Ride Bravely, Ride

When most people think about a "John Wayne Western," they usually don't immediately recall such films as The Searchers, Hondo, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, or True Grit, possibly because these classics really transcend the Western genre; they'd still be great films if they were set in the future on Mars.

But there are a number of films by the Duke that are undeniably "Westerns"...Rio Bravo, Stagecoach, The Sons of Katie Elder...as rooted in the ironclad cowboy formula as Sands of Iwo Jima is in the war genre. One of the best of these is El Dorado.

The title is prophetic. Wayne plays a gunfighter who knows he ought to hang up his irons and settle down...he's got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do just that...yet he's still searching for his "El Dorado," that mythical city of gold and dreams. Meantime, in the town called El Dorado, Robert Mitchum plays the sheriff who has seen his own dreams shattered, and who crawls inside of a whisky bottle to blot out the pain.

A shared threat brings these two old friends/rivals together. Edward Asner plays Bart Jason, an unscrupulous land baron (is there any other kind in this sort of film?) who's intent on grabbing up all of the region's watering rights, and running the town as his own personal fiefdom, to boot. Mitchum's lawman had always been able to keep him under control before, but now that he's a pathetic drunk, Jason sets his power play into motion.

Bart hires a gang of gunslingers, led by Christopher George. Here the film takes an interesting twist, for George's gunhawk is less of a cutthroat mercenary than he is a throwback to the days of knighthood. Yes, his six shooter is for hire, but he maintains a personal code of honor and delivers it with sly charm. In any other movie, he would have been the anti-hero lead.

Wayne's character, like George's, also hires his gun out ("First I ask how the money is, then I ask what the job is."), but he's far gruffer and jaded. There's a hint that he once had George's sense of gallantry, but time and blood and death has blunted it. Still, Wayne feels "obliged" to certain people, including Mitchum, as well as a family in El Dorado who will no doubt be annihilated by Jason. So, he heads towards the town for the inevitable showdown, accompanied by a young gambler called "Mississippi" (James Caan), who's deadly with a knife, but who's so bad with a gun, he can't even hit someone with a sawed-off shotgun (one of the film's best running gags).

There's a further twist in this film that would have been all-but-unimaginable in earlier Wayne Westerns...the Duke isn't invincible. Early in the movie, he's shot in the back by Josephine MacDonald, the sister of a man Wayne had shot. Wayne survives, but the bullet lodges near his spine, and causes seizures and paralysis at the most inopportune moments. What could have been a trite plot gimmick..."Gee, look, the Duke had another attack right when he had the drop on those owlhoots"...instead carries tremendous weight, as the sight of Wayne suddenly helpless is enough to shake anyone. John Wayne isn't supposed to be helpless!

And so, it comes down to a near-cripple, a drunk, and a somewhat less-than-helpful kid to bring a small army of thugs to heel. That it happens at all is half the fun of this film!

Director Howard Hawks shoots this picture with an economy of poetry. The images are quick, stark, forceful. None of John Ford's sweeping panoramas of clouds and buttes and rainbow skies. This isn't a story about beauty, after all, but of survival. There will be time to stop and smell the roses later..if they're lucky.

What really elevates this film to greatness is the underlying sense of humor. Old pro's Wayne and Mitchum are having a grand old time, and they can't suppress the twinkle in their eyes (their fistfight, which in any other film would have been done as high drama, is here played out as nothing less than a Three Stooges pastiche!) Caan, in his first major film, wisely plays his character perfectly straight, which only serves to enhance his comedic aspects. Christopher George is clearly having a ball as the cheerfully cool gunslinger.

If there were a college course in "Western 101," El Dorado would be required study. All of the elements came together wonderfully to make for a fantastic film; sadly, for one of the last times, as the genuine Hollywood Western was already headed for Boot Hill. Even the Duke would soon cease to make such pictures as this.