Event

RIO BRAVO in 35mm

Monday, June 18 @ 7:00 PM / Music Box Theatre
RIO BRAVO
Directed by Howard Hawks 1959
What is a Western? If you come to the genre expecting expansive natural landscapes, daring feats of horsemanship, and a deep engagement with the trailways of American history, then RIO BRAVO falls flat on its face like a hooch-guzzling saloon dweller. If you want your Westerns to be about relationships, honor, purple light in the canyon, and the inexhaustibly fine line between good and good enough, then Rio Bravo is just about perfect. Conceived for the narrowly parochial purpose of rebutting the whiny indecisiveness of HIGH NOON, Howard Hawks and his screenwriters Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett crafted a response so rich in human detail as to make the casus belli irrelevant. John Wayne stars as John T. Chance, a small town sheriff who must keep the peace with a task force that embarrasses his conservative sense of professionalism: a drunken deputy (Dean Martin), a guitar-slinging kid (dreamy Ricky Nelson), a game-legged oldster (dreamy Walter Brennan), a fiercely independent woman (stunning Angie Dickinson), and a loquacious hotel-keeper (Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez). Make no mistake: Rio Bravo is an ambling, seemingly shapeless movie that thinks nothing of stopping the action for a song or two, but the screenplay is a genuine model of economy and an endless fount of arid wisdom. (Sample dialogue from Wayne: Id say hes so good, he doesnt feel he has to prove it.) Photographed in fade-prone Eastmancolor but originally released in Technicolor prints, RIO BRAVO has been cursed in later years with substandard copies that look about as appealing as Dean Martins stubbled chin. We are proud to present one of our favorite films in a sparkling IB Technicolor print. (KW)
141 min Warner Bros. 35mm IB Tech from private collections, permission Warner Bros.
Preceded by: 50s Westerns Trailer Reel