leaving nothing to chance
by Douglas Messerli
Hawks takes us through the few days between the arrest of Burdette's brother, Joe and the inevitable showdown, much in the way that Fred Zinneman did in the classic High Nooon. But the differences between these two movies are crucial in their effects. While Gary Cooper, in his attempt to "save" an idealized and quite lovely small Western town from Ben Miller and his gang, is refused help from every citizen he asks to join him, Hawks, in response to High Noon, presents Wayne as Sherriff John T. Chance, supported at first only by his cackling old deputy Stumpy (hilariously played by Walter Brennan), as being ready to tackle the job almost by himself until he is joined by has alcoholic former sidekick, Dude (Dean Martin). The three of them spend much of the early part of the film prowling the streets of the gritty-looking, slightly seedy Rio Bravo, telling other folk to get out of the way.
If High Noon's Hadleyville is a spiffed-up village of wood-framed houses filled with proper middle-class citizens, Rio Bravo is as culturally-mixed as any border town probably was in its day: Carlos Robante and his wife Consuela run the local hotel in which the Sheriff sleeps, eats and drinks; Burt, the local undertaker, is Chinese. Other than Chance, Dude, and Stumpy, it appears, the only Caucasians in Rio Bravo are from the outside: Burdette's men, the cattlemen passing through, and the recently arrived card shark, Feathers (Dickinson). When cowboy head Pat Wheeler is killed by Burdette's gang, one of his young assistants Colorado Ryan (Nelson) casts his lot with the Sheriff, as he and Feathers save the Sheriff's life. In short, nearly everyone in this bustling little collection of low-stucco buildings is willing to help, and even those who might only watch the outcome, help to save the Sheriff being from being shot down on the street, since they might serve as witnesses.
Because the outcome of the final shootout, accordingly, is fairly apparent—justice will triumph—Hawks can spend most of his film revealing the interrelationships of these ragtag figures, demonstrating the power of friendship, loyalty, and love that connects them. And love in this drab outpost is not just reserved for the relationships between man and woman (Chance and Feathers, Carlos and Consuela), but—perhaps due in part to screenwriter Leigh Brackett's perspective as a woman—is equally expressed between the men, particularly through the complaining housewife-like role played by Stumpy (like many a Western housewife the Sherriff has consigned his partner to the back room of their little "house"/jail cell, in this case armed with a rifle to protect it from all intruders), and in the admiration and love between Dude and Chance, the latter of whom has bought back his friend's gun and other belongings when, in his drunken nadir, Dude was forced to sell them. With the arrival of the young Colorado, the prickly trio becomes a happier foursome, as Dude and Colorado break into song.
Only after normalcy has been restored to this village frontier, does Feathers get her chance, in more ways than one. But it is she who does the proposing, leaving nearly nothing to Chance, the man, but to bashfully accept their inevitable partnership.
Los Angeles, March 27, 2009
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