Red River is a 1948 American Western film, directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. It gives a fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. The dramatic tension stems from a growing feud over the management of the drive between the Texas rancher who initiated it (Wayne) and his adopted adult son (Clift).
Upon its release, Red River was both a critical and commercial success and was nominated for two Academy Awards.[5] In 1990, Red River was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[6][7]Red River was selected by the American Film Institute as the fifth-greatest Western of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008.
Plot
In 1851, Thomas Dunson and his friend Nadine Groot leave St Louis on the California Trail. When they are just north of the Texas border, Dunson says he is going to leave the wagon train saying he will go south and start his ranch there. The trail boss says it isn't safe as there are Indians around and he needs a good gunman like Dunson with the train. Dunson's love interest Fen wants to join him but he tells her to stay with the wagons and he will send for her when he is properly settled. Before he and Groot leave, Dunson gives Fen his late mother's bracelet.
Hours later, as Dunson and Groot reach the Red River (the Texas border), they spot smoke coming from the direction of the wagon train. That night they are attacked by Indians, but manage to kill them all. On the wrist of one, Dunson finds the bracelet he had given. The next day, teenager Matt Garth wanders into their camp, apparently the sole survivor of the wagon train. Dunson takes the boy with them. They enter Texas by crossing the river and four weeks later settle near the Rio Grande. Dunson names his new spread the Red River D, after his chosen cattle brand for his herd. He promises to add M (for Matt) to the brand, once Matt has earned it. Two men arrive and say they work for Don Diego who owns all the land from there south for four hundred miles. Dunson tells them to tell Don Diego that now all land north of the Rio Grande is his. One of the men draws on Dunson, who kills him. He tells the other to tell Don Diego what happened.
After fourteen years Dunson had built a successful ranch but the Civil War has left him broke. His only option is to drive his herd of 10,000 head a thousand miles to the railhead in Missouri, where he believes they will fetch a good price. Cherry Valance, a professional gunman, joins the drive. Valance relates that he has heard the railroad has reached Abilene, Kansas, which is much closer than Sedalia where they are heading. When Dunson confirms that Valance had not actually seen the railroad, he ignores the rumor in favor of continuing to Missouri.
One of the drovers, Bunk Kenneally, causes a stampede by accidentally making a lot of noise while sneaking sugar from one of the chuckwagons, resulting in the death of drover Dan Latimer. When Dunson attempts to whip him for causing the stampede, Kenneally draws his gun. Both Matt and Dunson draw, but Matt is faster, shooting and wounding Kenneally. Dunson confirms that he would have killed Kenneally. Valance tells Matt that he is soft for not shooting to kill.
Dunson keeps driving the men harder and harder and they get more and more disgruntled. They find the lone survivor from an earlier drive who says they should have followed the Chisholm Trail to Abilene. When Dunson presses him, he says he can't remember for sure that the railway had reached Abilene, so Dunson says they will still go to Missouri. Three men say they have had enough and are going to leave the drive. Dunson says they agreed to finish when they signed on. There is a shootout and the three men are killed, with Matt helping Dunson. Three more men leave in the middle of the night, taking precious supplies with them. Dunson sends Valence to bring them back.
They cross the Red River and camp for the night. The next morning Valance returns with two of the three deserters, the other having tried to fight and being killed. When Dunson announces he intends to lynch them, Matt says he won't allow it. Dunson tries to shoot Matt but is shot in the hand by Valance. With the support of the cowhands, Matt takes charge of the drive saying they will head for Abilene, leaving Dunson behind. Groot is the only one who offers to stay with Dunson, but he says go with the drive. As they leave, Dunson says he will find Matt and kill him.
The drive saves a wagon train of gamblers and dance hall girls from an Indian attack. One of the girls, Tess Millay, becomes very interested in Matt, who is not interested, at first. With the weather getting worse, and the next river rising, Matt gets the drive moving on early the next morning. Eight days after they have left, Dunson arrives with some men he has hired to help him catch up with Matt. Dunson is surprised that Tess knows his name. Dunson notices she is wearing his mother's bracelet. He tells Tess what he wanted a son to pass his ranch on to, and that was going to be Matt, until he stole the herd. He offers her half the ranch if she will bear him a son. She agrees, on the condition he abandons his pursuit of Matt, and when he says he won't, she begs to go with him, to which he agrees.
