Red River is a 1948 western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks. The stars John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, and Joanne Dru. Red River is based on Borden Chase’s 1946 novel Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail.
Director: Howard Hawks
Production Company: Monterey Productions
Distributor: United Artists
Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey Sr., Harry Carey Jr., John Ireland
US Box Office: $11,267,063 ($269,600,000 adjusted for inflation)
Film Format: Black & White
Genre: Western, Drama
Release Date: August 26, 1948 (premiere)
Plot Summary: In 1851, Tom Dunson (John Wayne) starts a cattle ranch in Texas with his adopted son Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift) and Tom’s best friend Nadine Groot (Walter Brennan). Tom’s Ranch is highly successful until 1865, when beef becomes worthless in Texas following the Civil War. So, Tom decides to launch a massive cattle drive on a dangerous path northwards to sell his cattle at the railroad in Sedalia, Missouri, with Matt, around thirty men, and 9000 cows. Part way through the journey Matt realizes that Tom has been become increasingly authoritarian and dangerously obsessed with completing the drive the way he wants no matter how many people die. Matt and the men rebel against Tom, expel him from their convoy, and continue on a safer route to Abilene, Kansas instead. Angered and feeling betrayed, Tom vows revenge against the mutineers and plots to kill Matt.
Production: In 1946, director Howard Hawks bought the film rights to Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail (1946), a western novel by Borden Chase that was originally serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. Hawks hired Chase to adapt his original novel into a screenplay, along with screenwriter Charles Schnee. Hawks produced the film, titled Red River, independently through his production company Monterey Productions which was affiliated with United Artists. Red River was Hawks’ first Western film as the main director. Hawks considered shooting Red River in technicolor, but decided against it because he realized that Black & White would give the film a darker and more realistic feel. Russell Harlan was Red River‘s cinematographer, and Dimitri Tiomkin, a frequent composer for Westerns, was hired to compose the film’s score.
Hawks chose John Wayne to play the part of cattle baron Tom Dunson, one of Red River‘s lead characters. River River was the first of five films directed by Hawks to star Wayne. Hawks originally offered the role of Dunson to iconic Western actor Gary Cooper, but Cooper turned the part down because he thought that the character’s ruthless nature in the last half of the film wasn’t suited to his screen persona. Stage actor Montgomery Clift was cast as Matt Garth, Dunson’s adopted son and the secondary lead character. Hawks cast Clift because he was impressed by Clift’s performance in The Searching Wind (1944) on Broadway. Red River was Clift’s first film, though his second film The Search (1948) was released first. Joanne Dru was cast as Tess Millay, the woman who falls in love with Matt and later tries to stop Matt and Tom from killing each other. Dru was a last minute substitute for Margaret Sheridan, who dropped out of the film because she was pregnant at the time.
Shooting on Red River began in September of 1946 and continued until December. Before filming began Howard Hawks and his crew scouted over 15,000 miles of land in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma before settling on a filming location. Much of the location shooting for Red River was done at a large cattle ranch near Elgin, AZ. Additional location filming was also done at several other locations in Southern Arizona including the Whetstone Mountains and Tucson. The San Pedro River stood in for the Red River. Second unit director Arthur Rosson shot parts of the cattle drive and some of the action sequences, he was given credit in the opening title crawl as a co-director. There were frequent unexpected downpours of rain during the shooting, and the script was modified to include a fierce storm.
Filming went mostly well, though there were some difficulties. Montgomery Clift was initially nervous about having to convincingly stand up to Wayne, but Hawks instructed him to underplay his scenes with Wayne and treat them in a “David vs. Goliath” fashion. Wayne also didn’t originally think that Clift could be convincing as a tough cowboy, but was impressed with Clift after shooting their first confrontation scene together. The two didn’t like each other, but Wayne respected Clift’s acting skill. John Ireland (gunslinger Cherry Vance) was originally going to have a more prominent role in Red River, but some of his scenes were cut due to Ireland’s unprofessional behavior. Ireland was an alcoholic at the time, and Hawks was frequently annoyed with him. A few of the cast and crew members were injured or became sick on set: Howard Hawks was hospitalized for several days after being stung by a venomous centipede, John Wayne became sick with a severe cold, and Joanne Dru caught the flu.
Red River finished shooting in December of 1946, but it wasn’t released until August of 1948. This long delay was due to Hawks difficulty editing the film. Hawks was unsatisfied with the proposed first cuts of Red River, so he asked his friend Christian Nyby if he could re-edit the film. Nyby was under contract with Warner Bros. and was currently editing Fighter Squadron (1948) so Hawks had to get Jack L. Warner’s permission to use Nyby. Warner agreed to lend Nyby to Hawks, but only during after hours. Nyby edited Red River at night, while he edited Fighter Squadron during the day.
