irritable comfort
by Douglas Messerli
Leigh Brackett and Burton Wohl
(screenplay), based on a story by Burton Wohl, Howard Hawks (director) Rio Lobo / 1970
At times in director Howard Hawk's
last film, Rio Lobo, it almost seems
as if he is tempting the Hollywood idols. Except for the dozens of brilliantly
comic one-liners of Brackett's script, the story is a shaggy dog tale without
any "fur" to it. And it's hard to imagine a cast of less convincing
actors than the Mexican heartthrob Jorge Rivero (who Wayne addresses as
"Frenchy" throughout), Brazilian actress Jennifer O'Neill (Rio Lobo was clearly the best movie of
her career), and future studio director, Sherry Lansing! Publisher George
Plimpton plays the 4th Gunman. Even Jack Elam (standing in for Walter Brennan
and Arthur Hunnicutt) and John Wayne, at his most laconic (in one of his first
lines of the film Wayne reports to his soldier friend, "Ned, your neck's
broken."), have seen better days. At one point, as the Rebels try to carry
Wayne to his horse, they report what is obvious to all: "He's heavier than
a baby whale!"
The film begins near the end of the Civil War as Col. Cord McNally
(Wayne) and his Union soldiers attempt to transfer a large container of money
from one town to another. The Rebels, headed by Capt. Pierre Cordona, whip up a
plot to steal the money by greasing the tracks, rigging up trees with ropes,
and tossing a hornet's nest into the armored car wherein the Union soldiers are
contained. The plot succeeds, and McNally, determined to seek out the Rebels,
is captured and forced to lead them out of harm's way. But as he quietly leads
them around a Union encampment, he shouts out for the troops, and the Rebels
are foiled.
In Blackthorne, McNally awaits the appearance of Cordona, bedded down
with a woman. Cordona has evidently encountered the men. Suddenly a gun-toting
woman, Shasta Delaney (O'Neill) enters, demanding to see the sheriff: there has
been a murder in Rio Lobo. Blackthorne sheriff Pat Cronin reports that it's out
of his jurisdiction. Delaney reports, however, that the sheriff of Rio Lobo is
corrupt and is himself involved in the shooting. A posse from the nearby town
arrives to take Shasta away. She shoots one of the men, Whitey, under the table
and McNally finishes off all but one of the rest; the final posse member is
about to shoot McNally in the back, when Cordona appears, pulling up his pants
and shooting the other man dead. Whitey, Cordona reports, has been one of the
traitors.
Shasta faints and Cordona insists that she should be taken to his room,
as he dismisses the woman with whom he has just shared the bed. Shasta's
awakening is one of the most humorous scenes in the film, and best conveys why Rio Lobo works despite its loony
storyline and its unconvincing actors:
[Shasta wakes up in Cordona's
bed after fainting]
Shasta: What am I doing here?
Cord McNally: Well, you
fainted after you shot Whitey, so we put you
to bed.
Shasta: Wait a minute! Where
are my clothes? Which one of you took my
clothes?
Cordona: I did.
Shasta: Why?
Cordona: Well, we flipped a
coin and I won?
Shasta: Where are your
pants?
Cordona: You're sleeping on
them.
Brackett, in my estimation, should
have won an award just for those lines!
Off go the unlikely trio, McNally, Cordona, and Shasta, to Rio Lobo,
70-80 miles away, to save the day and restore and law and order. We know the
formula: the three fall into a kind erotic relationship that strengthens their
determination to protect each other, drawing others to their side.
But this time much of the homoerotic
subtext of the previous two Hawks westerns is missing, and the relation of
McNally and Cardona to Shasta transforms this film more clearly to a
heterosexual story.
While in the previous two films of Hawks' Western trilogy, Wayne was
surrounded by weaker women and men, here McNally is himself a kind of agèd
alcoholic, offering a round of drinks at every opportunity and demanding a swig
of any liquor he can get. As the three spend the night in an old burial ground,
McNally, sitting by himself in the cold, giggles in mysterious delight. Asked
what he is so happy about, he answers: "I've had about the right number of
drinks. And I'm warm, and I'm relaxed." Awakening the next morning to find
Shasta by his side, McNally is startled. Shasta explains that she slept next to
him because he was "comfortable." And it is clear that, if he is no
longer a hero, he now represents a kind of irritable comfort, a safe place in a
world of imminent dangers.
The rest of the story hardly matters. Of course, they find graft and
corruption facing them in Rio Lobo, as they are met with guns, imprisonment,
and hate. A local bully, Ketcham has installed his man, "Blue Tom"
Henricks as sheriff, and is trying to overtake the farms about. Tuscarora, Cordona's
former Rebel partner, has been arrested on trumped-up charges. Visiting
Ketchum's farm, the three overcome Ketcham, upon which Cordona reports that he
is the second of the traitors. Forcing Ketcham to sign over the deeds of the
stolen farms, McNally and his friends temporarily win the day. But, soon after,
Cordona is taken by the bully's gang and an exchange, Ketchum for Cordona, is
arranged. The local farmers join McNally and Delaney in the standoff, as
Cordona dives to safety into a nearby river, and the evil gang is destroyed.
Paralleling the plot of El Dorado,
McNally, who has been shot in the leg, walks off using his rifle for a crutch,
while Amelita (Lansing) runs forward to help him walk.
Few critics, with the exception of The
New York Times' Roger Greenspun, appreciated the film. And Greenspun's
faint praise, "the movie is close enough to greatness to be above
everything else in the current season," evidently produced a flurry of
angry letters. Despite Hawks' apparently lackadaisical attitude about his last
film, the work is extremely amusing and was one of the biggest earning films of
1970.
Los Angeles, April 18, 2009
All three essays reprinted from Green Integer Blog (April 2009).
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