In around forty feature films, Howard Hawks has tried his hand at all genres… and with success. Long before the remake carried by Al Pacino, he first directed Scarface (1932) inspired by the novel of the same name as well as the life of Al Capone. Fans of screwball comedy (a typically American subgenre around questions of morals, notably divorce or remarriage, with burlesque humor) especially remember the classic The impossible Mr. Babyand its legendary duo Katharine Hepburn-Cary Grant, or The Friday Lady. His foray into musical film with Men prefer blondes then offers a notable role to Marilyn Monroe alongside Jane Russell. The Port of Anguish and above all The Big Sleep also make him a great specialist in film noir. Finally, as a good jack-of-all-trades filmmaker, Howard Hawks also of course flourishes in the quintessential Hollywood genre of the 1950s: the western.
John Wayne, l’homme des westerns d’Howard Hawks
After The Red River (1948), already a great success, Howard Hawks found a decade later the great figure of the genre, John Wayne, in the cult Rio Bravo. He also offers the main role to the brilliant actor as soon as he returns to the western. First with The GoldenThen Rio Lobo (to which must be added in the meantime the adventure film Danger!). The understanding is so good between the two that the actor accepts without thinking: “I called him and I said, 'Duke, I have a story.' He said, 'I can't do it for a year, I'm totally stuck.' And I told him : 'Well, it'll be fine, I still need a year to finish it' He said, 'Okay, I'll be ready' and he came to the set and asked me, 'What. is it?'. I told him the story. He hadn't read it, he didn't know anything about it.said Howard Hawks during an interview with Sight and Sound (relayed by BFI) in 1971. As a reminder, Rio Lobo begins during the Civil War. Pierre Cordona (Jorge Rivero), a southern captain, attacks with his men a Union train, placed under the responsibility of Colonel McNally (John Wayne). After the end of the conflict, the northern colonel found his former enemy and convinced him to help him track down the traitors who had informed him.
Rio Lobo : one last complicated collaboration between Howard Hawks and John Wayne
In the same way asThe Golden looked like Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo also bears many similarities with its two predecessors. Although they vary in certain points, the scenarios are more or less the same, with identical figures, starting with the fun-loving alcoholic, here played by Jack Elam, or even a vile landowner, and well sure an aging hero. The three westerns unofficially form a Hawksian trilogy. If this last chapter will delight fans of the genre, it remains a long way from the first. Upon its release, Rio Lobo received a mixed critical reception, and failed at the box office. A failure that Howard Hawks attributed to John Wayne, too old according to him for such a film. This fifth collaboration is the last between the two men. It is even the American filmmaker's final feature film. In December 1977, he died at age 81 at his home in Palm Springs, California. “following complications linked to a concussion caused by a fall a few weeks earlier”as reported by New York Times at the time.
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