When Matt reaches Abilene, he finds the town has been awaiting the arrival of such a herd to buy. He accepts an offer for the cattle, and later finds Tess in his room. She tells him Dunson is camped a few miles out of town. The next morning, as Dunson comes into town, he is challenged by Valance. They shoot each other, both getting wounded, but Dunson carries on towards Matt. He tells Matt to draw, but he refuses, even after Dunson has emptied his gun with near misses and grazing Matt's cheek. He throws his gun away and does the same with Matt's. Even when he starts punching him, Matt does not fight back, until eventually they both fight until Tess interrupts them. Making peace, Dunson advises Matt to marry Tess and tells him that when they get back to the ranch, he will incorporate an M into the brand, telling Matt that he has earned it.
The film was shot in black and white rather than color, because director Howard Hawks found Technicolor technology to be too "garish" for the realistic style desired.[10]Second unit directorArthur Rosson was given credit in the opening title crawl as co-director. He shot parts of the cattle drive and some action sequences.[11] The film's ending differed from that of the original story. In Chase's original Saturday Evening Post story, published in 1946 as "Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail", Valance shoots Dunson dead in Abilene and Matt takes his body back to Texas to be buried on the ranch.
Alternate versions
During the production and while the film was still being shot, Hawks was not satisfied with the editing and asked Christian Nyby to take over cutting duties. Nyby worked for about a year on the project. After production, the pre-release version was 133 minutes and included book-style transitions. This version was briefly available for television in the 1970s, but was believed to be lost. It was rediscovered after a long search as a Cinémathèque Française 35mm print, and released by the Criterion Collection.[12]
Before the film could be released, Howard Hughes sued Hawks, claiming that the climactic scene between Dunson and Matt was too similar to the film The Outlaw (1943), which both Hawks and Hughes had worked on.[13] Hughes prepared a new 127-minute cut, which replaced the book inserts with spoken narration by Walter Brennan.[14] Nyby salvaged the film by editing in some reaction shots, which resulted in the original theatrical version.[14] This version was lost, and the 133-minute pre-release version was seen on television broadcasts and home video releases. The original theatrical cut was reassembled by Janus Films (in co-operation with UA parent company MGM) for their Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD release on May 27, 2014.[12]
Film historian Peter Bogdanovich interviewed Hawks in 1972, and was led to believe that the narrated theatrical version was the director's preferred cut.[14] This view was upheld by Geoffrey O'Brien in his 2014 essay for the Criterion release.[13] Contrarily, some, including film historian Gerald Mast, argue that Hawks preferred the 133-minute version.[15] Mast points out that this is told from an objective third-person point of view, while the shorter cut has Brennan's character narrating scenes he could not have witnessed.[14] Filmmaker/historian Michael Schlesinger, in his essay on the film for the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, argues that when Bogdanovich interviewed Hawks, the director "was 76 and in declining health", when he was prone to telling tall tales. Schlesinger also points out that Hughes's shortened version was prepared for overseas distribution because it is easier to replace narration than printed text.[14]
Soundtrack
The song "Settle Down", by Dimitri Tiomkin (music) and Frederick Herbert (lyric), heard over the credits and at various places throughout the film score, was later adapted by Tiomkin, with a new lyric by Paul Francis Webster, as "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me" in the 1959 film Rio Bravo for an onscreen duet by Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson as John Wayne and Walter Brennan look on.[16]
Reception
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film a mostly positive review, praising the main cast for "several fine performances" and Hawks' direction for "credible substance and detail." He only found a "big let-down" in the Indian wagon train attack scene, lamenting that the film had "run smack into 'Hollywood' in the form of a glamorized female, played by Joanne Dru."[17]Variety called it "a spectacle of sweeping grandeur" with "a first rate script," adding, "John Wayne has his best assignment to date and he makes the most of it."[18]John McCarten of The New Yorker found the film "full of fine Western shots," with the main cast's performances "all first-rate."[19]Harrison's Reports called the film "an epic of such sweep and magnitude that it deserves to take its place as one of the finest pictures of its type ever to come out of Hollywood."[20]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 100% rating, based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 8.80/10.[21]
Roger Ebert considered it one of the greatest Western films of all time.[22]
This movie was the last movie shown in the 1971 Peter Bogdanovich motion picture, The Last Picture Show.
