RIO LOBO (1970) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Howard Hawks
John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Jennifer O'Neill,
Christopher Mitchum, Jack Elam, Victor French,
Sherry Lansing, Mike Henry, David Huddleston,
Bill Williams, Jim Davis, Hank Worden
In the space of 11 years, John Wayne and Howard Hawks made what was basically the same movie three times. For viewers who don't know and are curious, here's how you can tell them apart. In "Rio Bravo" (1959), Ricky Nelson plays a young gun named Colorado and Dean Martin plays the drunk. In "El Dorado" (1967), James Caan plays a young gun named Mississippi and Robert Mitchum plays the drunk. In "Rio Lobo", (1970), Mitchum's son Christopher plays a young gun named Tuscarora and everybody drinks. Leigh Brackett wrote all three screenplays, and Wayne plays the hard-nosed father figure in all of them. The good guys might be outnumbered, but they've got each other and they've got the Duke, and the bad guys don't stand a chance. That's the way it was back then. Howard Hawks' last film.
