Once again the movies of John Wayne are slowly making their way onto blu-ray format. Perhaps not the most famous of those films but ones that continued to show why even during his later years Wayne continued to make westerns that could entertain.
RIO LOBO finds Wayne as Col. Cord McNally at the tail end of the Civil War. Waiting for a gold shipment he’s disappointed when confederate soldiers led by Capt. Pierre Cardona (Jorge Rivero) drops a hornet’s nest into the car containing the gold and soldiers and then cuts lose the train cars to steal the loot. A back and forth of who has whom results in Wayne capturing Cordona and his right hand man, Sgt. Tuscarora Phillips (Christopher Mitchum).
The years pass, the war ends and prisoners are set free. McNally meets up with Cordona and Phillips in search of information. He wants to find who it was that set up the train heist, who it was on his side that was feeding the south information. One of McNally’s friends was killed in the attack, a killing he doesn’t hold against his war time foes but does against a traitor. The three part ways on good terms giving McNally a little to go on but enough that months later he heads to Rio Lobo in search of the traitor.
On his way there he once again runs into Cordona. They also become acquainted with a young woman named Shasta (Jennifer O’Neill) fleeing Rio Lobo and hunted by three killers with badges. Needless to say they lose the ensuing gunfight and McNally discovers that not only has the traitor taken over the sheriff in Rio Lobo, he’s about to put an end to Tuscarora and his family as well. The three set out for Rio Lobo to help and finally get the revenge that McNally sought to begin with.
So this is a later John Wayne film and one that did decent at the box office but also showed a decline in movie goer’s enjoyment of westerns and Wayne as well. Sure it did good business but not what his earlier films did. But that doesn’t take away the fact that this is an enjoyable film that the entire family can watch. There are a few violent moments that small children might not need to see (a woman shows the results of a facial slice made by bad guy Mike Henry as Rio Lobo’s sheriff for hire) but it’s far less graphic than even some TV shows today.
There is plenty of gun slinging and Wayne once more turns down the role of romantic lead, offering it to the younger Rivero instead. A smart move on his part as chances are ticket buyers would have had a hard time dealing with the older more mature Wayne hooking up with the much younger O’Neill. There is more plot than usual for a western here between the civil war antics and the search for the traitor who sold out his fellow soldiers (played by Victor French long before his LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE days) but that just brings in more folks to help before the final gunfight.
Of interest to some would be the casting of two individuals in the film. The first is a bad guy, the initial three who come looking for O’Neill played almost silently by George Plimpton. Plimpton was a writer known for his taking on jobs to find out what they were like first hand. His claim to fame was writing the book PAPER LION where the lean and tall Plimpton spent time as a Detroit Lion football players to see what it was like. Here, he takes on the role of a stunt man. The second would be Sherry Lansing as Amelita. Lansing worked as an actress for some time before moving behind the camera and becoming not just a producer but the head of Paramount Studios for some time.
No, this is not John Wayne’s best film nor would I consider it in the top ten. But it does offer a good western that you can kick back and enjoy. The blu-ray format does indeed help the quality of the picture and gives it that much newer feel and look. One can only hope that all of Wayne’s films receive the same treatment down the line.
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