El Dorado: Howard Hawks

This may be one of the most blasphemous things I've ever written as a film critic: I enjoyed El Dorado more than Rio Bravo (1959). I know, I know...El Dorado is a transparent remake of Rio Bravo. Rio Bravo is a more groundbreaking and historically significant Western. I know. But I don't care. If Rio Bravo did it first, El Dorado did it better.  The film follows a group of gunmen who fight back against Bart Jason, a corrupt rancher engaged in a range war with the McDonald family. J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) is a heart-broken sheriff who assumes Dean Martin's role as the repentant drunk. Ricky Nelson's role is taken over by James Caan who plays Mississippi, a fledgling gunfighter. And John Wayne is still John Wayne. Only in this movie Wayne plays a character named Cole Thornton. There are several reasons why I enjoyed El Dorado more than Rio Bravo. First, I think the acting is better. Dean Martin had an undeniable charm, but Mitchum blows him out of the water. One particularly devastating scene follows Mitchum as he goes to a saloon to buy a bottle of whiskey. When he arrives, he is viciously mocked and insulted by everyone there. When he returns to the jailhouse, he chokes "They laughed at me...They LAUGHED at me!" I love how this is one of the only Westerns I've ever seen where the characters actually suffer battle damage. In most Westerns if one of the good guys gets hurt he either a) stays out of the final confrontation, or b) miraculously shrugs it off when the bullets start to fly. By the final confrontation in El Dorado, the good guys are bleeding, covered in bandages, and even supporting themselves on crutches. The gunfights are magnificent, particularly one where a couple of bandits hole up in a church steeple. Hawks demonstrates a much more skilled and nuanced comprehension of spatial awareness than in Rio Bravo.  Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Rio Bravo. But if I had to watch either it or El Dorado a second time, I'd go with the latter.

8/10