Fun Facts and Trivia: Red River is the only film to feature both Harry Carey Sr. (Mr. Melville) and his son Harry Carey Jr. (Dan Latimer), however the two don’t share any scenes together. Carey Sr. died in September of 1947, almost a year before the film was released. Walter Brennan previously appeared in The Texans (1938), an earlier Western with a very similar plot to Red River. Both films depict post-Civil War Texas ranchers embarking on a cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail to Kansas to sell their cows.
Red River‘s theme song “Settle Down” is heard during the opening credits and an orchestral version without the lyrics can be heard at various times throughout the film. Howard Hawks liked the song so much that he reused a modified version of it in his later film Rio Bravo (1959). Composer Tiomkin adapted his original song, with new lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, into the song “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me,” which is sung my Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo. To commemorate the work they did on Red River, Howard Hawks had special “Red River D” (featuring Dunson’s cattle brand logo from the film) belt buckles made for several of the lead cast and crew members, including John Wayne and Walter Brennan. Wayne and Hawks later exchanged belt buckles as a sign of respect, and Wayne wore his Red River D belt buckle in several of the other films he made with Hawks including Rio Bravo and Hatari! (1962).
Reception: Hawks ran into more trouble shortly before Red River‘s release. In early August, not long before the film’s premiere, Hawks was sued by producer Howard Hughes. Hughes claimed that the final climactic duel between Tom and Matt was too similar to a duel featured in his film The Outlaw (1943), which Hawks had also worked on. Hawks and Nyby quickly cut 28 seconds from the duel to appease Hughes. This version of the film was an edit of the planned foreign release of the film (which was six minutes shorter and featured narration by Walter Brennan’s character rather than the book inserts). Consolidated and Pathé laboratories (a film manufacturing company) had to quickly produce and distribute revised prints of Red River the weekend before its release.
Red River premiered on August 26, 1948 in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. The film went into wide release on September 17. Red River was one of the highest grossing films of the year. Red River’s epic scale, realistic tone, and strong acting performances made the film popular with the public. Director John Ford was highly impressed with John Wayne’s performance as Tom Dunson. Ford previously didn’t think that Wayne had much nuance as an actor, but Red River changed his opinion of Wayne. Red River convinced Ford to cast Wayne in She Wore as Yellow Ribbon, as Captain Nathan Brittles, another character much older than Wayne who also required a great deal of nuance to properly portray. Lux Radio Theater broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of Red River on March 7, 1949, with John Wayne, Joanne Dru and Walter Brennan reprising their film roles.
Red River received critical acclaim when it was first released. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave Red River a strongly positive review. Crowther praised the performances of the lead actors and Hawks’ directing, but he criticized the wagon train attack scene and Joanne Dru for being too glamourized in what was otherwise a realistic Western drama. The film critics from Harrison’s Reports also liked Red River and claimed that it was one of Hollywood’s best westerns. James Agee of Time magazine described Red River as “a rattling good outdoor adventure movie.” Variety also gave the film a positive review.
Hawks and Nyby’s original cut of Red River (the 133 minute version with the full duel, the book inserts, and other scenes) was publicly released for the first time in 1987, and has since become the definitive version of Red River. Red River continues to receive critical acclaim from modern critics. Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect score, praised John Wayne’s against-type performance, and argued that Red River was one of the greatest Western films of all time. Leonard Maltin, Keith Phillips of The Dissolve, and Carol Cling of the Las Vegas Review-Journal also gave Red River perfect review scores. Bob Thomas of the Associated Press praised the film for going above and beyond in featuring all the elements of a great Western. In 1998, Red River was one of the 400 films nominated by the American Film Institute for their list of the top 100 best American films of all time. Red River was also nominated for AFI’s updated list of the Top 100 American films in 2007. AFI ranked the film as the fifth best Western of all time in their 2008 list of the top ten best Westerns.
Oscars: Red River was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Story (Borden Chase) and Best Editing (Christian Nyby). Chase lost the Best Story Oscar to Richard Schweizer and David Wechsler for The Search (which also happened to star Montgomery Clift). Nyby lost the Best Editing award to Paul Weatherwax for The Naked City.
Why You Should See It: Red River is a fantastic Western film. Howard Hawks and cinematographer Russell Harlan did an incredible job shooting Red River, the film looks great, the lighting and fog really help to establish Red River‘s atmosphere. John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, and Walter Brennan are all good in their roles. Wayne’s performance in particular stands out because he gets to play a much more conflicted and nuanced character than the sort he usually played in Westerns. Dunson is sympathetic at the start of the film, but becomes more conflicted, obsessive, and vengeful as the film progresses. Dimitri Tiomkin’s music is also great. His song “Settle Down” is memorable, and his general orchestral score successful captures the Old West “feel” in my opinion. Red River is generally a dark film, but it does have some light-hearted moments as well.