Certification. U
Director. Howard Hawks
Cast. Walter Brennan, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, John Wayne.
Rating. 74%
Red River, the epic story of an ambitious cattle drive, was one of Howard Hawks' first westerns.
Shortly after the end of the US Civil War, cattle rancher, Thomas Dunson (John Wayne) and his adopted son move a herd of 10,000 heads of cattle from Texas to Missouri in order to escape the poverty-stricken state and achieve a fair price for their produce.
The journey up The Chisholm Trail to Missouri is fraught with danger, but to Dunson, the drive is almost a ceremonial event. This is the culmination of his investment, endeavour and determination. It is a statement of intent. The tyrannical rancher is determined to see the cattle drive through to the bitter end. At all costs. His stubbornness, his unwillingness to praise or recognise effort, his apparent ease at leaving behind the woman he loves to follow his dream - this is not a character the audience readily sympathises with. Nonetheless, it is a stand-out performance from Wayne.
The film also introduced the cinema audience to Montgomery Clift, one of the greatest American actors of his generation [A Place In The Sun, From Here To Eternity and Judgment At Nuremberg] as Matt Garth, Dunson's quiet but capable adopted son. The casting of the suave, understated and introspective Montgomery Clift was a masterstroke. Clift was the antithesis of everything John Wayne represented; while the veteran was strong, imposing and commanding, Clift never had problems showing his character's fragility on screen. His understanding of the character and the complexity of his relationship with his surrogate father give Red River its heart. A magnetic relationship where every interaction between them is electric. Clift was such a talented actor that he actually elevates Wayne's performance; Wayne's performance is impressive, but Clift's is better, giving weight and depth to the exchanges. In the end, Garth revolts against the increasingly brutal Dunson and steers the herd on a different, less dangerous route. The film is essentially a transposition of Charles Nordhoff's and James Norman Halls' Mutiny On The Bounty to the American frontier.
Beyond the two impressive performances of the lead actors, Red River can now be considered a landmark film. The establishment that was John Wayne, juxtaposed with a new acting technique, for Montgomery Clift, alongside the likes of John Garfield, Marlon Brando and James Dean, ascribed to the Lee Strasberg school of method acting. The conflict in style ultimately modernised the genre, bringing a heightened psychological complexity to the traditional western. The role of Thomas Dunson may now be considered one of the first truly challenging roles of Wayne's career. An unlikeable and unsympathetic character he would revisit years later as Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers.
Howard Hawks was one of the most underrated directors of his time in the US. Not so in Europe. The Swiss director, Éric Rohmer once said, "If one does not love the films of Howard Hawks, one cannot love cinema." While Technicolor technology was freely available, Hawks decided to film Red River in black and white in order to convey a realistic tone and style. Red River was also one of the earliest films to depict a cattle drive - a mainstay of the genre - so at times the film feels like a documentary, a glimpse of a long-forgotten past. And I almost forgot to mention, a rousing score from acclaimed Russian composer, Dimitri Tiomkin, an artist no stranger to composing memorable western scores - High Noon, Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, Rio Bravo and Last Train From Gun Hill.
The casting of the main characters, the chemistry, the cinematography, the aesthetics and the soundtrack - everything comes together to make Red River a true masterpiece. It was then and it still is, more than 70 years after its release.
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