Red River
No matter what genre he worked in, Howard Hawks played by his own rules, and never was this more evident than in his first western, the rowdy and whip-smart Red River. In it, John Wayne found one of his greatest roles, as an embittered, tyrannical Texas rancher whose tensions with his independent-minded adopted son—played by Montgomery Clift, in a breakout performance—reach epic proportions during a cattle drive to Missouri. The film is based on a novel that dramatizes the real-life late nineteenth-century expeditions along the Chisholm Trail, but Hawks is less interested in historical accuracy than in tweaking the codes of masculinity that propel the myths of the American West. The unerringly macho Wayne and the neurotic, boyish Clift make for an improbably perfect pair, held aloft by a quick-witted, multilayered screenplay and Hawks’s formidable direction.
Blu-ray Special Edition Features
- 2K digital restoration of the rarely presented original theatrical release version, the preferred cut of director Howard Hawks, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- 2K digital restoration of the longer, prerelease version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
- Interview with critic Molly Haskell about Hawks and Red River
- Interview with film scholar Lee Clark Mitchell about the western genre
- Audio excerpts from a conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich
- Audio excerpts from an interview with novelist and screenwriter Borden Chase
- Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Red River from 1949, featuring John Wayne, Joanne Dru, and Walter Brennan
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1991 interview with Hawks’s frequent editor Christian Nyby
Cover by Eric Skillman
Blu-ray Special Edition Features
- 2K digital restoration of the rarely presented original theatrical release version, the preferred cut of director Howard Hawks, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- 2K digital restoration of the longer, prerelease version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
- Interview with critic Molly Haskell about Hawks and Red River
- Interview with film scholar Lee Clark Mitchell about the western genre
- Audio excerpts from a conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich
- Audio excerpts from an interview with novelist and screenwriter Borden Chase
- Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Red River from 1949, featuring John Wayne, Joanne Dru, and Walter Brennan
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1991 interview with Hawks’s frequent editor Christian Nyby
Cover by Eric Skillman
Cast
- John Wayne
- Thomas Dunson
- Montgomery Clift
- Matthew Garth
- Joanne Dru
- Tess Millay
- Walter Brennan
- Nadine Groot
- Coleen Gray
- Fen
- Harry Carey Sr.
- Mr. Melville
- John Ireland
- Cherry Valance
- Noah Beery Jr.
- Buster McGee
- Harry Carey Jr.
- Dan Latimer
- Chief Yowlachie
- Quo
- Paul Fix
- Teeler Yacey
- Hank Worden
- Simms Reeves
- Mickey Kuhn
- Young Matthew Garth
- Ray Hyke
- Walt Jergens
- Hal Taliaferro
- Old Leather
- Ivan Parry
- Bunk Kenneally
Credits
- Director
- Howard Hawks
- Produced by
- Howard Hawks
- Screenplay
- Borden Chase
- Screenplay
- Charles Schnee
- From the Saturday Evening Post story by
- Borden Chase
- Codirector
- Arthur Rosson
- Photographed by
- Russell Harlan
- Film editor
- Christian Nyby
- Art director
- John Datu Arensma
- Sound
- Richard DeWeese
- Music composed and directed by
- Dimitri Tiomkin
- The song “Settle Down” by
- Dimitri Tiomkin
- Music recorder
- Vinton Vernon
- Makeup
- Lee Greenway
- Special effects
- Donald Steward
- Special photographic effects
- Allan Thompson
- Assistant director
- William McCarrey
- Production manager
- Norman Cook
