Saying John Wayne can't act is like saying Bob Dylan can't sing: It's meaningless and ign'ant, and at this point in history is a canard that ought to be retired.
Yeah, the Duke -- who was born 100 years ago last week -- couldn't play Hamlet and Dylan can't sing Carmen; but what they can play and sing they play and sing with utter confidence and with the bravado of the conquerors of a New World. Make that the New World: If I may be allowed to express a cornball sentiment, they sound like America to me. (Says a frontier gun-runner in Raoul Walsh's "Dark Command," after sizing up Wayne's Texas cowpoke: "You're the kind this country needs.")
Wayne's movies are his best defense, and this week they're getting a big push on DVD, in honor of the Duke's centennial. (The big man was born May 26, 1907.)
Exhibits A and B: "Special" and "Ultimate Collector's" editions of the 1959 masterpiece, "Rio Bravo" (1959), from Warner Home Video, list-priced at $20.98 and $39.98, respectively. (The "Ultimate" edition includes reproductions of the film's original press book and the vintage Dell tie-in comic book, in addition to the documentaries and bonuses shared by both sets).
Exhibits C and D: "Deluxe" and "Special Collector's" editions of "The Cowboys" (1972), from Warner Home Video ($19.98; includes a director's commentary and a cast-and-director reunion) and "True Grit" (1969), from Paramount Home Entertainment ($19.99; with commentary and bonuses).
Exhibits E through J: Warner Home Video's "John Wayne Film Collection" (listed at $49.98), which brings six films to DVD for the first time, including "Allegheny Uprising" (1939), "Reunion in France" (1942), "Without Reservations" (1946), "Tycoon" (1947), "Trouble Along the Way" (1953) and the infamous anti-Commie screed "Big Jim McLain" (1952).
"Rio Bravo" is the gem of the new releases. Restored by Warner Home Video from the original camera negative for this second DVD incarnation, the new edition of Howard Hawks' classic includes a commentary track with Time magazine film critic Richard Schickel and director John Carpenter ("Halloween"), who take turns referring to "the Hawksian woman," "the Hawksian hero," "the ultimate Hawksian compliment," the "pure Hawksian" moment, and on and on; most memorably, Schickel describes "Rio Bravo" as "a beautifully functioning Hawksian machine."
Still, the two admirers do a pretty good job of identifying the Hawks -- OK, the Hawksian -- visual and narrative method, as demonstrated in "Rio Bravo" in the deceptively simple camera set-ups, the often eye-level viewpoint, the overlapping dialogue, the respect for professionalism, and so on. They talk a lot about the film's action, too, which sort of obscures the point that "Rio Bravo" is a film of what might be described as gun-blazing nonchalance. After a flawlessly staged and almost silent opening sequence of about five minutes that features a quick succession of violent acts (from spitoon-kicking to blast-in-the-gut murder), "Rio Bravo" becomes more a comedy of (uncouth) manners than a shoot-'em-up.
In fact, it's a toss-up as to who's less interested in gunplay: the lead heroes -- John Wayne, as stalwart Sheriff John T. Chance; Dean Martin, as a recovering drunk of a deputy called "Dude"; and barely-18 Ricky Nelson, as a sharp-shooting youngster named "Colorado" -- or Hawks and his screenwriters, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. The byword here is byplay, not gunplay, as Furthman recycles much of the Bogie-Bacall banter he wrote for Hawks' "To Have and Have Not" for Wayne and Angie Dickinson, who plays a woman with a dubious past nicknamed "Feathers."
Adding a level of hilarity that wouldn't be matched in a western until "Blazing Saddles" is Walter Brennan as the whiny, curmudgeonly "Stumpy," a gimpier and funnier version of the hobbled sidekicks he played in two earlier Hawks' films, "To Have and Have Not" and Hawks' "Red River."
John Beifuss, Scripps Howard News Service
