| Red River | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 79 reviews)
Sales Rank: 4801
Category: Video
Actors: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray
Directors: Arthur Rosson, Howard Hawks
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Media: VHS Tape
Running Time: 133 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 3.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 6306334866
UPC: 027616613837
EAN: 9786304429754
ASIN: 6304429754
Release Date: April 1, 1992
Theatrical Release Date: September 30, 1948
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Description
One of the finest westerns ever made, this "monumental, sweeping and powerful" masterpiece (Variety) features impassioned performances, stunning cinematography and adventure on a grand scale. Starring John Wayne, Montgomery Clift (in his screen debut), Walter Brennan, Harry Carey, Sr. and Noah Beery, Jr., Red River is a hard-hitting, action-packed adventure that captures the grandeur, majestyand dangerof the wild American West.Wayne gives "one of the best performances of his career" (Cinebooks) as Tom Dunson, a self-made cattle baron who'll do anything to protect his way of life. So when plummeting livestock values demand that he drive his herd through thetreacherous Chisholm Trail, Tom proves that he'll risk anything to reach his destination even his own sanity.
Amazon.com essential video
Talk about epic grandeur! This magnificently photographed account of the first cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail has everything you could ever want in a western: gunfights, stampedes, Indian attacks, hangings, betrayal, revenge, romance, glorious scenery, and a towering performance by John Wayne that prefigured his definitive portrayal of the bitter Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers eight years later. Tom Dunson (Wayne) adopts a young boy, Matt (brilliantly played as an adult by Montgomery Clift), whose family has been massacred by Indians. Years later, after Dunson has become a successful rancher, mentor and protege have an acrimonious falling out during a grueling cattle drive and go their separate ways, with Dunson vowing to kill Matt. Red River is a true classic and unquestionably one of the greatest westerns of all time. --Jim Emerson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 Good western September 16, 2008
A great genre film is not necessarily a great piece of cinema, for the dictates of genre often run counter to the dictates of art; namely that genre demands familiar elements (aka cliches). As good an example of this dictum that can be found is director Howard Hawks' 1948 (although filmed in 1946) black and white western Red River. There is great debate amongst western aficionados as to who was the greater director of westerns, John Ford or Howard Hawks? Well, if one compares the two westerns most consider the two directors' apexes in the genre, Ford's The Searchers and this film, it's no contest. Red River and Hawks win in a walk. That's because Hawks was basically concerned with narrative and characters while Ford obsessed over myth making and caricatures. Even Ford tacitly admitted Hawks was the superior craftsman, for when he first saw Red River he is reputed to have exclaimed, of star John Wayne: `I didn't know the big son of a bitch could act.' Both films, of course, feature Wayne in an anti-hero role, and both are sweeping tales. But, Red River features realistic characterization, great dialogue and comedy in a first rate screenplay written by Charles Schnee and Borden Chase, which was adapted from Chase's tale The Chisholm Trail. But, above all, the film benefits from the screen debut of Montgomery Clift, who steals the film from Wayne as easily as his character does the cattle herd they are driving north to sell. Note the scene where Matt steps inside a cattleman's office in Abilene. Watch Clift's face as he ducks, because it's been months since he was under a roof. That's the sort of realistic reaction that takes little effort in writing or acting, but adds up to lifting a pedestrian film into a greater realism.... The film reaches out and scrapes greatness in the scenes between Wayne and Clift, as Dunson and Matt. Rarely have two macho male roles been so convincingly written- and considering this was the 1940s, it makes that fact all the more special. Wayne actually emotes a bit above his usual monosyllabics, and Clift acts and reacts to Wayne better than any co-star I've seen. One really gets the sense of their having known each other for years. Two other relationships that work are the ones between Groot and Dunson, especially when Groot finally stands up to Dunson, after years of cowering, and the one between Matt and Cherry, as young gunslingers whose guns stand in for penises in one well written and acted scene that prefigures, albeit far more realistically, some of the homoeroticism that would end up in the laughable vomitus of Brokeback Mountain.
But, make no mistake, the major theme of Red River is the classic Oedipal one, where the figurative son must supplant the father, and until the very end, this is the core of the film, and what pushes it well above most westerns. It is a complex film that rises above its genre, but not far enough to reach that ineffable area reserved for the greatest of artworks, even if it can legitimately make a claim to being a great western. Whether or not it would have succeeded in reaching that lofty status without the feminine element is debatable, but that the female element drags it down from unadulterated greatness is not. Now there's a classic trope: blame it on the broads! Yeehah!
