The film was first released in Japan on December 17, 1966, and then in the United States on June 7, 1967. The film received critical praise and was commercially successful, generating North American rentals of $5,950,000 on box-office receipts of $12 million.[4]
Plot
J.P. Harrah is sheriff of the town of El Dorado and observes that his old friend, gun-for-hire Cole Thornton, has just arrived in response to a mysterious job offer from wealthy landowner Bart Jason. Harrah reveals to Thornton that Jason is actually trying to muscle the honest MacDonald family from their land, and that Thornton's job will entail "taking care of" Harrah. Thornton agrees to turn down the job and rides out to Jason's ranch to tell him so.
Kevin MacDonald and his family hear about Thornton's arrival and fear the worst. The youngest son Luke is made sentry, but falls asleep at his post. As Thornton returns from his confrontation with Jason, Luke is startled awake and fires. Thornton reflexively fires back and wounds Luke in the stomach, and Luke commits suicide before Thornton can stop him, believing his wound fatal. Feeling guilty, Thornton brings the body to the farmhouse and tells Kevin what happened. The only daughter of the MacDonald clan, Joey, rides off before she can hear the truth, and shoots Thornton on his way back to town. Thornton survives, but the bullet has lodged against his spine. Local medic Doc Miller cannot remove it, so Thornton departs after healing, despite the protests of local saloon owner Maudie, who has feelings for him. Over time, the bullet in his back presses against his spine, causing bouts of temporary paralysis in his right side.
Six months later, Thornton is in a saloon out of town, having avoided El Dorado. He witnesses a naive young man, Alan Bourdillion Traherne ("Mississippi"), confronting and killing Charlie Hagan, who killed Mississippi's foster father, Johnny Diamond, two years earlier. Thornton steps in to save Mississippi from retaliation from Charlie's friends, Milt and Pedro. Their employer, famed gunslinger Nelse McLeod, is impressed, and offers Thornton a job in El Dorado, revealing that he has accepted Bart Jason's job offer and that Harrah became a drunk after a girl ran out on him.
Thornton refuses McLeod, and Mississippi and he return to El Dorado ahead of McLeod. They meet with Maudie and Harrah's deputy, Bull, who confirm Nelse's story. After a fistfight with the drunken Harrah, Thornton agrees to use a sobering concoction made by Mississippi to bring Harrah around, with violently effective results. Harrah, ashamed to be the laughingstock that he has become, agrees to stay sober.
Three men shoot and badly wound Kevin MacDonald's son Jared; Thornton, Bull, Mississippi, and Harrah hunt the men into an old church, and gun them down. One man escapes, leading them straight to Jason, whom Harrah arrests and holds for trial. Mississippi stops Joey from killing Jason on the walk back to the jail, and the two begin a relationship.
Bull officially deputizes Mississippi and Thornton. They patrol the town to keep the peace, stopping an attempted attack by McLeod's gang on the jail, during which Harrah is hobbled by a bullet to the leg. Maudie brings them some supplies while they are holed up in the jail, and McLeod's men start harassing her patrons and her. Thornton and Mississippi go to rescue them, but Thornton suffers an attack of paralysis and is captured by McLeod. Harrah agrees to trade Jason for Thornton and leave town, despite Thornton's protests.
Jason and McLeod's men kidnap Saul MacDonald and demand that Kevin turn over his water rights for the return of his son. Rightly suspecting that Jason will kill both Saul and Kevin once he has the water rights, Thornton rides a wagon up to the front door of Jason's saloon, while Harrah, Bull, and Mississippi sneak in the back. Bull shoots one of McLeod's men with an arrow, then blows his bugle, distracting the others while signaling Thornton. Thornton opens fire, killing McLeod, while the rest free Saul. Joey shoots Jason, saving Thornton from being shot and making amends for her previous mistake. Doc Miller's new assistant, Dr. Donovan, agrees to operate on Thornton if he stays in town, and Thornton implies that he may stop wandering to stay with Maudie.
Wayne's horse was a six-year-old Appaloosa stallion named Zip.[5]
Production
Leigh Brackett wrote the original script, which she described as "the best script I had ever done in my life. It wasn't tragic, but it was one of those things where Wayne died at the end." However, she said that as production neared, "the more we got into doing Rio Bravo over again, the sicker I got, because I hate doing things over again. And I kept saying to Howard I did that, and he'd say it was okay, we could do it over again."[6]
Mitchum later said: "When Howard called me, I said, 'What's the story?' and he said, 'No story, just characters' and that's the way it was. Did one scene, put it away, did another, put it away."[7]
Cinematographer Harold Rosson had retired in 1958, but Hawks persuaded him to come back to work. After making the film, Rosson resumed his retirement permanently. El Dorado was shot in Technicolor at Old Tucson Studios just west of Tucson, Arizona, and in and around Kanab, Utah, from October 1965 to January 1966.
The film was Wayne's 138th picture and was filmed before The War Wagon, but its release was delayed so that Paramount's Nevada Smith with Steve McQueen would not have to compete with a John Wayne film at the box office. El Dorado finally reached the theatres in June 1967, a month after The War Wagon had opened.[8] The film was the only screen pairing between Wayne and Mitchum, though they both appear separately in The Longest Day (1962).
