The Genesis of Rio Bravo (4)
It has been said that Joe is the Dude's doppelganger, but the relationship between them is more complex and multifaceted. One could argue that if Joe hadn't thrown the gold dollar into the spittoon, Dude would have remained "Borachon." When, halfway through his ordeal, he is about to break down, it is not Chance or Stumpy but Nathan Burdette's De Guello who comes to his rescue.
Andrew Sarris wrote, "Howard Hawks is the least known and least appreciated giant in the American cinema."
On both occasions, he tries to stand up with his self-respect, rising from a demeaning position. In the same way, the main motivation that led Dude to beat Chance in the opening scene is not that Chance had kicked the spittoon and dollar away, but the fact that Chance kicking the spittoon reminded him that he brought himself down to the lowest ebb of a human being, brilliantly demonstrated in the acute high-angle shot of Chance from Dude's point of view. In his first self-conscious step toward recovery and to compensate for what he just did to Chance, he follows him to The Burdette's saloon to help arrest Joe.
It has been said that Joe is the Dude's doppelganger.
Again, near the end of the movie, Dude's guilt leads him to send Chance and Burdette's men to jail, knowing full well what Stumpy would do to them. Here, Hawks, with subtlety, depicts Dude's complete recovery; he is responsible enough to understand that he started the problem, and now he has to bring it to an end; had he not gone for the dollar, there would have been no problem between Dude and Joe Burdette and his brother Nathan. Throughout the movie, we see the steps Dude takes to return to his proud days. Dude’s fight with Joe in the penultimate scene signals his final act of redemption. Although he helped Chance arrest Joe at the beginning of the movie, he had to prove his power on his own to overcome Joe’s evil forces. Colorado’s question of whether Dude needs help in his fight with Joe once again reminds us of Pat Wheeler’s Barachone. Chance's confident answer, “He will take care of Joe, alright,” shows he has already proven himself.
Dude’s fight with Joe in the penultimate scene signals his final act for redemption.
The bar walls are decorated with paintings featuring matador and bullfighting motifs. Other visual elements, such as a bullhorn on the wall and Joe's pintos vest, further develop the matador/bull, hunter/prey, and human/animal themes that recur throughout the movie. Consider the scene where Carlos holds the red drawers in front of Chance, or the scene where Burdette's men push Dude's head into the trough and keep him in a stable; both vary the same theme.
Although the relationship between John Wayne and Angie Dickenson is a variation of similar relationships in Only Angels Have Wings, with Cary Grant-Jean Arthur, and To Have and Have Not, with Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall, Hawks found an element in Wayne that was absent in Grant or Bogart: his vulnerability toward women. In fact, he had a very difficult time with John Wayne in the scene where he argues with Dickenson about why she slept outside his door. Hawks tried to create comedy to exploit Wayne's uneasiness with Dickinson. Returning to the scene with red drawers and Dickinson's line, "Those are great possibilities, but not on you," would not have worked with Grant or Bogart.
Other visual elements at the bar, such as a bullhorn on the wall and Joe's pintos vest, further develop the matador/bull, hunter/prey, and human/animal themes that recur throughout the movie.
During the production, Hawks unexpectedly remained on schedule. Although the movie was completed in late 1958, Warner decided not to release it until the spring of the next year, when, as expected, it became a big commercial hit. Critically, Rio Bravo was a failure. American critics, mostly from the establishment, found the movie another boring, action-centered Hawks film. They complained that the Hawks had done nothing worth watching
in the post-war period. In Europe, particularly England, the response was not better.
Hawks found an element in Wayne that was absent in Grant or Bogart: his vulnerability toward women.
In less than two years, however, Richard Roud set up a retrospective for Hawks; later, in 1962, Andrew Sarris wrote, “Howard Hawks is the least known and least appreciated giant in the American cinema." While discussing "Hawks's distinctive bitter view of life," Peter Bogdanovich identified Howard Hawks's theme. He showed that Rio Bravo, To Have and Have Not, and Only Angels Have Wings are variations on the same themes, with similar characters. This was when the writers of Cahiers du Cinéma in France and the British film critics defended the movie and brought Rio Bravo back into mainstream critical study.
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