 Great movie August 2, 2008
One of J. Wayne's best, but not a typical role for him. Very dark characterization.
Still fun to watch after 60 years April 12, 2008
This is one of John Wayne's better roles, mostly because he is given a more complex character to portray. The film was released in 1948 and directed by Howard Hawks. I used to think someone did a poor job of casting women in these Hawk/Wayne films, but after re-watching this movie, I now believe that the scriptwriters just didn't know how to write realistic dialogue for women. It wasn't how they said their lines, it was that their lines were inane. Too bad. It's the only flaw in this otherwise classic western.
At the beginning of this century, Red River enjoyed a mini-revival after City Slickers mentioned and then reenacted the iconic yelping kickoff of the cattle drive. Great fun to watch them together, but start with Red River. It really explains the motivation for the characters in City Slickers.
The Shut Mouth Society
The Shopkeeper
A great western February 5, 2008
I love Red River. It is another classic John Wayne western, with excellent acting, wonderful story, and great scenery. Montgomery Clift was superb, as well as John Wayne, Joanne Dru, and Walter Brennan. An excellent western.
Take 'em to Missouri, Matt! November 7, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
With RED RIVER, versatile director Howard Hawks, well-known for his screwball comedies (BRINGING UP BABY, HIS GIRL FRIDAY) made one of the greatest westerns ever in just his first attempt at the genre. This story of the epic first cattle drive up the Chisholm Trail in 1865 is noted for its fine acting performances as well as for its tension-filled and exciting storyline. This was also really the first film in which John Wayne notably plays a troubled anti-hero rather than the more conventional matinee-style hero or villain he was known for previously. The greatest roles that lay ahead in his career (particularly Ethan Edwards of THE SEARCHERS) would follow in this mold.
Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a self-made but ruthless man who has built the largest ranch in Texas with 10,000 cattle that need to go to market. Montgomery Clift, in his first major film role, plays his adopted son Matt Garth, who has just returned from service in the Civil War. Tom and Matt and their cowhands set out on the 1000 mile drive intending to take their herd to Missouri. Although Dunson gives his men the option to opt out before the drive begins, he will permit no man who begins the journey to quit along the way. As the hardships mount up on the trail to Missouri and the men begin to hear of the new, safer Chisholm trail to Abilene, Kansas, morale drops. When Dunson refuses to go to Kansas due to uncertainty about its having access to a railroad, the men begin to leave. Several attempting to leave are shot dead by Dunson.
Eventually, after Dunson attempts to hang some more deserters, Garth wrests control of the herd and steers them toward Kansas with Dunson vowing that he will kill him when he catches up to him. Despite the rather vile acts that Dunson commits, he is not an altogether unsympathetic character and Wayne plays the character in a well-nuanced performance. Garth clearly loves his adopted father but, at the risk of being perceived as "soft," he is more empathetic and intelligent in his approaches to problem solving than is Dunson. The tension mounts as Garth tries to reach Kansas before the vengeful Dunson, even as he knows that he will eventually have to face him anyway.
Leading the strong supporting cast is Walter Brennan, who is as great as he always is as chuckwagon driver "Groot." Also supporting this film are such Western stalwarts as Hank Worden (who was also a particular favorite of John Ford), John Ireland, Paul Fix, and Noah Beery Jr. (known to a later generation as "Rocky" on THE ROCKFORD FILES). On an interesting note, this was Harry Carey Jr's first film as well as the last film of Harry Carey Sr, and so is the only film in which the father and son appeared together (albeit in different scenes). Joanne Dru is appealing and attractive as the love interest. More trivially (for the trivia-minded), Richard Farnsworth and Shelly Winters have tiny, uncredited roles that fans of Where's Waldo? might want to watch for.
RED RIVER, along with The Searchers (John Wayne Collection) has always been on the top of my list of my favorite westerns. Anyon who doubts John Wayne's abilities as an actor need to check out these two films. While it is true when people say that the only character that John Wayne ever played was "John Wayne," he was sometimes quite remarkable in playing that character.
Jeremy W. Forstadt
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