Rio Bravo (1959)

Obviously this is one of the absolute classics, and there’s not a whole lot to say about it that hasn’t already been said.

Starting with the negatives (which really are pretty minor): first, Ricky Nelson isn’t a great actor and second, John Wayne is getting a bit old to be having convincing romances with 20-something women (I think this one of the last films where he portrays the romantic lead in this way - I can think of a couple of counter-examples off the top of my head by I can also give good arguments as to why they don’t really count as counterexamples).

In contrast to Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin does an excellent job of acting here. On top of that Angie Dickinson has some excellent dialogue with Wayne (“The T is for trouble” is a favourite line of mine) even if the romance is in other ways dubious. There’s also the nice interlude of “My Rifle, My Pony and Me”. It’s very much a film where the quality comes from the individual moments, rather than the overall plot (which is fine, but not especially remarkable).

As expected for a significant film, the DVD quality is pretty good and it looks like the Blu-Ray is even better so no complaints there.

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