Rio Grande (1950) - film review

Lieutenant Colonel Kirby York commands a remote cavalry post on the border between the United States and Mexico.  Knowing he is understrength against the mounting threat from the Apaches, he puts in a request for more recruits.  Instead of the two hundred men he expects, he is given just eighteen, and these include his barely adult son Jeff, who has just dropped out of a military training school.  York Senior promises his son no favours and says that he will treat him like any other man under his command, if not harder.  Then Jeff’s mother, and York’s estranged wife, Kathleen, appears unexpectedly.  She intends to buy her son out of the army and take him back home with her, but the boy is determined to prove himself and refuses to go.   At this juncture, Yorke is commanded by his superior, General Sheridan, to cross the Rio Grande river into Mexico.  The cavalryman is reluctant to comply, knowing that this will only aggravate the situation with the already hostile Apaches...

One of John Ford’s undisputed masterpieces, Rio Grande offers a startlingly realistic portrait of the US cavalry at the time of the great Indian wars of the 1860s and 1870s.  It was the third in a trilogy of films about the cavalry which Ford made, the other two being Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).  John Wayne, one of Ford’s preferred actors, appeared in all three films, perfectly cast as a tough yet sympathetic cavalryman who is up against the odds.  Here, Wayne appears along side Maureen O’Hara for the first time.  This winning romantic pairing would be repeated in two of Ford’s later films: The Quiet Man (1952) and The Wings of Eagles (1957).

Rio Grande has all the ingredients of a classic John Ford western – a dusty desert location (the Monument Valley), believable characters, a strong story and a satisfying mix of adventure, humour and romance.  The film is best remembered for its stunningly realised battle sequences, which are amongst the best the genre has offered.   Ford skilfully uses the arid location to convey the harshness of life for those who served in the cavalry at this time.   We see also the camaraderie and tensions that existed between the men and, mainly through Wayne’s tour-de-force performance, we get an insight into their psychological traumas – the solitude, the ennui, the fear of death and, worst of all, the fear of dishonour.  It is a film that is beautifully shot in lustrous black-and-white, with Ford’s trademark panoramic shots once more conveying the uncompromising might of the natural world over which men struggle to assert their control.

© James Travers 2008

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