One of the all-time most venerated Hollywood directors, Howard Hawks was a master at making movies in every genre under the sun. Whether helming the classic gangster film Scarface, the iconic musical Gentleman Prefer Blondes, the landmark film noir The Big Sleep, or the influential screwball comedyBringing Up Baby, Hawks had a preternatural understanding of telling stories on the big screen. Of course, his biggest cinematic contributions may reside in the Western film genre.
After making Red River with John Wayne in 1948, Hawks continued working with The Duke throughout their careers. Yet, the glaring similarities between the 1959 Western Rio Bravo and the 1966 Western El Dorado have raised the question among cinephiles — are the two movies the same? Did Hawks and Wayne deliberately remake their previous movie or were the story parallels coincidental? To find answers, a side-by-side comparison between them bears closer attention.
What Is Rio Bravo About?
Rio Bravo is an American Western film directed by Howard Hawks, from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. Based on the short story Rio Bravo by B.H. McCampbell, the plot concerns Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne), who arrests Joe Burdette, the brother of a wealthy landowner in small-town Texas, for murdering an innocent bystander. Once Chance jails Joe, he becomes under siege by his powerful brother, Nathan Burdette.
To fend off Nathan and his forces, Chance recruits the drunkard Dude (Dean Martin), the young cowboy Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson), and the disabled veteran Stumpy (Walter Brennan). The foursome hole up in the makeshift prison holding Joe captive, violently thwarting every attempt to breach the building and bust Joe out of jail. Yet, the two-and-a-half-hour Rio Bravo is also a lazy hang-out movie, with long spells in between the shootouts affording the chance to develop each character and provide depth.
For instance, those who’ve seen the film will never forget the scene where Dude, Ryan, and Stumpy sing “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me” as Chance proudly sways to and fro. It’s a stark reminder of Hawks’ deft ability to meld genres and elicit terrific on-screen chemistry among actors from different generations. Yet, at its core, Rio Bravo is a siege-and-protect shootout action Western, a simple plot recycled by disciples of Howard Hawks, including most notably John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13. With such fertile ground for tilling, Hawks also loosely remade Rio Bravo seven years later with El Dorado.
What Is El Dorado About?
Also penned by Leigh Brackett, El Dorado follows a similar path as Rio Bravo. Set in El Dorado, Texas, the story concerns the grizzled Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), who rides into town to recruit his old friend and expert gunslinger, Cole Thornton (John Wayne). When Harrah informs Cole that wealthy landowner Bart Jason (Ed Asner) is forcing the MacDonald family off their farm, they join forces to protect the family from a violent siege.
The casting of pop idol Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo is similar to Hawks casting the young singer Johnny Crawford to play Luke MacDonald in El Dorado, furthering the parallels between the Westerns. Moreover, Harrah is revealed to be a drunkard, which was Dude’s defining trait in Rio Bravo. The biggest difference is that, in El Dorado, Mitchum plays the Sheriff while Wayne plays the gunslinger. Beyond that, the plots of both movies are remarkably similar, with Wayne leading the effort to defend a group against a violent attack at a single location.
While El Dorado expands slightly beyond the single locale that Rio Bravo revels in, the story beats and characterizations are almost identical. Howard Hawks deliberately paralleled the two movies, something writer Leigh Brackett took issue with while making El Dorado.
How Rio Bravo, El Dorado & Rio Lobo Parallel Each Other
Beyond the similar four-syllable title, the same writer and director, and John Wayne playing heightened versions of himself in both movies, El Dorado and Rio Bravo share more common qualities. According to an interview with Brackett, she felt her original screenplay for El Dorado was her best work. However, Brackett told the interviewer: “The more we got into doing Rio Bravo over again the sicker I got, because I hate doing things over again. And I kept saying to Howard I did that, and he’d say it was okay, we could do it over again.”
Not only did Hawks insist on recycling the basic plot structure of Rio Bravo in El Dorado, but he also incorporated story elements into his final film, Rio Lobo. In Rio Lobo, also written by Leigh Brackett, John Wayne stars as a small-town law enforcer defending his precinct from a violent siege. Although Rio Bravo remains the best in class, the brilliance of Howard Hawks’ filmmaking is that, despite the repetition and redundancy, El Dorado and Rio Lobo are still worthy endeavors that do not feel like stale rehashes.
El Dorado is strong, especially thanks to the chemistry between Mitchum and Wayne, not to mention a young James Caan standing out as the vengeful Mississippi. When asked about his involvement with El Dorado, Mitchum told Time Out, “When Howard called me, I said, ‘What’s the story?’ and he said, ‘No story, just characters’ and that’s the way it was. Did one scene, put it away, did another, put it away.”
No story, just characters. Hawks’ confession proves that no added narrative was necessary to make El Dorado. Instead, a simple beat-for-beat retelling of Rio Bravo would suffice as long as the characters were as compelling. With John Wayne leading the way, the trick worked well enough to repeat it with the underrated Rio Lobo, Hawks’ final film wrapping up a legendary career. Meanwhile, John Wayne would win his one and only Oscar for True Grit in 1970, the same year Rio Lobo was released.