RIO BRAVO (1959)
Label: WBHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 141 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond
Long considered one of the finest westerns the genre has to offer Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo (1959) is a film I just never got around to watching till yesterday, if you can believe that. I would chalk that up to my general disdain for American westerns that started from a young age, I saw The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly when I was very young and it was so thrilling to me that it turned me off what I considered the tamer (boring) American fare, which inspired it. Also, I'm just not a huge John Wayne fan if I am being honest, he just couldn't compete with Eastwood's edgier Man with No Name from the Sergio Leone flicks that I adored. While I've certainly mellowed with age in my disdain for the American Westerns I've only slightly come around Wayne, only really taking them in when he's teamed-up with a director whose body of work I'm diving into, such as Hawk's Rio Grande, John Ford's The Searchers and Don Siegel's The Shootist - which are the only other Wayne flicks I've seen. I am a huge fan of John Carpenter's gritty siege classic Assault on Precinct 13, and despite hearing for years from Carpenter himself how much of an influence Rio Bravo was on it I still put it off, so deep was my aversion to the American Western and Wayne. I considered it one of my many great cinema-sins, but I am making amends, slowly but surely.
So here I am, I finally watched Rio Bravo, and it's true what they say - this flick is stone-cold awesome! In it a smalltown Texas Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne, The Shootist) is holding cold-blooded murderer Joe Burdette (Claude Akins, Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo) in his jail cell waiting for the Marshalls to come get him, but all around town Burdette's brother Nathan (John Russell, Fort Massacre), who draws a lot of water in the small town, has hired guns looking to bust him out of jail before the Federal Marshall's arrive to take Burdette away.
Backing up Wayne's sheriff are his recovering alcoholic deputy Dude (Dean Martin, Scared Stiff), a recently deputized quickdraw young-buck named Colorado (60's crooner Ricky Nelson),and an acerbic limp-legged codger named Stumpy (Walter Brennan, Bad Day at Black Rock), as well as a a sultry gambler named Feathers (Angie Dickinson, Dressed To Kill) who takes a shine to the sheriff despite his preoccupation with the predicament at hand and cold exterior. The characters have a great rapport, especially Wayne and Dude, Dean Martin is pretty great as the deputy trying to pull himself out of the drink, adding a lot of heart to the role. Wayne's interactions with the Hawksian- woman Feathers is also great stuff, Dickinson's widowed gambler is smoldering, strong-willed and defiant, she's just a true delight, and the fact that she is so dead-set on reeling in Chance and he barely budges is a testament to his single-minded way of thinking. It's a pretty perfect little film, it has tension, action, shootouts, explosions, romance and humor all blended together into a gritty siege-western that holds up five decades later, and it's never looked better on home video, or probably even in the theater, this is a stunning looking release.
Audio/Video: Rio Bravo (1959) gets a newly minted 4K Ultra HD release from Warner Bros., presenting the film in 2160p UHD widescreen (1.85:1). One of the benefits of never having watched this before is seeing it with a dazzling restoration and 4K presentation for my first-time viewing. The source is in fantastic shape, fine film grain is lush and uniform, the fine details are evergreen, with an HDR10 WCG color-grading that is absolutely gorgeous, I was really wowed by how handsome the film looks in 4K. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and free of hiss or distortion, dialogue sounds terrific and the score from Dimitri Tiomkin (The Thing from Another World) has a nice showing in the mix.
Extras on the disc are relegated to only the archival Audio Commentary with Richard Shickel and John Carpenter. It's a great track despite being one of those stitched together commentaries wherein Schickel and Carpenter seem to not be in the same room and their observations never cross wires, which is fine as both offer great takes on this flick. Sadly there is no other extras, the previous Blu-ray had a quite a few from what I can tell, and they are not ported over here, so hang onto that Blu-ray if you're a bonus junk junkie. What we miss out on include the 33-min
Commemoration: Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo with Schickel, directors John Carpenter, Peter Bogdanovich and Walter Hill, star Angie Dickinson and others; as well as the 55-min The Men Who Made Movies (1973) episode "Howard Hawks"; the 8-min Old Tucson: Where Legends Walked - which as a someone living in Tucson where Old Tucson is located is a bummer. Also not included is the John Wayne Trailer Gallery.
Commemoration: Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo with Schickel, directors John Carpenter, Peter Bogdanovich and Walter Hill, star Angie Dickinson and others; as well as the 55-min The Men Who Made Movies (1973) episode "Howard Hawks"; the 8-min Old Tucson: Where Legends Walked - which as a someone living in Tucson where Old Tucson is located is a bummer. Also not included is the John Wayne Trailer Gallery.
The single-disc release arrives in standard black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. Inside there's a redemption code for a digital copy of the film, notably when I redeemed the digital copy it was for HD version only, not UHD (which is friggin' bonkers), and there are no digital archival extras. You'd think that they would at least include the extras as a digital-only extra if there not willing to slap them onto the disc itself. My review copy did not come with a slipcover, not sure if retail copies will include one or not, but this would be the first WBHE 4K UHD not to initially ship with a slip if not.
This is a terrific 4K upgrade with uncompressed audio, it's easy to recommend because the film is flat-out awesome, but I am pretty sore about the lack of archival extras and a remastered Blu-ray, it just feels lazy to me, and I wish WB would treat their catalog and physical media fans a bit better, and also more consistently, I would love to know that all future 4K releases would include not only stellar transfers but the full compliment of the previously existing archival extras.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Richard Schickel & John Carpenter
