Why JOHN WAYNE'S film RIO BRAVO has a famous ACTOR credited in the movie, that doesn't appear in it!

in 1959 howard hawks directed john wayne dean martin ricky nelson angie dickinson and walter brennan and ward bond in the american western film rio bravo the story is based on a book by b.h mccampbell called rio bravo the film is about a sheriff in the town of rio bravo texas who arrest the brother of a powerful local rancher for murder and then he must hold him in jail until a united states marshal can come pick him up the movie is basically about the cast of characters around the sheriff that try to hold off the rancher's gang from springing the brother loose the movie was filmed in old tucson the same arizona movie set where the gunfight at the o.k corral from 1957 was filmed filming began in may of 1958 and was completed well before the end of the year with the director howard hawks only going over schedule by six days warner brothers still decided to hold off on the release of the movie until 1959 where it had its premiere in new york city the filming of the outdoor shots was often a terrible chore and that was due to the 120 degree heat that they were experiencing during the filming there was also an invasion of grasshoppers that actually fried on the hot lights and they littered the sets it crunched when they walked now all the sets that they built for the movie were built to 7 8 scale so it made the performers look larger than life howard hawks didn't really want ricky nelson in his role he considered him too young and too lightweight and he deliberately gave him the fewest number of lines for a third build star that he could give him after everything was said and done he said that having ricky nelson in the movie actually probably added about two million dollars to the film's box office dean martin's agent actually contacted howard hawks the director to have his client be considered for the role of the drunken deputy dude the director decided to meet with dean martin at 9 30 the next morning when hawks learned that martin had done a show in vegas until midnight the night before and he had actually hired a plane to fly him to the meeting the director was so impressed that he simply sent dean martin to get a costume and told him he had the part dean martin wasn't really sure how to play this character dude who was an alcoholic battling a bunch of inner demons it's often thought that dean martin drank a lot just by the sheer presence of a glass always being in his hand when he did his shows in vegas or his television show in the 60s was the same way but he actually i think only had apple juice in those it's thought that he didn't drink much at all he ended up calling marlon brando for advice on how to play this role of an alcoholic now the one part that dean martin really had a problem with was the scene where he had to cry he really struggled with this and it unnerved him but he eventually got it right john wayne and dean martin gave ricky nelson a heck of a birthday present on his birthday may 8 1958. it was his 18th birthday and they had a 300 pound sack of steer manure delivered to the set and they threw ricky into it and told him that was a rite of passage he had to endure now if you'll watch on youtube you can see the original trailers that were done for the film and it has a really interesting trailer that's done it has ricky nelson as he finishes playing his guitar then he turns to the camera and talks about the exciting nature of this film after some clips are shown they cut back to nelson who lists the cast of characters when he doesn't mention his own name you hear the voice of dean martin say off camera what about ricky nelson for almost the entire film chance played by john wayne has the front of his hat turned up to make him look a little softer and a little more friendly there are a few scenes where the hat is turned down and this is more of his tough guy traditional role that he's playing now this film was a huge success in italy italians love their westerns and this kind of laid the groundwork for the following decade of spaghetti westerns that came out of italy john wayne really felt like this film kind of marked his transition into middle age he was 51 and he was starting to get overweight he believed that he was too old to play a romantic lead anymore his last four movies after the searchers in 1956 had been very unsuccessful he felt like the only way to keep his audiences coming was to revert back to playing john wayne in every film this film is ward bond and john wayne's 22nd film together and it was their final film together this was ward bond's final film walter brennan is exceptional in his role as stumpy his role is hilarious in interviews with walter brennan later on he said that people would run into him long after the film was over and they would expect him to still limp like stumpy it said that claude aiken said that during the film all the actors found themselves as time went on starting to talk like john wayne did john wayne wasn't very impressed by this at all dean martin and ricky nelson sing the song my rifle my pony and me in the movie and that was actually adapted from settled down the theme from red river in 1948 which was another john wayne howard hawks western now footage from the film was actually incorporated into flashbacks in john wayne's last film the shootest in 1976 where he's depicted as a younger man john wayne's actual working script that he used for the film was auctioned off by a texas based company for twenty thousand dollars it had all but three of the 122 pages folded in half i guess this was a habit that john wayne had with all his scripts rio bravo was the highest grossing western of 1959 it brought in over 10.5 million at the domestic box office now the big action finale required them to blow up the villain's warehouse and they had to do it twice because the first one was ruined by the props people who filled it with colored paper and when they blew it up it made it look like a chinese firecracker exploded so they had to reshoot the whole thing now let's talk about the character actor harry kerry jr he is listed in the credits on screen but he doesn't appear in the picture it's said that during this time he may have had a drinking problem and one day on the set he called the director howard hawks howard instead of mr hawks that evidently infuriated howard hawks his contract had already been done including his pay and his screen credit so they honored that but his part as a townsman was completely cut out of the film howard hawks was a strange one to work with this was his first film in four years after the critical and box office failure of land of the pharaohs he took a break from directing and actually lived in europe for a time the original title of the screenplay was the bull by the tail which is actually a line that said in the film near the end of the movie dean martin ricky nelson and walter brennan's characters are singing and making music while passing time in the jailhouse all three of these actors would place individual top five hits on the billboard hot 100 over the next five years dean martin with everybody loved somebody in 1964 ricky nelson with travel and man in 1961 young world in 1961 and teenage idol in 1962 and then walter brennan with the song old rivers in 1962 this film is terribly respected by many directors in hollywood and one of the main ones that respects it is quentin tarantino he actually chooses the women that he wants to have relationships with by their opinion of the movie one of the first things he does when he goes out with a woman is they watch that movie together if that girl doesn't like it then he doesn't see her anymore i absolutely love every character in this movie i think it's one of the best westerns out there take some time and re-watch real bravo i think you'll enjoy it thank you so much for watching and we'll continue to chase the classics

Channel: LandumC goes there

Views: 313,804

Rating: 4.8816276 out of 5

Keywords: Rio Bravo, John Wayne, LandumC goes there

Id: IEwvruLOhpA

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020