El Dorado (1967)

A classic, and a personal favourite of mine, being (I think…) the first Western I saw. It’s essentially a remake of Howard Hawks’ and John Wayne’s earlier Rio Bravo. A John Wayne gunfighter, an alcoholic sheriff (here Robert Mitchum), a grizzled elderly deputy, and a young gambler imprison the villain and then have to defend the jail from his men. Unlike Rio Bravo the film spends quite a bit of time at the start introducing the characters outside the context of the main events of the film – I quite like this bit of backstory filling, and the episodes are quite entertaining in their own right. The “main” plot—the siege of the jail—is actually conducted pretty quickly here.

The theme song, sung by George Armstrong over oil paintings of the old West, is particularly good, and referenced throughout the film with Mississippi’s (the young gambler’s) Edgar Allen Poe poem. Aside from that it’s the usual Howard Hawks themes of manly friendship, Western action, and gentle comedy. It’s honestly hard to put my finger on why this is such a satisfying film, but it is, and it gets just about everything right.

In my review of Rio Bravo I’d said that that film was one of the last instances of a John Wayne love story with a conventional leading lady since he was getting too old. There was more John Wayne-love story in El Dorado than I remembered, and John Wayne is really showing his age here. This is one bit of El Dorado that I think I could have done without, although fortunately it doesn’t take up too much screen time.

The DVD I watched (as part of a 9 disk John Wayne Westerns Collection) is OK. It’s a bit fuzzy in places. I don’t think a huge amount of work has gone into restoring it, but equally there’s nothing wrong with it that should stop you appreciating this excellent film.