Red River
This was great, thanks Raul for nominating it. Unexpectedly this reminded me of one of my favourite movies;
The Treasure of The Sierra Madre which is actually from the same year, mostly because of the themes of madness and paranoia and even Walter Brennan’s character reminded me of John Huston’s. So far this is my favourite John Wayne role, I felt it was really interesting seeing him as the villain now I haven’t seen much Wayne movies so this could be pretty common but to me it was like seeing Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West. Surprisingly I could actually kind of relate to his character since I tend to be a pretty stubborn person myself, I think it allowed me to sympathize with him a lot more than I normally would. I know some people don’t think much of Wayne as an actor, personally i like him mostly because of his strong screen presence which is why I think the film managed his screen time perfectly; it could have been a little overwhelming having him In most scenes which I know must have been tempting since he was a pretty big draw.
Oddly i thought the least interesting main character was Matt even though i think Clift possibly gave the best performance. My biggest disappointment with Matt was that the potential rivalry with Cherry Valance basically went nowhere, i felt the can shooting scene was a good way to build it up then nothing. His romance was pretty rushed too which is not actually a complaint since it wasn't what i wanted the film to focus on; was pretty weird that i felt Joanne Dru had more chemistry with John Wayne though. The most interesting part of Clifts character was easily the father-son, changing of the guard dynamic he had going with Wayne. Now the best thing this film introduced me to was probably the genius of Walter Brennan
. I don't think i've ever seen him in anything, i was aware that he won a bunch of Supporting Actor Oscars and was known as a Western Sidekick. If he is like this in every film then i may have found a new favourite, he was hilarious even the weird "teeth bet" mini subplot was entertaining; the perfect comic relief for a pretty serious film. My only regret is that he didn't get more scenes.
The movie played the calm and exciting scenes so well i loved how it quickly switched from one to the other. The biggest example probably being the amazing stampede scene which started off with the camp very calm the mood was perfectly set so you felt the characters were getting ready to sleep, then the jump to the clumsy guy to the actual stampede helped by the amazing score set up a very exciting albeit short scene.
Anyway i'm going to cut this short because i watched it two days ago and things keep popping into my head which is getting annoying haha. Again i thought this was excellent, if it holds up to a rewatch this could become a new favourite. Next i think i'm going to watch Calamity Jane.