Rio Grande - John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson

Colonel Yorke (John Wayne) sees arriving among the new recruits of the garrison his own Jeff son who failed West Point. Yorke is separated from his wife Kathleen (Maureen O' Hara) since the day when, during the American Civil War, it was obliged to put fire at the plantation and the family house of Kathleen. This one arrives in its turn in the garrison. It would like that Yorke returns his/her son. The Sheridan general gives to Yorke the order, nonofficial, to cross Rio Grande and to destroy Apaches without being concerned with wishes of Washington. The women and the children are sent to Fort Bliss but the column is attacked by the Indians who make captive the children. Tyree, Jeff and Boone, three young riders, join the children who are retained in the church. Yorke gives finally the order to charge with its men. It is wounded during the attack but the children are saved. Kathleen will remain near her husband… Rio Large the least important east of three films composing the “cycle of the cavalry”, it as should be noted as it is with much sensitivity that John Ford describes the life of a fort and the relationship between a woman and a man who live separate since about fifteen years and finds one opposite the other again. The first scene shows the women of the soldiers and the officers of the fort awaiting with fear the return of those which left on mission, with its batch of wounded and of deaths. This very beautiful scene has for during that where, at the end of the film Kathleen awaits in the middle of the other women the return of the soldiers and discovers with happiness that Yorke is still in life though wounded. The tenderness of Ford is obvious when it films approximately plane Maureen O' Hara - it directs it here for the first time - whereas it listens to a musical box which it found in the canteen of Yorke or when it says to her Jeff son with pain: “what makes the size of the soldier is odious for me”. One will not forget either the moment when Kathleen carries a toast - “A my single rival, cavalry of the United States nor the superb sequence in which the Sounds of the Pionners sing “I' ll take you home again Kathleen” in front of colonel York and his wife. Third of films that John Ford devoted to the cavalry, after the massacre of Strong Apache and the heroic load, Rio Grande approaches several topics important, always very present in the scenario writer, like the family, the religion, and of course the war against the Indians. It is surprising to see at which point this film “of war” grants of place to the dialogues, the sentimental scenes, with humour, and even with the music via a chorus of soldiers which intervenes at key time. The presence of Maureen O' Hara in this fort where reign the discipline, where the honor has all its place, is as a counterpoint which clarifies and humanizes the tension and hatred against the enemy.

Details of: Rio Grande

DIRECTOR: John Ford ACTORS: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson LANGUAGES: French, English, Italian SUBTITLES: French, Italian, English AUDIO: Mono PICTURE: 4:3 OTHERS: Chapter Selection TYPE: Action, Western Zone: 2 - Europe - Japan - Middle East - Egypt - South Africa - Greenland Length: 101