Few actors are more synonymous with a specific genre than John Wayne is to the Western. Clint Eastwood and Henry Fonda might be a close second and third, but the Duke is the true Western icon.
Paired with John Ford, Wayne created a number of the most iconic movies the genre has ever seen, but his pairings with Howard Hawks also helped create two of the best movies in Western history.
Rio Bravo made its debut in 1959 and became an instant classic. Just seven years later, the two reconnected for a similar film that also ended up in the pantheon of best Westerns.
'El Dorado' Named Among Best Westerns
Rotten Tomatoes compiled a list of the best Westerns of all time and placed El Dorado at No. 18 on the list.
The film isn't dissimilar to Rio Bravo, but Hawks preferred it that way. The legendary director wanted to focus on the relationships between characters rather than a range war.
"Story? There's no story. You and Duke play two old cowboys," Hawks told Robert Mitchum, who later recalled, "He was right. It was all character development."
Hawks based his movie off of The Stars in Their Courses by Harry Brown and angered the author by straying from the source material, which unfolded as a Greek tragedy.
"I'm much more interested in the story of a friendship between two men than I am about a range war or something like that," Hawks said. "There's probably no stronger emotion than friendship between men. When it comes to Wayne and his relationships, that's better than the story... Any time you get somebody who's as good as Wayne and Mitchum, you're going to make better scenes than there are in the script."
James Caan Was Lied to?
By omission, at least.
Hawks refused to tell the newcomer that he was playing a comedic role in the film, allowing the youngster to play his part straight, by which he received laughs.
"It was Caan's first good part, and he accepted anything I'd tell him without any argument. He's a damn good actor, and we started rolling the more we got into it. He got a lot of laughs playing it perfectly serious. He didn't know he was playing a comedy," Hawks revealed.
"Not until he went to see the preview. He came up to me and said, 'Why didn't you tell me I was playing a comic part?' And I said, 'You'd have spoiled it. You'd have tried to be funny.'"
Just a few years later, Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for his work as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather.
El Dorado is available for free on Pluto TV.
Related: 1957 Classic, Initially A Box Office Flop, Named Among Greatest Westerns of All Time
from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/PHKWcIp
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