The Genesis of Rio Bravo*
- nmojtahed
- Jul 30
- 5 min read
The mid-fifties saw a slump in Howard Hawks' filmmaking career. He had not made any movies after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). When he was ultimately forced to make Land of the Pharaohs (1955), he did not have a story, let alone a script. Hawks had always enjoyed collaboration with the best Hollywood writers such as Ben Hecht, Jules Furthman, and William Faulkner. For Land of the Pharaohs, Hawks initially hoped to collaborate with Hecht. When that proved impossible, he turned to his old friend William Faulkner. Hawks knew, however, that Faulkner had always worked in collaboration with other writers, so to help develop the screenplay, he brought in Harry Kurnitz, whose talents had been highly recommended. Land of the Pharaohs ultimately became one of the greatest disappointments of Hawks’s career, with its screenplay widely regarded as the film’s principal weakness. Reflecting on the experience, Faulkner later remarked, “We didn’t know how a pharaoh talked.”
The most important project was a movie called Africa, which was a story of a bunch of hunters spending a season in Africa to hunt animals for zoos back in the United States.
At that time, Hawks felt he needed to reevaluate his career, and to do that, he wanted to get away from Hollywood, so he self-exiled himself and his family to Europe. He did so while well aware that his reputation in Europe was established. In 1953, Jacques Rivette wrote his famous piece called Genius of Howard Hawks
taking the first step in disseminating the idea that he is a true auteur. Even after screening Land of the Pharaohs, William Faulkner acknowledged his authorship, stating, "It is Red River all over again. The Pharaoh is the cattle baron, his jewels are the cattle, and the Nile is the Red River. But the thing about Howard Hawks is he knows it is the same movie, and he knows how to make it."
Looking at that period, one may feel that he just lived lavishly at expensive hotels; at times, even he spent more than he had and hobnobbed here and there with friends or maybe not-so-friends. However, he was working one way or another during this time. He worked on at least 6 projects that went beyond an afternoon chat with a writer or an agent. The most important one was a project called Africa, which was a story of a bunch of hunters spending a season in Africa to hunt animals for zoos back in the United States.
Land of the Pharaohs was the immediate motivation behind a long interview with Hawks with Rivette, Truffaut, and Becker.
The project had the main elements of a Hawks movie: a male group with a couple of female characters on the fringe, adventure, and a relationship between the male lead character and one of the females that evolves as the story progresses. Hawks wanted Gary Cooper for the lead. Despite his repeated objections to Cooper's recent success, High Noon (1952), which brought him an Oscar, they had remained close friends, going back to Sergeant York and Ball of Fire, both made in 1941. He found Cooper in Paris while filming Love in the Afternoon, where, at the end of several meetings, he gave him his verbal agreement, which was nothing more than a handshake, although he asked for the script. Cooper later told Charles Feldman, Hawks’ agent, that he had changed his mind. The project was revived with John Wayne under the new title Hatari! (1962).
Among some of the projects he refused to consider was The Bridge on the River Kwai, which was later made by David Lean.
Later that year, probably one of the most important events of his exile in Europe took place; Cahiers du Cinema sent two young film critics, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut, and a well-known movie director, Jacques Becker, to interview Hawks. Land of the Pharaohs had just been released in France, which triggered the interview, but the discussion soon extended to other films about Hawks and even some theoretical issues. Although Rivette had previously written about Hawks, the interview, conducted over several sessions, explored the many facets of Hawks’ experience as a filmmaker. Its depth and insight were so striking that it reinforced his critical standing, which had been somewhat weakened by his most recent work.
In early 1956, Hawks experienced a setback. Starting to enjoy skiing and being a novice at 60, he fell and broke his ankle. In a letter, Feldman admonished him, “Always told you to lay off those goddamn skis. It is for the young ones, believe me, Howard."
Faulkner later remarked, "It is Red River all over again. The Pharaoh is the cattle baron, his jewels are the cattle, and the Nile is the Red River. But the thing about Howard Hawks is he knows it is the same movie, and he knows how to make it."
During that year, he stayed in France and frequently socialized with John Huston and Preston Sturges, who had recently banished himself to Paris and befriended a young, slender French girl, Chance, whose name was borrowed for John Wayne in Rio Bravo. Finally, in the latter part of 1956, Hawks felt he had spent enough time in Europe and decided to go back to the States. He was not quite sure about the kind of movie he wanted to make; he was still preoccupied with Africa, but he found it difficult to convince Warner again to pick up the project. Feldman came up with the idea of a comedy written by I.A.L. Diamond with William Holden, but the project was not what Hawks was looking for. Besides, at the time, Holden was still engaged with The Bridge on the River Kwai, which Hawks, back in Europe, had turned down the suggestion to direct.
Hawks had always enjoyed collaboration with the best Hollywood writers such as Ben Hecht, Jules Furthman, and William Faulkner.
He watched a lot of television and noted that it had changed conspicuously since he left the country. He discovered that plenty of game shows and variety shows had been replaced with so-called movie series. Among them were a few successful westerns like Maverick and Gunsmoke. He also noted that the main elements in these series were the principal characters, rather than the plots; it seemed to him that people every week were waiting to see their popular figure and did not mind what the plot was.
*Genesis of Rio Bravo" is a multipart essay. I wish to express my gratitude to Todd McCarthy and Joseph McBride; their books on Howard Hawks were invaluable resources.
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