Warners' Once In A Lifetime Star Combination

Rio Bravo Packs a 1959 Wallop

Quick recipe for a better Rio Bravo: 90% less of Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez and Estelita Rodriguez, 50% off Angie Dickinson's part, her line "I guess I talk too much" a truest uttered in whole of the film, tablespoons more of Rick Nelson, a biggest asset to Rio Bravo outside of Wayne and Dean Martin, and lastly a lingering shot of Dude, or later one of Burdette's henchmen, with hands deep in the spittoon to which a coin is tossed. Latter mention is me being glib, but what I noted in latest Bravo view was fact of no one actually shown reaching into that spittoon. An ick moment to capture close up to be sure, but I wonder if Hawks chose to omit it, or if he was obliged to do so by a still-in-force PCA (the censor group did demand he trim some of Bravo violence, plus suggestive dialogue at the film's fade). Of course, Dude is interrupted in progress toward the spittoon by John Wayne's Chance kicking it away, redeems his humiliation later where the Burdette man is made to plunge hand for another dollar thrown. We hear coinage being retrieved, but do not see it. Was this ultimate degradation too much for 1959 stomachs to bear? You can see I'm reaching for something fresh to say about Rio Bravo, so much, as in volumes, having been writ by others more eloquent and less drawn to minutiae.

Rio Bravo, like The Searchers, has been ground to powder by over-analysis, but I'm wondering if academics still teach it like they used to. Bravo is gaining on sixty years after all, and must seem mightily old-fashioned to millennials afflicted by it. And there are directors of later accomplishment more fashionable than Howard Hawks. As instructors get younger, there has to be readjustment of directing's pantheon. Name a class that would not respond more favorably to Christopher Nolan or David Fincher than Howard Hawks. Older fans thought Hawks would go forever because he seemed so fresh and modern, but I suspect that time is past. Josef von Sternberg and Stroheim fell off most syllabi years ago, these most sacred of cows back in day when scholars like Herman Weinberg and Everson led the conversation. Are Ford and Capra, for instance, talked about in current film studies? Something tells me --- not. Can someone still active in the field enlighten us? A good by-product of Hawks-neglect would be Rio Bravo going back to the corking western it was in 1959, when everyone crowded in to see favorite movie stars, plus top TV names, plus Ricky Nelson in six-guns and song. That's the Rio Bravo experience I'd give anything to have had.

As told before, I missed Rio Bravo that opener year, but would have seen the trailer, as Bravo was Liberty-booked for the week after The Shaggy Dog, for which I was there. What would my five-year-old reaction have been to Rio Bravo's preview, and its "Once In A Lifetime Combination of Today's Hottest Star Names"? That summer audience would not have come back to study Rio Bravo --- they'd have been there again to revel in it. The trailer must have made an impression even on kindergartner me, what with dynamic tempo, Dimitri Tiomkin custom-scoring those 2:45 minutes and seconds, plus Ricky Nelson making a personal appeal to come see the show. This was marketing at Classic Era twilight. Like with Psycho a year later, there could never be audiences who'd enjoy a movie so much as this one when fresh and new, much of its cast close as a tuning dial at home. First-run of Rio Bravo was indeed that "Once In A Lifetime" when every face on view was known and loved by all in attendance. No associate professor, no would-be revivalist, let alone someone evangelizing for Rio Bravo in cold print, could hope to duplicate that.

Rio Bravo runs 141 minutes. An initial cut was three hours long and evidently previewed, because Dimitri Tiomkin scored whole of it and his cues for the removed footage are still around. Howard Hawks made his later films more lived in by relaxing the tempo and just letting events happen. Late 50's and 60's work from this director seemed to chuck every lesson he or anyone had been taught during an era of structure, pace, and getting it done over three disciplined acts. Hawks had tired of that and realized it wasn't necessarily what audiences wanted in a sit-home-and-watch-television market. He knew it was more about character now and less about action. I'm re-watching everything he made from Rio Bravo to the finish, and note a Zen state that comes of surrender to Hawks' universe. The films being overlong is no impediment, nor are support players (odd assemblage behind John Wayne in Hatari!), or even untried leads (Red Line 7000). Attention can drift between a late-period Hawks and whatever needs doing in the household without loss to viewing pleasure. His people are still at laid-back neutral wherever your focus has gone. I'm finally hep to value of movies like this. They needn't all be taut as banjo strings. Hawks had six left beginning with Rio Bravo, and they are each a pleasure, at least for me, to re-watch.

