Simply Perfect

Really Surprised!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Major Disappointment

Wonderful mix of family story and insight in every day's life of an soldier in the old west. Beautiful shots in black and white and good acting of Wayne and O'Hara! Not to forget the sentimental music of Victor Young!

Released in 1950 and directed by John Ford, "Rio Grande" stars John Wayne as a cavalry officer posted near the Rio Grande where he must deal with Apaches who cross the border to raid and then escape back to the protection of Mexico. The situation is complicated by the arrival of his son, who enlisted after failing at West Point (Claude Jarman Jr.), not to mention the youth's mother, the officer's separated wife, who wants to take "Johnny" back home (Maureen O'Hara).How do you review an old Western like this when you can't stand B&W or old-fashioned scores and hokey antiquated songs, not to mention the incongruent campy elements and slapstick (non)humor Ford is known for? Basically you have to ignore all these factors and focus on the story and the actors. If you can do this, "Rio Grande" is worth checking out. Wayne was lean & mean at almost 43 (during shooting) and O'Hara was striking and curvy as ever at almost 30. It's also cool seeing Ben Johnson & Harry Carey Jr. when they were so young. Amazingly, the film utilizes real Native Americans for the cast and the movie gets extra points for this and their respected portrayal.The film runs 105 minutes and was shot in Utah (e.g. Monument Valley) and Kayenta, Arizona. The screenplay was written by James Kevin McGuinness from a story by James Warner Bellah.GRADE: B-

RIO GRANDE is a solid enough John Ford western, benefiting from crisp black and white photography and an action-orientated storyline that sees cavalry officer John Wayne going up against some murderous Apaches. There's a story of family drama at the heart of the movie which gives the characters life and more motivation than you sometimes see in this genre, and Maureen O'Hara holds her own against Wayne in her scenes with him. Ford can always be relied upon to shoot spectacle well and the narrative has a pretty fast pace which keeps it bubbling along nicely. I didn't mind the songs, either, which is unusual.

The great thing about "Rio Grande" is how it engages you as a story of lives in motion, filling the screen with great spectacle and private heartbreak, sometimes simultaneously. It's a fine primer on the rugged beauty that is a John Ford film.It also too often showcases the other, lesser side of Ford, the maudlin showman prone to sacrificing subtlety for blarney and shortchanging action scenes for exercises in rote choreography and drill routines. Fortunately for Ford and us, he also had his greatest weapon, John Wayne, in prime condition to deliver the sort of performance that leaves all else behind in heavenly clouds of dust.Wayne is Col. Kirby Yorke, tough commander of a cavalry unit stationed in Fort Starke, a Texas posting that lives up to its name. He gives us the facts of the matter early on, to a group of recruits that include his own son, Jeff (Claude Jarman, Jr.):"I don't want you men fooled about what's coming up for you. Torture. At least that." Col. Yorke adds he will tie any man who fails him to a wagon wheel and bust to bits anyone who tries to desert.But Col. Yorke's not ornery like some other Wayne characters, just tough and fair. We register early on that he's proud of Jeff even as the boy stands up to him, in one of several scenes nicely played by Jarman. The colonel's overriding sense of duty was once tested when he burned down a plantation belonging to his Confederate wife, Kathleen (Maureen O'Hara). Fifteen years, two months, and seven days later she still hasn't forgiven him, but the desire still burns, and sears when she appears at Fort Starke to try and bring her son home. Watching these two interact on-screen for the first time is a study in how less can be more, with all the words unsaid between them fluttering across their limpid eyes.This is really what "Rio Grande" is about, though Ford was obligated to bring in a Western and did so with some business about marauding Apaches who need to be quelled. The situation is complicated by the fact the Apaches have based themselves across the title river in Mexico, and rooting them out may trigger a political crisis.This could have been a fine storyline in itself, but Ford's lack of interest in it is too obvious. He puts the Apaches on the back- burner for a half-hour, then throws up an out-of-nowhere attack on Fort Starke which liberates some prisoners Col. Yorke helpfully left by an underguarded fence-line. For the rest of the film, intermittent battle scenes present either Apaches or troopers riding heedless into rifle fire with no apparent strategy other than outdoing one other for best horse fall. I never get Ford's reputation as a great action director; he was always better directing around it.The film suffers a bit from too much singing, like other commenters here point out, but the performance of one song, "I'll Take You Home Kathleen" justifies Ford's predilection. Here we get another clinic in zen acting from Herself and the Duke, as they make the shyest of eye contact, him unnerved, her touched by the song with its implications of romance interrupted. You know throughout the scene that Yorke is thisclose from telling the singers to buzz off, but he doesn't because, you know, he really feels it, too."This music was not of my choosing," he croaks at the end."I'm sorry, Kirby," she answers, just as tightly. "I wish it had been."Moments like that, of which there are many in this movie, make me too grateful to begrudge Ford the occasional excess or line, like Kathleen's too on-the-nose remark to her husband: "I'm sorry your sense of duty made you destroy two beautiful things, Bridesdale and us." It's a beautifully composed film, even at times to a fault, and at its best, which it frequently is, "Rio Grande" gives us a chance to watch Wayne play off his favorite leading lady in fascinating style. A beautiful film which feels perfect, even if it isn't.