‘Rio Grande’ or — War on Terror… The Musical?!
John Ford’s ‘Rio Grande’ (1950) has a lot of typical Ford ingredients — the strength of a strict community; the domesticated, ditty powered female; barely comprehensible Irish gibberish; the idolisation of West Point academy; the celebration of America as a terrorist state; military parades; the benefits of alcoholism and killing natives whilst smiling. Except Ford generously throws something else in to sweeten this already appealing sounding mix — singing cowboys! Jesus Bum-eating Christ.
‘Rio Grande’ is based on a short story and it shows because I’m still trying to figure out what this film is about and who this film is about. Ostensibly it’s about an army outfit led by Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke (John Wayne) that protects the Mexican border from Apache attacks. Between patrols the soldiers train, rough-house and sing (a lot!) until Yorke’s young son appears having enlisted in the regular army after flunking West Point to serve under Yorke’s command. He is quickly followed by Yorke’s estranged wife (Maureen O’Hara), wanting her son out the dangerous army (silly, pacifist woman). Yorke’s pissed off at her for turning up at an army camp and she’s pissed off at him because he burned down her home a few years back.
Yet, before any marriage guidance can take place a savage attack by Apaches occurs giving Colonel Yorke the perfect excuse he needs to treat this as 9/11 with horses and go George W. Bush on everyone’s asses, immediately and illegally invade another sovereign nation with zero compunction or repercussions whatsoever. Hooray!
And that’s pretty much about it. There’s some stuff about a criminal hiding within the army ranks to escape justice, a bond between a young girl and a drunken Irish cliché as well as the Yorke’s having their family squabbles even if they feel crow-barred in just for some sort of relationship dynamic to be happening. Even the Apache attack and doesn’t erupt until twenty minutes before the end and is dealt with swiftly. But it did leave me wondering who/what this film was about, seeming to be about all and yet none of these things at the same time, the climatic attack simply pulling various strings a little tighter together meaning the film is, sometimes, little more exciting than watching someone successfully tie up their shoe-laces.
John Wayne as Colonel Yorke is… okay, I guess. He looks a little out of his depth at times, until he gets the chance to commit a war crime when he visibly perks up and starts grinning like mad, as well as the fact his moustache makes him look just like Professor Fate from ‘The Great Race’ (1965), whilst Maureen O’Hara shines even if she is promptly reduced to the function of a washing-machine powered by Irish ditties. The result is a film with surface suds and foam covering uncomfortably dark waters.
This tonal dissonance is only emphasised by SOOOOOO many fucking songs! How the hell did America manage to exterminate so many natives when they were singing so much?! Surely the Apaches must’ve heard these yodelling assholes coming from miles off? People have dinner — there’s a song. Someone has a drink — there’s a song. And they’re not even good songs but that awful, crooning, middle of the road shit that’s so ear-scraping I wish America had never been discovered in the first place if it led to this. And it’s tonally jarring as one minute you’re expected to contemplate the horrors of a massacre and the next you’re in an episode of the Val Doonican Show. Aaaarrggghhhh!
Yet ‘Rio Grande’, amazingly, does kinda work… just. I think the reason for this is that Ford shot it quickly, in only 32 days, and it shows. Sure, the action scenes cut corners with repeated set-ups etc but it also means the movie never feels laborious or overwrought. A filmmaker can get away with murder, for me, if I get the sense they’re working quickly and briskly. Plus, shooting in Monument Valley means there’s some very nicely cinematography at play although it’s not the rock formations that grab the eye but the churning cloudscapes.
‘Rio Grande’ is very much a John Ford film with all the good and ill that comes with that. Personally I can find his attitudes tiresome, if not downright vulgar and offensive, but if watching international war crimes take place set to crooning ballads is your thing then this’ll be right up your street.
