Stars: John Wayne (Cole Thornton), Robert Mitchum (Sheriff J.P. Harrah), James Caan (Mississippi), Ed Asner (Bart Jason), Charlene Holt (Maudie), Paul Fix (Dr. Miller), Michele Carey (Josephine 'Joey' MacDonald), Arthur Hunnicutt (Bull Harris)
Director: Howard Hawks
Awards / Honors
- None of any note
Genre: Western
Running Time: 2 Hours, 6 minutes
Format: DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)
Odyssey Rating: 3 1/4 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 2 Stars, Jeff - 4 Stars, TJ - 4 Stars)
John's Take
From the movie Get Shorty:
[Bo Catlett is pointing a gun at Chili Palmer’s head]
Bo Catlett: This time there ain’t any John Wayne and Dean Martin shootin' bad guys in El Dorado...
Chili Palmer: That was Rio Bravo. Robert Mitchum played the drunk in El Dorado; Dean Martin played the drunk in Rio Bravo. Basically, it was the same part. Now John Wayne played the same part in both movies, he played John Wayne...
Bo Catlett: Man, I just can't wait for you to be dead!
And that ladies and gentlemen pretty much sums up everything you need to know about the movie El Dorado. Just take the movie Rio Bravo, replace all of the cast members except for John Wayne, and you are finished:
El Dorado (1967) Rio Bravo (1959)
Robert Mitchum (Harrah) replaces Dean Martin (Dude)James Caan (Mississippi) replaces Ricky Nelson (Colorado)Charlene Holt (Maudie) replaces Angie Dickinson (Feathers)Arthur Hunnicutt (Bull) replaces Walter Brennan (Stumpy)Ed Asner (Jason) replaces John Russell (Burdette)
The plots are basically the same – a sheriff needs to defend his jailhouse from a well financed group of criminals. Just certain elements of the story get mixed around. For example, Mitchum is the drunken sheriff while Martin was the drunken deputy. Ricky Nelson is high proficient gunfighter where James Caan is a horrible shot (but very good with a knife), etc.
By just looking at the actors involved in the films, you might assume that El Dorado is the superior movie. I mean, Mitchum, Caan, Asner – those are pretty good actors, so it is probably the better of the two movies, right? Nope, you would be wrong. El Dorado isn’t nearly as good as Rio Bravo. That is not to say that Rio Bravo is necessarily a cinematic masterpiece, but of the two, Rio Bravo is clearly the better film.
Supposedly director Howard Hawks purposely planned a “trilogy” of movies all based around the same basic premise of a besieged sheriff (Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo). While that may be partially true, I personally there is a little bit of film history retcon going on as well (i.e., it was basically just easier to keep remaking the same movie). I mean, this is the same guy that directed films like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Sergeant York and The Big Sleep. El Dorado and Rio Lobo were the best “re-makes” he could come up with?
Is El Dorado a terrible movie? No, it has its moments, and it can be fairly funny at times. Some of that comedy is unintentional, but hey, it works so why knock it. It is just one of many examples of a movie that would have failed horribly without John Wayne’s involvement. Granted, as Chili says, he just spends the whole movie being John Wayne, but as is often the case in his movies, that John Wayne mystique is usually sufficient to make the occasionally ridiculous dialog and plot elements just a tad bit more palatable.
So how did this movie end up on this blog? Well, Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey, Jeff and TJ, are big fans of this movie (or more accurately put, fans of some of the ridiculous dialog in this movie – “He was limping when he left…” “He was limping when he got here!!”), and they were coming over to watch Pulp Fiction with Beth and I. They had no interest in watching All the Presidents Men, however, and TJ wanted to take the opportunity to see El Dorado on my 65 inch HD television. So we delayed our viewing of All the of President’s Men until the next day, and watched El Dorado instead. Was it a good trade off? Not really, but hey at least it was funny…
And it gets a ranking of 3 (weak) Stars from me.
John
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