In 1990, Red River was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
To commemorate their work on the film, director Howard Hawks had special Western belt buckles made up for certain members of the cast and crew of Red River. The solid silver belt buckles had a twisted silver wire rope edge, the Dunson brand in gold in the center, the words “Red River” in gold wire in the upper left and lower right corners, the initials of the recipients in the lower left corner, and the date "1946" in cut gold numerals in the upper right corner. Hawks gave full-sized (men's) buckles to John Wayne, his son David Hawks, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, assistant director Arthur Rosson, cinematographer Russell Harlan, and John Ireland. Joanna Dru and Hawks' daughter Barbara were given smaller (ladies') versions of the buckle. According to David Hawks, other men's and women's buckles were distributed, but he can only confirm the family members and members of the cast and production team listed above received Red River D buckles.
Wayne and Hawks exchanged buckles as a token of their mutual respect. Wayne wore the Red River D belt buckle with the initials "HWH" in nine other movies: Rio Bravo (1959), North to Alaska (1960), Hatari! (1962), McLintock! (1963), Circus World (1964), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), El Dorado (1966), The War Wagon (1967) and Rio Lobo (1970). The actor did this even when he wasn't filming under the direction of Howard Hawks, with one known exception: Apparently John Wayne didn't wear the Red River belt buckle in films of John Ford.
In 1981, John Wayne's son Michael sent the buckle to a silversmith in order to have duplicates made for all of Wayne's children. While in the silversmith's care, it was stolen and has not been seen since. Red River D buckles, made by a number of sources, are among the most popular and sought after icons of John Wayne fans.[23]
The Thing from Another World, sometimes referred to as just The Thing, is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, directed by Christian Nyby, produced by Edward Lasker for Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film stars Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer. James Arness plays The Thing. The Thing from Another World is based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell.
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.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a 1962 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and James Stewart. The screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck was adapted from a 1953 short story written by Dorothy M. Johnson. The supporting cast features Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Woody Strode, Strother Martin and Lee Van Cleef.
Walter Andrew Brennan was an American actor and singer. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938) and The Westerner (1940), making him one of only three male actors to win three Academy Awards, and the only male or female actor to win three awards in the supporting actor category. Brennan was also nominated for his performance in Sergeant York (1941). Other noteworthy performances were in To Have and Have Not (1944), My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959). On television, he starred in the sitcom The Real McCoys (1957-1963).
The Chisholm Trail was a trail used in the post-Civil War era to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. The trail was established by Black Beaver, a Lenape guide and rancher, and his friend Jesse Chisholm, a Cherokee merchant. They collected and drove numerous cattle along the trail to Kansas, where they could be shipped east to achieve higher prices. The southern terminus was Red River Station, a trading post near the Red River along the northern border of Texas. The northern terminus was a trading post near Kansas City, Kansas. Chisholm owned both of these posts. In the years of the cattle drives, cowboys drove large herds from ranches across Texas to the Red River Station and then north to Kansas City.
Joanne Dru was an American film and television actress, known for such films as Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, All the King's Men, and Wagon Master.
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.
Rooster Cogburn, also known as Rooster Cogburn , is a 1975 American Western film directed by Stuart Millar, and starring John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn. Written by Martha Hyer, based on the character Rooster Cogburn from Charles Portis' 1968 Western novel True Grit, the film is a sequel to the 1969 film True Grit, which also starred Wayne as Cogburn. The plot details the continuing adventures of Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, an aging one-eyed lawman, whose badge is suspended due to his record of routine arrests that end in bloodshed. He is offered a chance to redeem himself by bringing in a group of bank robbers who have hijacked a wagon shipment of nitroglycerin, and finds himself aided in his quest by a spinster whose father was killed by the criminals.