El Dorado is the second of three films directed by Hawks about a sheriff defending his office against belligerent outlaw elements, coming after Rio Bravo (1959) and before Rio Lobo (1970), both also starring Wayne in similar roles.
The poem repeated in the film and paraphrased in the theme song is "Eldorado", a ballad poem by Edgar Allan Poe. The paintings in the credits are those of artist Olaf Wieghorst, who makes a brief appearance as Swede Larsen in the film. The musical score was composed by Nelson Riddle. Footage from El Dorado was later incorporated into the opening montage of Wayne's final film, The Shootist, to illustrate the backstory of Wayne's character.
Reception and legacy
Critical reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Howard Thompson praised El Dorado as "... a tough, laconic and amusing Western that ambles across the screen as easily as the two veteran stars. ... [T]he barbed, pungent and frequently funny dialogue, plus some murderous gun forays, add up to crisp entertainment."[9]
Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half stars, stating: "El Dorado is a tightly directed, humorous, altogether successful Western, turned out almost effortlessly, it would seem, by three old pros: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and director Howard Hawks."[10]
Rio Bravo is a 1959 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond. Written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, based on the short story "Rio Bravo" by B.H. McCampbell, the film stars Wayne as a Texan sheriff who arrests the brother of a powerful local rancher for murder and then has to hold the man in jail until a U.S. Marshal can arrive. With the help of a lame old man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter, they hold off the rancher's gang. Rio Bravo was filmed on location at Old Tucson Studios outside Tucson, Arizona, in Eastmancolor, with film processing provided by Technicolor.
William Albert Henry was an American actor who worked in both films and television.
Henry George Carey Jr. was an American actor. He appeared in more than 90 films, including several John Ford Westerns, as well as numerous television series.
Noah Lindsey Beery was an American actor often specializing in warm, friendly character roles similar to many portrayed by his Oscar-winning uncle, Wallace Beery. Unlike his more famous uncle, however, Beery Jr. seldom broke away from playing supporting roles. Active as an actor in films or television for well over half a century, he was best known for playing James Garner's character's father, Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, in the NBC television series The Rockford Files (1974–1980). His father, Noah Beery, enjoyed a similarly lengthy film career as an extremely prominent supporting actor in major films, although the elder Beery was also frequently a leading man during the silent film era.
Rio Lobo is a 1970 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, from a screenplay by Burton Wohl and Leigh Brackett. The film was shot in Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos and in Tucson, Arizona. The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It was the third Howard Hawks film to explore the theme of a town sheriff defending his office against belligerent local outlaws: the others were Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1966), both also starring John Wayne. Rio Lobo was the last film Hawks made.
Lane Chandler was an American actor specializing mainly in Westerns.
Jesse Kenneth Tobey was an American actor active from the early 1940s into the 1990s, with over 200 credits in film, theatre, and television. He is best known for his role as a captain who takes charge of an Arctic military base when it is attacked by a plant-based alien in The Thing from Another World (1951), and a starring role in the 1957-1960 Desilu Productions TV series Whirlybirds.
Robert Donner was an American television and film actor.
Peter Paul Fix was an American film and television character actor who was best known for his work in Westerns. Fix appeared in more than 100 movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career between 1925 and 1981. Fix portrayed Marshal Micah Torrance, opposite Chuck Connors's character in The Rifleman from 1958 to 1963. He later appeared with Connors in the 1966 Western film Ride Beyond Vengeance.
Paul Causey Hurst was an American actor and film director.
Michele Carey was an American actress who was best known for her role as Josephine "Joey" MacDonald in the 1966 Western film El Dorado. She appeared in movies and guest-starred in television series in the 1960s and 1970s.
Robert Golden Armstrong Jr. was an American character actor and playwright. A veteran performer who appeared in dozens of Westerns during his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah.
Richard Alexander was an American film character actor.
Two-Fisted Law is a 1932 American pre-Code Western film directed by D. Ross Lederman for Columbia Pictures, starring Tim McCoy and featuring John Wayne playing a character named "Duke". The picture also features Alice Day, Wheeler Oakman, Tully Marshall, Wallace MacDonald, and Walter Brennan.
Charles Hugh Roberson was an American actor and stuntman.
John Mitchum was an American actor from the 1940s to the 1970s in film and television. The younger brother of the actor Robert Mitchum, he was credited as Jack Mitchum early in his career.
Frank Campeau was an American actor. He appeared in more than 90 films between 1911 and 1940 and made many appearances in films starring Douglas Fairbanks.
Gun the Man Down is a 1956 American western film directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and starring James Arness and Angie Dickinson in her first leading role. The film was produced by Robert E. Morrison for his brother John Wayne's company Batjac Productions. It was the second theatrical feature directed by McLaglen, who was a prolific director of television westerns.
Verna Charlene Stavely, professionally known as Charlene Holt, was an American actress known for her supporting roles in television and film.
Charles Rory Mallinson was an American film and television actor.
References
Notes
↑ These figures refer to rentals accruing to the distributors.
Davis, Ronald L. (1998). Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN978-0806133294.
Dick, Bernard F. (2001). Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN978-0813122021.
McCarthy, Todd (1997). Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood. New York: Grove Press. ISBN978-0802115980.
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