Hawks observed once that "there are more laughs in Rio Bravo than the comedies I did." To that I'd concur, and add to that list most of other westerns and actioners (certainly ones w/ Bogart) bearing HH signature. Hawks looked for humor in every situation. He'd encourage players to lighten up. The Thing to me is richly funny, and that keeps tension the tauter. Current "dark" interpretation of comic books (an absurdity on its face) could use a Howard Hawks. Oh, for number of times I've sat poised for Stumpy's reaction when the match burns down to his finger, or when Chance kisses him on top of the head, or ... well, let's just say the 141 minutes aren't punitive for me. Again to the context of first-runs --- imagine being a loyal viewer of The Real McCoys, Ozzie and Harriet, Wagon Train, Lawman, and here they all are in one big color western with John Wayne besides. Color alone would have been plenty incentive to come, just as I would later to Munster Go Home. Even Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, trying as can be in Rio Bravo, was known and liked commodity from then-television (a recurring guest to Groucho's You Bet Your Life), and obviously someone John Wayne enjoyed (in for three of his films). It's entirely possible that by next time I watch Rio Bravo, Gonzalez will have become a cherished face among the ensemble, so strike whatever I said earlier about "improving" Rio Bravo.

John Wayne's Chance observes that "it's nice to see a smart kid for a change" after early encounter with Ricky Nelson's "Colorado." I'd guess this was a first time a teen singing idol had been dropped into a mainstream feature to lure youngsters and improve business. It worked for Rio Bravo, how well we shall not know, for what would Rio Bravo have grossed without Ricky Nelson? Wayne was well along as guarantor of a mass audience, entering his fifties as Rio Bravo went before cameras. Nelson was seventeen when shooting began, and I expect most kids who went to see Rio Bravo in 1959 were there for him. Ads bear it out --- note sample above where Ricky is in preferred top left position with reference to three "hit songs" he performs (three? --- I just recall two). No one was closer to reality of selling than showmen on the ground and scratching for sales for that very day their advertising appeared, and on this particular day in summer 1959, Ricky Nelson was Rio Bravo's biggest noise. Wayne had to know his value for teen faves that would recur in The Alamo, North To Alaska, neither Frankie Avalon or Fabian as effective as Nelson. A possible reason? He had Hawks for guidance, and Ricky Nelson was tall. He looked formidable for that in spite of a so-called "baby-face" as promoted in the trailer. A shrimpy kid would have been the collapse of Rio Bravo, what with its uniformly height-plus cast. Noteworthy are trio stills of Wayne, Dean Martin, and Rick, the first two in elevated boot heels, with Nelson wearing comparative flats.

Part of why Howard Hawks leisured with Rio Bravo was his conviction that viewers were done to death with stories they had seen/heard too many hundreds of times. Television had in a 50's meantime ramped that to thrice-fold and overflowing. Westerns were a worse contagion, like having mosquitoes flown through your den nonstop. People had to be sick of them, but they'd watch because it was free. Programmers insisted on more cowboys so long as backlash stayed at bay. Even Disney got pressure to increase westerns on his weekly primetime menu. One truth shone brightest: the stories did not matter. Warners could cycle a same script through all their saddle sores and no one would be the wiser, or care if they did know. Action beyond two guys throwing a punch could be left to stock footage. It was a deep cynicism Hawks confronted when time came to prepare Rio Bravo. He had watched enough TV to realize that what viewers liked was the personalities, a Clint Walker or James Garner or whatever popularly sat a horse. Hawks could make his own "town" western, omit mass action and sprawling movement, so long as people we looked at were engaging and likeable. Rio Bravo then, would combine junior varsity of TV favorites in support of a senior team (Wayne, Dean Martin) we'd expect for having bought a theatre ticket. As pure commercial endeavor and dead-accurate read of public pulse at the time, Rio Bravo may be the most brilliant of any 50's work Hollywood did.