Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Bravo to classic western hit that stands the test of time
Rio Bravo is a classic western where all the elements work largely due to the brilliant cast of John Wayne (John T. Chance), Dean Martin (Dude), Ricky Nelson (Colorado), Angie Dickinson (Feathers), Walter Brennan (Stumpy), Ward Bond (Pat Wheeler), John Russell (Nathan Burdette) and Claude Akins (Joe Burdette).
Chance’s sheriff of the town that gives the film its title becomes the target of ruthless land baron Burdette when he arrests the man’s drunken brother Joe for murder.
When Wheeler offers to lend him his drovers as deputies, Chance refuses on the grounds that these men would get themselves killed worrying about their wives and families.
Filming commenced in the summer of 1958 at the old Tucson Studio, just outside of Arizona, built in 1939 for the 1940 movie Arizona. Today the old studio is a major tourist attraction where visitors can experience what life was like in the old west.
The opening scene in Rio Bravo, when Dean Martin, craving for a drink, enters the saloon has no dialogue; it’s almost a tribute to the silent film era.
Because the movie starred a crooner, Martin, and a teen idol, Nelson, it has a surprise musical interlude where Martin sings My Rifle My Pony and Me and Nelson belts out Get Along Home Cindy, accompanied by Walter Brennan on the harmonica.
Rio Bravo is a classic that looked like money from the beginning. It is generally regarded as one of the last great westerns, produced towards the end of the golden years of Hollywood. It was a box office hit that earned $5.5 million before it was released in Britain.
I was one of the Monklands kids sitting in the New Cinema, Airdrie, in the summer of 1959 keenly anticipating the lights dimming and the curtain going up when there was a big cheer when Daffy Duck appeared in the classic Warner Brothers cartoon Drip Along Daffy.
This was a take on the western movie and the program starter to settle youngsters down to enjoy the thrill of Rio Bravo.
It was a fabulous and exciting movie experience with the added bonus of John Wayne in glorious Technicolor; a totally unforgettable Saturday afternoon matinee event in the days when films were painstakingly
produced and processed instead of digitally printed, where the special effects take over.
Following the release of Big Jake in 1971, which was a huge success and saw a 64-yearold Wayne as the number one box office star in America, The Duke opted for something more demanding than the pictures he had been making.
The Cowboys began life as a 1971 novel by William Dale Jennings who also drafted the screenplay for the 1971 movie version.
Filmed on location in New Mexico and Colorado in Technicolor and Panavision, The Cowboys is a movie that has great pictorial beauty on a grand scale, and the 70mm widescreen
process is most impressive in capturing the gorgeous scenery through a combination of long shots and panoramic images that give the viewer a keen sense of perspective, especially in the fabulous cattle drive sequences.
Another excellent cast was hired for this film including Wayne (Wil Andersen), Roscoe Lee Brown (Jebediah), and Bruce
Dern (Asa Watts).
Warner Brothers released The Cowboys as a full roadshow 70mm presentation, complete with overture intermission and exit music. I first experienced this classic at the 1971 Australian premiere in Melbourne at the Forum Cinema, one of the city’s magnificent picture palaces.
Wayne was an American original. A legendary popular icon who, in 1999, was hailed by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.
Wayne died on June 11, 1979, succumbing to lung cancer. But thanks to digital technology, his library of films is being preserved and restored for future generations to enjoy.