Rio Bravo
Short description
Rio Bravo is set in a small frontier town where the local sheriff arrests a man for murder and holds him for the arrival of a federal marshal. The prisoner's brother, a rancher with plenty of hired guns behind him, makes clear that the jail will be attacked before that happens. Refusing to ask the town for help, the sheriff is left with a small group of deputies: a former lawman who has fallen into drink, an old man with a bad leg who keeps the jail, and a young cowboy who proves handy with a gun. A woman newly arrived in town becomes part of the sheriff's circle as the siege tightens.
Howard Hawks directed and produced the film from a screenplay by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, with John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance, Dean Martin as the drink-worn Dude, Ricky Nelson as Colorado Ryan, Angie Dickinson as Feathers, and Walter Brennan as Stumpy. It followed Land of the Pharaohs (1955) and preceded Hatari! (1962) as the sixteenth of the nineteen films Hawks directed.
Made for about a million dollars, it returned roughly thirteen times that amount at the box office, a strong result for a western of its period. Its reputation has held: on IMDb it scores 7.9 from some 73,000 votes, on TMDB 7.8 from a much smaller base, while a film critics' rating of 8.6 from 50 reviews places it higher than either audience measure. The 141-minute release of 1959 carried a credited cast of 68 and a crew of 61 drawn largely from Hawks's regular collaborators.
What's left behind the scenes
- In December 2014, the film was added to the U.S. National Film Registry, possessing cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.
- This was Howard Hawks' first film in four years, marking the longest break in his directing career. He had spent those years living in Europe, where he noticed the growing popularity of Westerns and that audiences were more interested in characters than plot twists. This led to the development of a screenplay – not focused around a single premise, but broken down into several simultaneously unfolding storylines. Studio executives vehemently refused to support such experiments, but changed their minds as soon as Hawks mentioned he planned to cast John Wayne in the lead role.
- The song My Rifle, My Pony and Me was also used in the film "Red River" (1948), starring John Wayne.
- The song "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" was also used in the film "Red River" (1947), starring John Wayne.
- Director Howard Hawks did not want to film Ricky Nelson, considering him too young, and specifically gave him the minimum possible number of lines for one of the main characters (Nelson's name was third in the list of actors in the film). Later, however, he admitted that Nelson's name on the posters increased the film's box office receipts by approximately $2 million.
- For the first four minutes of the film (including the opening credits), none of the characters utter a single word.
- Dean Martin's agent approached Howard Hawks with a request to give Martin a role in the film. Hawks agreed to meet the actor at half-past nine the next day for an audition. When Hawks learned that Martin had performed on stage in Las Vegas until midnight, and then chartered a plane to make the meeting, it impressed him so much that he simply gave Martin the role of deputy sheriff without any audition.
- The sets at the "Old Tucson" studio were built to a scale of 7/8, to make the actors appear larger than life.
- "Rio Bravo" was the last film to feature John Wayne and Ward Bond together. They had a total of 22 collaborations.
- Ward Bond's character's death scene was filmed from a distance because a stunt double was used. The actor himself had already left to film the series 'Wagon Train' (1957-1965).
- The film features only one close-up: Dude's hands trying to roll a cigarette.
- Despite being listed in the opening credits, Harry Carey Jr. did not appear in the film. This was because during filming, Harry had severe problems with alcohol, and on one of the first shooting days, he repeatedly addressed Howard Hawks as "Howard" instead of "Mr. Hawks," which infuriated the director. Ultimately, Carey's name was still included in the opening credits, and he received his due payment, but his role was cut from the film.
- The explosion of the criminals' lair at the end of the film was only captured on the second take because before the first take, the room was filled with colored paper, and everything that followed resembled 'blowing up a Chinese firecracker'.
- Howard Hawks always wanted someone who would appeal to a teenage audience to play the role of Colorado (played by Ricky Nelson). He even considered inviting Elvis Presley for the role, but Presley's manager, known as Colonel Tom Parker, demanded an astronomical fee and top billing on the posters, which neither Hawks nor John Wayne could agree to.
- The film is based on the short story "Rio Bravo" by B.H. McCampbell.
- The film had a rather unusual promotional video: Ricky Nelson finishes playing the guitar, turns to the camera and talks about the plot of the film. This is followed by a montage of scenes from the film, then we see Nelson again, listing the names of the actors who starred in the film. When he doesn't mention his own name, we hear the voice of Dean Martin off-screen: "What about Rick Nelson?"
- Outdoor shooting was hampered by the terrible heat (almost 50 degrees Celsius) and an invasion of locusts, which landed on the spotlights and instantly burned, so the entire set was literally littered with their corpses.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
