I can’t remember the first time I saw Howard Hawks‘ Red River, but I feel like it was on Turner Classic Movies about five years ago or more. What I do remember, however, was it didn’t exactly look very good, it was murky, muddy and just overall and unimpressive visual representation of this film classic. The narrative, obviously, wasn’t affected. Now, Criterion has given it an HD upgrade, cleaned it up and delivered not just one version, but a pre-release version for the curious.
As you’ll learn in the wealth of bonus features, there was a pre-release version of the film and a theatrical version. The theatrical version of Red River runs shorter than the pre-release version, which was only intended for testing purposes. Hawks preferred the theatrical cut, though Peter Bogdanovich tells us in a new interview Hawks actually preferred the ending on the pre-release version, which was edited down before its theatrical release courtesy of Howard Hughes because he felt it too closely mimicked the end of his film, The Outlaw (1943). Why Criterion didn’t offer the pre-release ending as an alternative on the theatrical cut I’m not sure, but you can see it in full in the pre-release version, which comes on a second Blu-ray disc.
Before I get too deep into the features, however, the film was released in 1948 and stars John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan and Joanne Dru and tells the story of one Texas rancher’s cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail, from Texas to Wyoming. The story is based on Borden Chase‘s novel “Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail“, which was previously out of print, but is included with this new Criterion release in full.
The film itself features a lot of what you’d expect from a Howard Hawks film ranging from action and violence to plenty of comedic beats. Hawks’ filmography is one of the more eclectic when it comes to a major film director as one could argue just as hard for the romantic comedy Bringing Up Baby as Rio Bravo, both are wildly different features, but both immensely entertaining in their own right.
Red River, I wouldn’t say, is the best Hawks has to offer, though to define a “best” among such a diverse number of films is difficult to begin with. Wayne delivers a stand-out surly performance and I’ve always been a big fan of Clift, whose work I still need to explore more deeply having only scratched the surface. If there was to be one complaint, it would largely target the film’s ending, which does reach a certain inevitability, but is handled in such a ham-fisted, clunky way it doesn’t feel right within the confines of this particular film. Nevertheless. Hawks has created a fine piece of entertainment in Red River and certainly a film worth your while even if it can’t hold a candle to Rio Bravo… my opinion, of course.
When it comes to differences between the two versions of the film, the primary difference (on top of a few additional and extended scenes) is the theatrical release features voice over narration from Walter Brennan while the pre-release version doesn’t, instead using pages from a book seen at the beginning of the film to serve as transitions. The writing was deemed cumbersome and too difficult to read and was replaced, to what I’d say is the film’s advantage, but I’m sure there would be some that disagree, film critic Molly Haskell certainly does in her interview on the second disc.
[amz asin=”B00IGK6TGU” size=”small”]On top of the previously mentioned new interview with Bogdanovich, the first disc also includes a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich. The conversation includes some what Bogdanovich discusses in his new interview segment, but does go down some other fascinating avenues. The disc also includes a trailer for the film.
The second disc includes the pre-release version of the film as well as a 16-minute interview with Molly Haskell discussing Hawks and a 13-minute new interview with film scholar Lee Clark Mitchell about the western genre and where the film and Borden Chase fits into that picture. On top of that are excerpts from a 1970 interview with novelist Chase, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Schnee, and a 1949 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Red River featuring Wayne, Dru and Brennan.
In terms of the transfer, it looks wonderful, though there are still a few scenes where it seems the damage to the film stock was just too dramatic and it couldn’t quite be restored as well as the rest of the film. Screen captures at DVD Beaver also show how the presentation is a little lighter than as seen on the 2013 Masters of Cinema release.
Personally I think Red River is a fine film, though not one I would rush to in a conversation discussing my favorite Westerns. That said, this is an excellent example of Criterion going above and beyond when it comes to their releases. There’s a new study that says physical media will be replaced entirely by 2016, but I simply can’t imagine a time where we aren’t getting to hold a new physical copy of a Criterion release, complete with an illustrated booklet and in the case of Red River a copy of the book the film was based on.
Granted, you could get all the same stuff in digital form, including a copy of the book for your Kindle, but if there is anything I love having on display in my home it’s my collection of Criterion titles. Sure, leave the rest to the streaming companies, I use them too, but there is something certainly special about a Criterion release that makes owning the physical copy well worthwhile.
You can buy a copy of Criterion’s release of Red River on Amazon by clicking here or Barnes & Noble [bn url=”http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-red-river-john-wayne/3623996?ean=715515117012″ text=”here”].
