Top 20: Rio Bravo

You want that gun, pick it up. I wish you would. - John T. Chance

Rio Bravo is a tall glass of lemonade, warming slowly as the ice cubes melt, ignored in favour of watching the sunset with your best friend.

This was a surprise to me when I first saw Rio Bravo. Before I had seen Howard Hawks's 1959 western I was only aware of it as one of the inspirations to John Carpenters 1976 low budget thriller Assault on Precinct 13. Both films have the same rough plot outline: an upstanding law man has to defend their prison and it's occupants against the attack of a local gang while waiting for help to arrive. In execution the films couldn't be more different. Assault on Precinct 13 is a tense action/thriller with a wonderful, dirty 1970's aesthetic. Rio Bravo takes this story of an assault and creates a space for it's characters to relax and explore the nature of friendship.

The best encapsulation of this relaxation is the musical number that happens two thirds of the way through the film. In a typical calm before the storm moment our band of four do-gooders hold up in the prison and sing a song together (the great saddle-sore, cowpoke tune My Rifle, Pony and Me) . With Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson in your film this isn't surprising, in fact it's downright required by movie law that it must happen. But after it's finished Walter Brennan's Stumpy says they should sing something they can all sing along with, so they break out into another full song. This film is one willing to give as much time to it's characters singing together as to its shootouts. In it's lackadaisical tone it's more akin to Dazed and Confused than High Noon.

My knowledge of westerns is limited, mostly confined to spaghetti westerns and the deconstructionist likes of Unforgiven. Even so this plot seems classic to me. Sherif John T. Chance (John Wayne leaning on years of iconography) arrests the brother to the head of a large gang, Nathan Burdette, for murder. Chance has to wait for a few days for the U.S. Marshal's to come and collect the prisoner, and so is also waiting for the Burdette gang to try and rescue their man. With Chance we have Dean Martin's Dude, once a great shot and deputy to Chance, now a drunk trying to sober up. Colorado is a young, talented gunslinger played by Ricky Nelson who comes into town with another of Chance's friends and get's involved. There's Stumpy, an old, crotchety, limping frontiersman who is always complaining about something but is as loyal as a doberman. Feathers, a strong, fast talking love interest for Chance played by Angie Dickinson is a great Hawksian heroine, out pacing everyone around her with her quick wit. And there are a number of other great supporting players adding to the texture of a worn-in, old west town.

The slow, un-deliberate tone is more than just a pleasant way to structure a movie. It is a direct reflection of it's themes of integrity, friendship and hard work in the name of doing good. The opening scene of the film is free of dialogue as we are introduced to Chance, Dude and the Burdette gang. We become witnesses to how far Dude has fallen into shame in his search for a drink, Chance's tough love for him even in his worst moments and the murder that kicks off the plot. The movie is making a claim for our actions being what is important, we might talk all we want but what we do is a large part of what makes us who we are. Chance, Dude, Stumpy and Colorado are willing to stand up to far greater forces to do what they think is right.

But our actions are deep and not always so straight forward, much like a good friendship. In the silent beginning Dude hits Chance over the head after Chance gets in his way for another drink. Later Dude becomes difficult again, lashing out at whoever is closest, which is, of course, his good friends of Chance and Stumpy. The space the movie creates, the slower pacing, allows for these friendships to take on an air of authenticity, showing that friends might not always be friendly but they will always help to fight for what is best.

Even as I praise Rio Bravo there is an unpleasant aftertaste I get. This film, as most westerns seems to, buys wholeheartedly into the myth of redemptive violence To find films that question that you should check out The Searchers and The Unforgiven. Those films take the inherent violence of films like Rio Bravo and ask what such actions might do to a person. Killing in the name of something good is still killing, and as a devoted pacifist it is difficult at times for me to swallow the hypocrisies of a film like Rio Bravo. The plot is put in motion with the killing of an unarmed man for little reason. Yet Chance and Dude are shown killing a number of “bad guys” themselves. They are all armed and trying to kill them, but I do not believe that this cycle of violence will bring about the good Chance and Dude claim to be upholding. This does not stop me from counting the film as one of my favourites, but it is a problem that should not be ignored.

Rio Bravo is a perfect summer movie, especially compared to the likes we are blasted with these days. Rather than watching super beings pummel each other through buildings this film is like the long days that are upon us. It takes its time getting to where its going, preferring to spend that time with good characters who have history together and who enjoy each other. I can imagine the relationships of Rio Bravo existing outside the confines of the story we're told and the film finds its strength there. It is a lazy, hot afternoon of a movie that is best enjoyed with friends.