The last film in John
Ford’s ‘cavalry trilogy’ proved to be an afterthought rather than a planned
event. For nearly a year Ford had shopped around his script idea for The Quiet Man. But even with his
illustrious track record and cache as a proven money maker, and with John Wayne
already signed on as part of the package, the caustic Ford could not find a
studio to back his latest project. At RKO the director had made Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949); both
wildly successful. But RKO was in steep decline and not particularly interested
in shooting a melodrama on location. So they too balked at Ford’s offer to
direct The Quiet Man.
Ford eventually found a
kindred spirit in Republic Pictures president, Herbert Yates…well, sort of.
Yates had zero interest in The Quiet Man
as a viable property. But he did have immeasurable faith in John Ford as a film
maker. If the two could agree on Ford to direct another western for his studio
first, then Yates would agree to fund The
Quiet Man. This was Yates hedging his bets. Republic, a ‘poverty row’
studio always on the edge of financial receivership, needed a sure fire box
office winner to keep their bottom line in the black and what better assurance
than a John Ford western? They always made money.
Ford willingly agreed to
these terms, then set out to make one of the most memorable western movies in
his body of work. In one of Hollywood’s ironies, The Quiet Man would eventually become the highest grossing movie
Republic Pictures ever made.
Viewed today, Rio Grande (1950) stands as an iconic
example of just how far John Ford had matured the western mystique beyond its
early days of cowboys vs. Indians. There is a patina of human frailty that
follows the film’s characters throughout the story. Ford re-envisions heroism
in no less heroic terms. But it’s not the gallant stride of a bigger than life
western legend astride his noble steed that greets our eyes, rather a world
weary traveller estranged from his family after being forced to choose between
the love of a good woman and his sworn duty to defend his country.
These are just some of the
tough choices made by John Wayne’s character Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke and both
Wayne and Ford are determined to show us the human cost of that strained
relationship. Kirby carries with him the noblest sense of personal pride. But
he also realizes what his profession has cost him and it is perhaps much more
than he originally intended to give. That’s a very sobering and frankly
unglamorous perspective on the oft romanticized life in the saddle and it is
for this stark realism that Rio Grande
is as highly regarded and fondly remembered today.
Rio
Grande (initially
titled Rio Bravo) was scripted by
James Kevin McGuinness from a short story ‘Mission
With No Record’ by James Warner Bellah. We open, not at the beginning of a
hero’s journey but at the end of a very solemn campaign against the marauding
Apaches that has cost the regiment several of its finest officers. In these
initial scenes John Ford fills the frame with a magnificent pageantry of
fighting men on horseback. But their backs are arched, their shoulders slumped
and they are trudging through a mesmerizing cloud of Texas frontier dust; the
careworn faces of their women lingering like a chain of pale ghost flowers
along the sparse parameter of windswept trees that barely shade from the
intense heat.
Understaffed in his
ambitious assignment to maintain peace, Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (Wayne) strives to
civilize this barren landscape. But the strain of battle has begun to show. Its
1879 and Kirby’s not a young man anymore. He’s a warrior whose battle scars are
not immediately apparent to the naked eye. But scarred he is. Wayne and Ford
play upon Kirby’s inner void and marry it to the beginning of a great man’s
physical decline. Even if we don’t realize it yet, Kirby already knows that his
days as an officer are numbered. He will either die in battle or be forced into
retirement by the ravages of time.
Kirby’s past catches up to
him sooner than anticipated with the arrival of Trooper Jefferson Yorke (Claude
Jarman Jr.), the son he hasn’t seen in fifteen years. Jeff’ is one of eighteen new
recruits sent as backup to the fort. His arrival is both a joy and a
disappointment to Kirby who initially deals with the boy more harshly to quash
any hint of favouritism that might be rumoured among the rest of the men.
Although he’s come to honour his country, in effect following in his father’s
footsteps, Trooper Yorke is also a West Point drop out. Still, the boy
possesses certain qualities that endear him not only to his father but the rest
of the men in his troop.
In the meantime, Kirby’s
estranged wife, Kathleen (Maureen O’Hara) arrives to have Jeff released from
the army by special decree from a commander. But Jeff refuses to go, reminding
his mother that he must also sign off on the decree in order for it to become a
legal discharge. Thwarted in her efforts, Kathleen chooses to remain at the
outpost to be near Jeff. Reluctantly, she becomes reacquainted with Kirby in
his tent. Although brittle toward each other, it is nevertheless obvious that
Kirby and Kathleen are still very much in love. Kathleen resents the decision
Kirby had to make earlier, to torch her ancestral home of ‘Bridesdale’ in the
Shenandoah Valley. She holds Kirby’s right hand man, Sgt. Maj. Timothy Quincannon
(Victor McLaglen) equally responsible for obeying Kirby’s orders then, but here
too Kathleen’s heart has not entirely hardened.
Quincannon oversees a
skirmish between Jeff and Trooper Heinze (Fred Kennedy), after Heinze accuses
Jeff of being given special treatment, but also refers to him as the pet of a
dumb ‘Mick’ sergeant. When the brawl is broken up by Kirby, Jeff respectfully
declines to tell his father the reasons for it in the first place. Told by
Quincannon that it is a soldier’s fight, Kirby steps aside. But Heinze has
reconsidered Jeff’s fidelity to the regiment. The two shake hands and are
friendly toward each other. Jeff retires to his tent to treat his wounds. But
Quincannon has not forgotten Heinze’s slight against him and knocks Heinze
unconscious as retribution.
