers.

For many, Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo is the clearest exposition of his philosophy of professionalism. His tough lawman solves his own problems without going out looking for help. So he welcomes volunteers and in fact depends on them. What is more, he overcomes issues by displaying intelligence in the way the issue is actually addressed.

The survivors in Hawks' philosophy are the ones who conduct themselves with the greatest degree of coolness and discipline. It is not difficult to appreciate why Hawks has used substantially the Rio Bravo plot, with only minor variations in his subsequent Westerns, El Dorado and Rio Lobo as it is a tried and tested formula that works and works well. In comparison to Fred Zinneman's High Noon, the main character played by Gary Cooper finds it difficult to round up a posse that might help him deal with four desperadoes arriving on a noon train to kill him, whilst in Rio Bravo John Wayne is faced with a similar situation but takes on the forces of evil in the shape of a gang of local tyrants who effectively want the Sheriff out of the way and it was High Noon that inspired Hawks and Wayne to make this film as a right wing statement against that film, a film which it has been well documented that they both detested.

What comes across in the film is that Wayne makes us feel that somehow he'll cope without really letting on how it will be done

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