RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST OF THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

"THE SON-OF- A -BITCH CAN ACT!"

By Raymond Benson

It’s well-known that when John Ford, who had worked with actor John Wayne on a number of films prior to seeing him in Howard Hawks’ Red River, proclaimed that he didn’t know that “the son-of- a- bitch could act!”

His words were apt. Prior to the release of Red River in 1948 (it was shot in 1946 but didn’t appear in theaters until ’48), Wayne had mostly played the likable, stalwart “John Wayne” character that had first appeared in Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). But in Red River, Wayne plays a role that turned critical and public opinion of the actor’s thespian abilities. He pulls off a remarkable feat—Wayne’s character, Thomas Dunson, is a first-class S.O.B., a guy you really want someone to punch out throughout the movie; and yet, Wayne manages to make him likable. He carries an audience through over two hours of hardcore western, and he delivers one of his two or three best performances. It doesn’t hurt that Wayne is ably supported by Montgomery Clift, who plays Wayne’s adopted son. In many ways, it’s really Clift’s picture—he’s the protagonist, and the story is seen through his eyes. But wait—maybe it’s seen through Walter Brennan’s eyes in the original, rare theatrical cut, released here in a glorious 2K digital restoration on Blu-ray.

In fact, I had never seen the theatrical cut, the version preferred by director Hawks. A longer cut, by about six minutes, was the one that was shown on television and appeared on previous home video releases. The longer version was actually intended as a preview for studio execs; it utilizes on-screen textual transitions (as if the audience is reading from a book) and an extended final confrontation between Wayne and Clift. The theatrical cut dispenses with the textual transitions and instead substitutes sequences narrated by Walter Brennan, who then, arguably, becomes the character through whose eyes we see the story. Why this version, which originally played to audiences in 1948, didn’t become the standard edition after that is a mystery; in actuality, Hawks was quite right—the theatrical cut is the better one, except for the trimmed final fight between the two leads. As Hawks tells Peter Bogdanovich in an audio interview included as an extra in the Criterion Collection’s elaborate box set, the best way to watch Red River is to view the theatrical cut up until the last few minutes, and then change to the preview cut at the point when Wayne marches through the heads of cattle to confront Clift at the corral.

Another thing that is remarkable about Red River is that it was Hawks’ first western. He would go on to make a handful more (good ones, too!), and was known for making pictures in all genres, but the fact that he went out of the gate with one of the greatest westerns of all time is truly an achievement. Red River, without question, is one of the five best American films of the genre.

The story is a fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail, the hardships the men overcome, and the battle of wills between Wayne, the tyrannical leader and father, and Clift, the calmer, perhaps smarter right-hand cowpoke and adopted son. Hawks manages to capture the perilous trek with uncanny realism, assured composition and tempo, and drama. Hawks once said that the key to a good film was “three good scenes and no bad ones.” Well, Red River has far more than three good scenes. The stampede sequence is nothing short of astounding.

Criterion went all out on this one. It’s a four-disk set—two Blu-rays and two DVDs containing identical material. Both versions of the film are included, along with a couple of interviews with Bogdanovich, who explains the difference between the two cuts and presents his views on the picture. Critic Molly Haskell talks about Hawks in a new video interview, and film scholar Lee Clark Mitchell tells us all about the western genre in an interesting piece. There are audio excerpts from interviews with Hawks and novelist Borden Chase, as well as a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Red River featuring Wayne, Joanne Dru, and Brennan. Besides the usual essay-filled booklet, the box comes with Chase’s original novel, Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail, from which the film was adapted.

Great stuff, and worth every penny.

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