Rio LoboJohn Wayne, in the last of his Civil War characterizations, portrays Cord McNally, a Union Army colonel who loses a gold shipment in a Confederate raid, during which a devoted young officer is also killed. After the end of the war, McNally bears no ill-will toward the leaders of the raid, Pierre Cordona (Jorge Rivero) and Tuscarora Phillips (Christopher Mitchum), who were acting as soldiers, but he still wants the two unknown men on the Union side who they say sold them the information about the gold shipments. A year later, McNally crosses paths with one of the men, now a deputy from Rio Lobo, who is about to take Shasta Delaney (Jennifer O'Neill), a seemingly innocent young woman, out of a neighboring town at gunpoint. A shootout ensues, in which McNally's man and three other Rio Lobo deputies are killed, with help from Cordona -- this makes McNally very interested in what's going on in Rio Lobo, and he decides to go there with Cordona and Shasta. They find a whole community under siege from their own sheriff, a sadistic ex-outlaw named Hendricks (Mike Henry). What follows is a series of confrontations and revelations that are alternately suspenseful, sadistic -- with maimings worthy of a spaghetti western and characters even getting blown to bits -- and even occasionally comical. But the pieces all tie together very neatly, despite a convoluted plot that's sort of Rio Bravo (made 11 years earlier, also starring Wayne and directed by Hawks, and scripted by Leigh Brackett) turned sideways and readjusted to a more cynical era. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
El DoradoHaving struck pay dirt with his 1958 western Rio Bravo,
Howard Hawks more or less remade the picture twice in the 1960s. The first of these rehashes was El Dorado, with Rio Bravo star
John Wayne back for more.
Wayne plays a gunfighter who rides into El Dorado to link up with his old pal, sheriff
Robert Mitchum ("It's the big one with the big two!" declared the film's advertisements).
Wayne has turned down a job with evil land baron
Ed Asner, who'd hoped to drive a family off the land that he needed for its water. That family, headed by
R.G. Armstrong, is convinced that
Wayne is working with
Asner; when
Armstrong's son
Johnny Crawford dies,
Wayne is held responsible, earning him a bullet in the spine from
Crawford's sister
Michele Carey. A year passes:
Wayne returns to El Dorado, in the company of his new saddle pal
James Caan. They find that
Asner is still up to his old tricks, and that
Mitchum has descended into alcoholism. Several plot twists and power shifts ensue, leading to the slam-bang climax, with the partially paralyzed
Wayne, the newly crippled
Mitchum (on crutches), and the concussion-suffering
Caan battling together to stave off
Asner's minions. The final long-shot, of
Wayne and
Mitchum limping off together arm-in-arm, is one of the most enduring images in the entire
Hawks canon. If they loved it twice they'll love it thrice: in 1969,
John Wayne and
Howard Hawks teamed up for a third Rio Bravo derivation, Rio Lobo--which, like the first two films, was scripted by
Leigh Brackett. Incidentally, that's famed artist
Olaf Weighorst (whose paintings appear in the title sequence) in a cameo as the gunsmith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
True GritIn fine Hollywood tradition,
John Wayne had to play a "one-eyed fat man" before the Motion Picture Academy considered him worthy of an Oscar. In True Grit,
Wayne plays grumpy, pot-bellied U.S. marshal "Rooster" Cogburn, hired by 14-year-old Mattie Ross (
Kim Darby) to find Tom Chaney (
Jeff Corey), who killed her father. The headstrong Mattie could have had her pick of lawmen, but selects the aging Cogburn because she believes he has "true grit" (she talks this way all through the picture, so be prepared). Also heading into Indian territory in search of Chaney is Texas Ranger La Boeuf (
Glen Campbell), who wants to collect the reward placed on the fugitive's head for his earlier crimes. Complicating matters are Chaney's scurrilous cronies Ned Pepper (
Robert Duvall), Quincy (
Jeremy Slate), and Moon (
Dennis Hopper), who have no qualms about killing a troublesome teenaged girl like Mattie. While the plot of True Grit, adapted (and streamlined) by
Marguerite Roberts from the novel by
Charles Portis, maintains audience interest throughout, the glue that truly holds this Western together is
John Wayne, delivering one of his finest performances (though some believe he was better in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon).
Wayne's casual charisma is infinitely more effective than the mannered method acting of
Kim Darby and the floundering
non-acting of poor
Glen Campbell. And who could not love the climatic face-off between
Duvall and company and
John Wayne, whose "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!" is not only a classic bit of dialogue, but the apotheosis of the
Wayne mystique. In 1975,
Wayne repeated his True Grit characterization opposite
Katharine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn, but the film failed to match its predecessor and the overall effect was blunted. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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