• Red River

3/22/25 (Sat)

Howard Hawks’ superb 1948 work is no country for young women, who only appear briefly at the beginning and (a tad more substantially) at the end. Otherwise it’s a man’s world as John Wayne seeks to defy the odds and move his 9,000-strong herd of cattle to Missouri regardless of the cost to the other men, provoking a mutiny among the harried team. His virtual son, played by Montgomery Clift, deposes him and leads the men to a safer route. That spurs Wayne to pledge to hunt Clift down and kill him. The final scene feels like High Noon as Clift waits for the inevitable showdown with his mentor.

Wayne is both hero (initially) and villain who, not recognizing his own obsolescence, seeks revenge on his “son” for displacing him. The setup is almost Shakespearian, which the scale of the film fully justifies.

It’s not without its flaws. Wayne is strangely unaffected by news of his lover’s death in a raid, which was partly his fault for forcing her to stay behind. When he speaks with the boy who was the sole survivor of the raid, he doesn’t even ask about the girl, interested only in whether he can make use of the kid. He does seem moved when he finds the bracelet that he gave her on the arm of an Indian attacker that he has killed. He gives the bracelet to his disciple Clift, who passes it in turn to the woman he loves.

The film goes to the trouble of introducing John Ireland as a foil for Clift but fails to develop that in any satisfactory way. The scene where they compare guns was featured in The Celluloid Closet for its supposed homoerotic subtext, and the director does seem to be playing with this to some extent. But Ireland’s character is nearly invisible after that other than the climactic moment where he tries to shoot Wayne. I found out later that the director reduced the part significantly after the actor proved troublesome on the set. I guess there was nothing they could do at a certain point in the filming, but they really should have gone one way or the other; this halfway solution came at the expense of the movie.

Also, the role of Clift’s woman (clearly a prostitute, though the film skirts around that) feels tacked on in order to bring events to an undeserved happy ending. I understand that the Wayne character was killed in the original book, which would have been a much more logical development. The conclusion as it stands is a sharp change in tone and a copout after all that’s come before. Her character was unrealistic in any case, babbling endlessly during a savage battle with the Indians. She toughened up in one interesting moment when she bargains with Wayne for half his assets to bear his child, but that passes when she decides to go for love. Yuck. Her character should have been eliminated entirely.

Even with those caveats, this is great filmmaking. I was surprised to see Wayne playing such a callous and unsavory character, prone to alcohol and depression, especially after a setup that implied he would be his usual heroic self. He showed a rare complexity here (I haven’t seen his later films). It was left to Clift, in his film debut, to play the savior, which he did with impressive reserve and determination. He had the most expressive eyes in the cast. While it’s hard to overshadow Wayne, Clift gave a performance of great depth. They were a fantastic team; I love their reticence, the way the sharp script has them speak just enough to get the point across. The best of the rest was the irreplaceable Walter Brennan, who brings a welcome dose of humor, especially in the bit when he loses his false teeth to the Indian in a poker game. He narrates some of the plot points to move the film forward, not a technique I favor – I’d generally prefer they show rather than tell – but it got the job done. Ireland looked to be a worthy rival to Clift, but his part was cut too severely to make an impression. A pity.

The high point in a film full of them was the amazing stampede, followed by the jubilant arrival of the men and herd in Abilene. I can’t imagine how they filmed the wild animals, who obviously have minds of their own; that would probably involve a lot of CG these days. The stampede was tense and thrilling from start to finish. The cinematography was awesome; I do wish they had filmed it in color (apparently the director thought it would be too distracting), but that’s a minor complaint. A great Western by any measure, a great film.