Red River (1948) (Movie Review)

RED RIVER (1948)
Director:  Howard Hawks (with Arthur Rosson, uncredited)
Stars:  Montgomery Clift, John Wayne, Walter Brennan, John Ireland

A fictionalized account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail, Wayne stars as hardened rancher Thomas Dunson, who due to economic hardships in the post-war South is forced to bring his cows to where the money is, with his best friend Groot (Brennan) and adopted son Matt Garth (Clift) by his side.  The trail is long and hard, leading some of the hired crew to, in effect, mutiny.  Dunson, half-crazed from drink and lack of sleep, starts to get a bit sadistic in response.  The more level headed Groot and Garth are stuck in the middle, and have to decide where their loyalties lie.

Ask a film historian for a western movie recommendation, and this one is likely to come up.  It's easy to see why;  the photography by Russell Harlan is often breathtaking, capturing the epic scope and beauty of the Mexico and Arizona locations.  There's a clever bait-and-switch in the narrative, in that Wayne is playing his usual machismo, determined character;  but he's the antagonist.  Clift (in his feature debut) is the real protagonist, who ends up stealing both Wayne's cattle, and the film.  Brennan is great in his standard, toothless-prospector type role, and John Ireland is effectively menacing and cool as the anti-heroic gunslinger Cherry Valance.  The scene where Cherry and Garth take turns shooting a can to make it "dance" is one of the most iconic in cinema history.

Hawks is a versatile director, as gifted at comedy as he is at drama or action, and all of those gifts come to play here.  Brennan, who quite literally loses his teeth in a game of poker to Quo (Chief Yowlachie), has some hilarious banter with his Native frenemy.  The script, by veteran writers Charles Schnee and Borden Chase, has some great lines in it.  One member of the posse, after witnessing several funerals on the trail, asks, "Fill a man full of lead, stick him in the ground, and read words on him.  Why, when you kill a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job?".

Hawks never forgets to throw a shootout in every so often, and they come on fast and furious.  The implication of violence is often even more effective than what's on screen;  at one point, an enraged Wayne goes in hunt of his prey in the dark, knife drawn.  We never see what happens, but you know it had to be pretty bad for the guy on the receiving end.

So far, sounds like a great time had by all, right?  Weeeelllll. . .

Joanne Dru shows up around halfway through the film to become a very contrived love interest, and ends up becoming the Jar Jar Binks of this movie.  Her performance, and character, are ludicrous, and she ruins every scene that she appears in, most notably the ending.  And that's the biggest problem with this film;  there's so much spectacular build-up, so many tense conversations and brutal action scenes, that the ending has a lot to live up to. . .  and it pretty much fails on all levels.  It has to be one of the worst, most anti-climactic endings to a "classic" film ever made.

It's essential viewing for movie fans, and it's fun to play "spot the actor" ("Was that Shelley Winters as a prostitute?  Hey, it's Richard Farnsworth!"), but the film is more significantly flawed than the American Film Institute would have you believe.

FREDERICK OPINES:  MIDDLING