In Rio Bravo, Howard Hawks abandoned the sweeping exteriors of the traditional Western for the claustrophobic interiors of a frontier town’s bars, hotel and jail.
John Wayne plays cantankerous loner lawman John T Chance who reluctantly gathers a “family” around him – old-time Stumpy (Walter Brennan), drunken deputy, Dude (Dean Martin), professional gambler, Feathers (Angie Dickinson) and beardless youth, Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson) – in order to bring murderer Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) to trial.
Hawks claimed that Rio Bravo was his response to High Noon (1952). “Gary Cooper ran around trying to get help and no one would give him any. And that’s a rather silly thing for a man to do. So I said, we’ll just do the opposite”.
The result is a laconic ‘indoors’ Western in which Angie Dickinson is outstanding as Feathers, a warm and sexy woman moving easily in a man’s world without ruffling any of its conventions.
Sheriff John T Chance
John Wayne
Dude
Dean Martin
Colorado Ryan
Ricky Nelson
Feathers
Angie Dickinson
Stumpy
Walter Brennan
Pat Wheeler
Ward Bond
Nathan Burdette
John Russell
Carlos
Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzales
Consuela
Estelita Rodriguez
Joe Burdette
Claude Akins
Harold
Harry Carey Jr
Jake
Malcolm Atterbury
Charlie
Walter Barnes
Director
Howard Hawks