by Louis Williams

Created on: October 13, 2009   Last Updated: April 04, 2011

Howard Hawk’s RIO BRAVO

This might be called the siege of the jailhouse since the jailhouse—the whole town—is besieged after Sheriff Chance (John Wayne) throws Joe Burdette (Claude Aikens) into the slam for murder and his brother Nathan (John Russell) objects, wants him freed and declares that if Chance doesn’t free him, he himself will get him out. Nathan is the local cattle baron, able to hire all the guns he wants; Chance initially has no one on his side save Stumpy (Walter Brennan), old and crippled who is his bailiff. Nonetheless, determining to hold Joe at all costs till the marshal comes and takes Joe off his hands, his determination wins him allies.

First, Dude (Dean Martin), his former deputy and a drunk, then Colorado (Ricky Nelson), a rider with a freight caravan, whose boss is murdered by Burdette’s men, and finally Feathers (Angie Dickinson), a girl with a past in on the stage, who takes a liking to the sheriff.

What follows is a long game of cat and mouse while the sheriff and his people wait for the marshal and Nathan and his gunnies try to kill them. At the end of the film, however, the unlikelies have won hands down, courtesy their own courage and a wagon load of dynamite, and Nathan and all his gang have been either destroyed or tossed into jail with Joe.

It all sounds pretty tame, and would have been with another cast, but with Wayne as the sheriff, seconded by Martin, Dickinson and, gloriously, Walter Brennan as Stumpy, Rio Bravo entertains hugely, partly because its always nice to see the underdog score over the arrogant and also because this cast works so well together and the script is so funny. Brennan, however, should have gotten top billing because after all the dynamite has exploded you remember him for having taken the stereotypical old western coot, standard at least since “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and made the character zing.

This is a film about redemption. By the end, Dude, the drunk reduced to scraping coins out of spittoons, has sobered up and reclaimed his name; Feathers, the girl running from the law has cleared her name and is clearly going to marry the law, and Stumpy has proved that he is more than a broken down old man. Chance here is almost like the Interlocutor in a minstrel show. The bent characters swirl around him and right themselves while he throughout is as serene as the Rock of Gibraltar, Mr. Tough Love himself. Well, almost. One thing John

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