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 Nicholas 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.
The Cowboys is a 1972 American Western film starring John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Bruce Dern, and featuring Colleen Dewhurst and Slim Pickens. It was the feature film debut of Robert Carradine. Based on the 1971 novel of the same name by William Dale Jennings, the screenplay was written by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank, Jr., and Jennings, and the film was directed by Mark Rydell.
The Dawn Rider is a 1935 American Western film starring John Wayne and directed by Robert N. Bradbury.
Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were driven from Texas to railheads in Kansas, for shipment to stockyards in St. Louis and points east, and direct to Chicago. The long distances covered, the need for periodic rests by riders and animals, and the establishment of railheads led to the development of "cow towns" across the frontier.
Christian Nyby was an American television and film director and editor. As an editor, he had seventeen feature film credits from 1943 to 1952, including The Big Sleep (1946) and Red River (1948). From 1953 to 1975 he was a prolific director of episodes in many television series, including Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. As a feature film director, he is likely best known for The Thing from Another World (1951).
Riders of Destiny is a 1933 pre-Code Western musical film starring 26-year-old John Wayne as Singin' Sandy Saunders, the screen's second singing cowboy. It was the first of a series of sixteen Lone Star Westerns made for Monogram Pictures between 1933 and 1935, by Wayne and director Robert N. Bradbury, and the first pairing of Wayne with George "Gabby" Hayes.
Charles Hugh Roberson was an American actor and stuntman.
Charles Bert Hayward was an American motion picture stuntman and actor. He was associated particularly with the films of John Wayne. He doubled for most of the great Western and action stars of the 1950s-1980s.
Paige Carpenter-Smith is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Neighbours, played by Olympia Valance. The actress was cast in February 2014 after a lengthy audition process, which included four call-backs. Series producer Jason Herbison said Valance was cast in the role as she was "the perfect fit" for the character. Valance had been a successful model prior to her casting and Paige marked her first acting role. Valance's half-sister Holly Valance previously appeared in the show as Felicity Scully. Valance was initially contracted for three years. She made her first screen appearance during the episode broadcast on 2 June 2014. Valance filmed her final scenes in November 2017 and Paige's departure aired on 30 March 2018. Valance returned on 24 February 2020, as part of the serial's 35th anniversary celebrations. On 4 May 2022, Valance confirmed that she was returning for the show's final episodes and Paige returned on 20 July 2022 until the show's final episode on 28 July 2022.
"The Colter Craven Story" is the November 23, 1960 black-and-white episode of the American television western series, Wagon Train, which had an eight-season run from 1957 to 1965. Presented as the 9th installment of the hour-long program's 4th season, it is the third of four episodes of various television series directed by filmmaker John Ford, the only four-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Director.
Tess of the Storm Country is a 1960 American drama film directed by Paul Guilfoyle, written by Charles Lang and starring Diane Baker, Jack Ging, Lee Philips, Archie Duncan, Nancy Valentine and Bert Remsen. It is based on the novel with the same title by Grace Miller White and its adaptation for the stage by Rupert Hughes. The film was released on December 8, 1960 by 20th Century-Fox.
Siege at Red River is a 1954 American Western film directed by Rudolph Maté and written by Sydney Boehm. The film stars Van Johnson, Joanne Dru, Richard Boone, Milburn Stone, Jeff Morrow, and Craig Hill. The film was released on May 1, 1954, by 20th Century Fox.
References
↑ "Red River". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved May 17, 2018.
↑ Thomas F. Brady. "Hollywood Deals: Prospects Brighten for United Artists – Budget Runs Wild and Other Matters", New York Times 1 Feb 1948, p. X5.
↑ Andreychuk, Ed (1997). The Golden Corral: A Roundup of Magnificent Western Films. McFarland & Company Inc. pp.24–25. ISBN0-7864-0393-4.
↑ Cohn, Lawrence (October 15, 1990). "All Time Film Rental Champs". Variety. p.M-180. ISSN0042-2738.
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