The next day Jeff is
afforded a period of recovery and allowed to sleep in. He awakens to find his
fellow recruits, Travis Tyree (Ben Johnson) and Daniel ‘Sandy’ Boone (Harry
Carey Jr.) at his side. Travis is on the run from the law for having killed a
man in self-defence. The U.S. Deputy
Marshall (Grant Withers) arrives to take Travis into custody. But men loyal to
Travis help him escape into the hills.
In the meantime, Kirby is
visited by his former Civil War commander, Philip Sheridan (J. Carrol Naish)
who orders him to cross the Rio Grande into Mexico and engage the Apaches. The
move is a bold and gutsy one in that it violates Mexico’s sovereignty and will
likely lead to Kirby’s court-martial. Sheridan buffers Kirby’s decision by
reinforcing for him that the members of the court will be comprised of the same
soldiers who rode with them into battle down the Shenandoah, thereby affording
Kirby some marked leeway if and when he is likely to plead his case. Kirby
agrees to these terms and sets out to face the Apache threat.
But his mission is compromised
when he learns that the wagon train of children being taken to Fort Bliss for
protection has been ambushed by the Apaches in their absence. Assigning Jeff, Boone and Travis (who has joined
the officers after having hid out in the hills from the law) to take the remote
town where the Apache are hold up with the children, Kirby takes his cavalry
forces into a full scale battle against the Indians that ends with his being
wounded. Victorious perhaps, but infinitely wiser about the more precious
intangibles of life, Kirby is dragged back to the fort on a travois.
John Ford recreates the
film’s opening sequence, the long weary cavalcade of men on horseback returning
to the fort after their triumph. Only this time we see Kathleen among the emotionally
scarred and anxiety ridden. In a moment of beautifully understated reflection,
Kathleen eyes Kirby on his travois and reaches for his hand. “Our boy did well,” he tells her as the two go off, engulfed by a
dusty cloud raised from the battalion’s horses.
Rio
Grande is
a perennially satisfying western classic. It manages to capture that
mythological essence and grandeur of the old west without its clichés. John
Ford, who arguably never felt more at home than in the western milieu, herein
extols the vices as well as the virtues of human sacrifice, ascribing no
personal or moral weight to the exercise, while nevertheless instilling his
audience with a definite sense of propriety about his central character.
It has already been stated
many times in the annals of film history, but bears reiteration herein, that
the world will never again see the likes of a hero as robust or satisfying as
John Wayne. Before Wayne there were expert stuntmen and real life cowboys who
made their mark in the western movie. But their staying power was eclipsed once
Wayne came onto the scene. Perhaps it isn’t Wayne’s larger than life filmic
persona, of even his private views as a public figure that we best remember
today.
It is the essence of the
man – some strange and elusive quality that defies logic or even
identification, except to say that once seen on the screen he can never be
forgotten. That is star power in its purest form, and a veritable elixir in
today’s vapid celebrity culture awash with cheap imitations that cannot hold a
candle to Wayne’s cultural legacy. John Wayne is at the very heart of what we
think of when we utter the word ‘America’: the two sharing in a symbiotic union
of their overriding visions and promise for a more hopeful and prosperous
future carved from the roughhewn wilds of that everlastingly fictionalized
west.
It must also be stated that
Maureen O’Hara is the idyllic contemporary to Wayne’s celebrated masculinity.
In every way she represents something of that proudly defiant, yet unerringly
compassionate complement; forever striving, struggling, living and loving with
a heart as big as the canyons her western martyrs have frequently inhabited. It
also helps matters that off camera, O’Hara has remained the epitome of a very
great lady.
John Ford greatly admired
her as an actress and viewing Rio Grande
today it’s easy to see why. She brings to the character of Kathleen all of the
conflicted disillusionment of a woman scorned, but who refuses to succumb to
mere bitterness in order to survive. The restrained depth in O’Hara’s
performance is staggering to behold and fleshes out her character in all sorts
of fascinating ways without the luxury of many spoken lines.
Rio
Grande may
not be John Ford’s most memorable or even his best movie; but it is one of his
most poignant, largely because of the chemistry between Wayne and O’Hara. The
film would be nothing without either star, although in hindsight it’s safe to
say that neither would have endured today without the caustic guidance and
appreciation of John Ford.
Olive Film’s Blu-ray is an
improvement on the tiresome and problematic DVD from Artisan released two
decades ago. The gray scale is much improved, slightly darker as it should be,
and shows much more fine detail to its best advantage. By my eye a few of the
sequences in the film still look slightly soft, although I am unable to deduce
whether this softness is part of the source material or something that occurred
during the 1080p mastering process.
Also, film grain occasionally looks
slightly digitized. Again, this oversight is not monumentally distracting. In
fact, on monitors less than 65 inches it probably won’t even be noticed. A
slight hint of edge enhancement persists but is also unobtrusive. The audio has
been remastered in mono and is very pleasing. The only extra is a ‘making of’ featurette
hosted by Leonard Maltin that is at least fifteen years old and looks about
twice as bad in 480i. Bottom line: recommended.
FILM
RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
1
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