RIO GRANDE (1950) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: John Ford
John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson,
Harry Carey Jr., Victor McLaglen, Claude Jarman Jr.,
J. Carrol Naish, Chill Wills, Grant Withers
The final entry in John Ford's cavalry trilogy, with the Duke as an Army colonel fighting Indians along the Mexican border and haunted by a Civil War incident that cost him his family. The story ultimately has less to do with the Indian war than the conflict within Wayne's character. Like Ethan Edwards in "The Searchers", Kirby York is a man whose pathological sense of duty - in this case to the Army - is integral to his heroism, even as it cuts him off from those he most wants to protect. The resolution might be less unforgiving here, but the underlying elements are pure John Ford: the suggestion of something unfathomably dark in a movie that's almost meditative in its sentimentality.
