{"id":21715,"date":"2020-12-07T10:46:42","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T18:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=21715"},"modified":"2020-12-07T10:46:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T18:46:42","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-rio-grande-1950","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=21715","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: RIO GRANDE (1950)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Cavalry Trilogy is a famous series of westerns made for\nRKO Pictures by John Ford (Stagecoach<\/em>, Young Mr. Lincoln<\/em>, The\nSearchers<\/em>, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance<\/em>). Each stared John Wayne\nand, after 70 years, genre afficionados continue to adore these movies. Fort\nApache<\/em> (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon<\/em> (1949) were the first releases,\nwith the latter winning an Academy Award for its striking cinematography. The\nfinal feature, Rio Grande<\/em>, has arrived on Blu-ray with upgraded picture\nquality and new extras as part of the impressive Olive Signature Collection. And\nas expected, if you\u2019re a fan of the feature, then this is the version that you\nneed to own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set in 1879, Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke (John Wayne)\nserves as a leader of the Texas Cavalry regiment, stationed to protect settlers\nfrom a roving Apache force. The stiff and stoic military man already has plenty\nto deal with. However, an unexpected issue arises when he learns that his teenage\nson, Trooper Jefferson Yorke (Claude Jarman Jr.), has just been posted to crew\nafter flunking out of West Point. Kirby, who hasn\u2019t seen his child in 15 years,\nendeavors to give the boy no special treatment, but the situation grows more\ncomplicated when his estranged wife Kathleen (Maureen O\u2019Hara) arrives to check\nin on the pair. Over the course of the running time, Kirby must deal with enemy\nforces and try to solve personal tensions that have plagued the family for\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This title was filmed in black and white (as opposed to the\nprevious entry, which was lensed in Technicolor) and may feel a bit smaller in\nscope. And yet, to some degree this approach works to the movie\u2019s benefit.\nWayne\u2019s character isn\u2019t shown as unfailingly heroic or an unstoppable force as\nhe deals with personal issues and squares off in battle. Admittedly, things\nstill progress as one might expect, but more care is taken to show the lead as\nhuman and fallible. Viewers also spend a great deal of time with Jefferson, who\nis coming of age and must learn how to take responsibility in a dangerous and\ndeadly environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of elaborate and impressive horse-riding throughout\nthe movie. And the big action finale, which involves the soldiers attempting to\nfree a group of kidnapped children from a church on enemy territory, is very\nwell-edited and displays a great deal of technical skill. While this title may\nnot be as famous as The Searchers<\/em>, it is a very strong western that benefits\nfrom a bigger emphasis on characters (even if they do come across as stereotypes\nat times). Focusing on their personal states during the crisis helps this film itself\napart from others of its ilk. One of its oddest elements is the use of a lot of\nsongs. However, according to experts crooning in the evening hours was common\nin the barracks during this era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The movie has been given a new high-definition visual\nrestoration and it looks remarkable, with the image quality appearing cleaner\nthan it ever has before. Blacks are nice and inky and everything is remarkably\ncrisp and sharp. And of course, the Blu-ray comes with a large supply of informative\nand fascinating bonus material that helps one get a sense of what inspired the production\nand what was going on behind the camera. There\u2019s an excellent commentary from\nfilm historian\/John Wayne and John Ford authority, Nancy Schoenberger. It\nreally does provide some great insight and details many may not know about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For those, like me, who aren\u2019t overly aware of the history\nof the movie, Ford and Wayne actually had no intention of making the movie. The\ndirector wanted to be done with westerns and was pushing to shoot a pet project\nhe had been working on for years called The Quiet Man<\/em>. As it turned out,\nstudio executives didn\u2019t particularly like the concept for their Ireland-set romantic\ncomedy and thought it would be a flop. The only way Ford would be granted the\nfinancing for his movie would be to shoot another western for the studio. So, he\nand Wayne relented, calling in O\u2019Hara (who they also wanted for the later\nproject) and set out to complete this movie first. Thankfully, all the\nprofessionals involved decided that they should at least attempt to make the best\nmovie possible under the circumstances. So, the famous \u201cCavalry Trilogy\u201d was never\nintended to be a serious of films and this moniker was one that followed long after\nits release. Amusingly, The Quiet Man<\/em> (which is also available as part\nof the Olive Signature Collection) was completed and released in 1952 \u2013 and it\nwas an even bigger hit than Rio Grande<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are plenty of excellent interviews as well, including\na recent discussion with Claude Jarman Jr. and his experiences on the set. John\nWayne\u2019s son Patrick also discusses being on set and the small part he played in\nthe film. There\u2019s a featurette about the music and the band who performed the\nmany songs featured in the movie. Additionally, there\u2019s a new talk with actor\/choreographer\nRaoul Trujillo (The New World<\/em>, Apocalypto<\/em>) about the depiction of\nNative Americans in the movie. He talks about some of the out-of-date\ndepictions as well as what was done correctly and discusses his work on recent\ntitles. There\u2019s also an archival program with Leonard Maltin tracing the\nhistory of the film. Additionally, there is a video essay talking about the\nthemes and showing the scenes to illustrate his point, as well as a trailer and\na lengthy essay that comes in the disc\u2019s inner booklet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fans of classic westerns will certainly appreciate this\ndisc, with its improved picture quality and bonuses that add more insight into\nthe film. Rio Grande<\/em> may not be the greatest work of either the\nfilmmaker or the lead actor, but it is a solid western. And this disc\u2019s extras\ndo an excellent job of detailing why it is underrated, as well as detail the\nsmall steps it took to try and modernize a few dusty western tropes. If you\u2019re\na fan of John Wayne or John Ford, then you can\u2019t go wrong with this Blu-ray and\nwill find it well worth picking up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cavalry Trilogy is a famous series of westerns made for RKO Pictures by John Ford (Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance). Each stared John Wayne and, after 70 years, genre afficionados continue to adore these movies. Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) were the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[80,697,2923,2928,3073,4032,4494,6251,10850,10916,13463,17072,24114],"class_list":["post-21715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-80","tag-action","tag-blasts-from-the-past","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review","tag-blu-ray-review","tag-cavalry-trilogy","tag-claude-jarman-jr","tag-drama","tag-john-ford","tag-john-wayne","tag-maureen-ohara","tag-rio-grande","tag-western"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}