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Storyline
The sheriff of a small town in southwest Texas must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape. After a friend is killed trying to muster support for him, he and his deputies - a disgraced drunk and a cantankerous old cripple - must find a way to hold out against the rancher's hired guns until the marshal arrives. In the meantime, matters are complicated by the presence of a young gunslinger - and a mysterious beauty who just came in on the last stagecoach. Written by
scgary66
Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
Taglines:
John Wayne The big guy with the battered hat... and Dean Martin the ragged woman-wrecked castoff called Dude... and Ricky Nelson The rockin' babyfaced gunfisted kid... And Time Was Running Out Through Bullet Holes At Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo"
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Did You Know?
Trivia
Dude's nickname Borrachón is Spanish for "drunkard". In the Spanish dubbed version, the nickname was changed to Merluzón, meaning "big hake," so that Dude can explain the meaning of the nickname.
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Goofs
During the final gunfight, when Stumpy throws the Dynamite for Dude, and Dude says, "I didn't allow for the wind ", his lips never move.
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Quotes
[
first lines]
John T. Chance:
Joe, you're under arrest.
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Connections
Referenced in
The Lawyer (2010)
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Soundtracks
Rio Bravo
(as Original Songs)
Music by
Dimitri Tiomkin
Lyrics by
Paul Francis Webster
Sung by
Dean Martin (uncredited)
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It says much about current cinema that this vintage slice of Hollywood is now considered too long and too slow by the modern generation of movie goers. Howard Hawks labours to create setting, mood and pace introducing genuine characters are colourful for the flaws they have as their positive points presenting heroes one can empathise with, people with three dimensions, not thin caricatures that popular many of today's movies.
No character empathises this more than Dean Martin's broken down drunk Dude. Nicknamed "Borachon" by the Mexicans (Borachon is Spanish for "Drunkard") Dude battles with the demons that drove him to drink as he desperately tried not to let down Sheriff Chance, John Wayne, who believes in him more than he believes in himself. Dude's pouring back of a glass of bourbon into the bottle is one of the most life affirming scenes ever committed to film.
Wayne never really does anything other than play John Wayne and Hawks spins on this playing with the ethos of the man. The same steadfast values that mean Wayne's Sheriff John T. Chance will not release the prisoner Joe Burdette back to his murderous gang leave him stiff and awkward in front of Angie Dickinson's love interest "Feathers" creating perhaps the quintessential John Wayne movie in which the Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett's screenplay explores the depths of the ideals that Wayne stands for. This is a movie about not just about redemption, but about the reasons for a tough redemption in a World in which collapse and lawlessness are easier options.
And when Dude pours his Bourbon back, affirming that even though he cannot be the man he was but he can still be a good man, you will not be wishing it was film in bullettime.