Ford's cavalry trilogy is, in its way, just as much Victor McLaglen's trilogy, for he appears once again in 'Rio Grande', still superbly filling the tough-soft sergeant part, still providing the Ford horse-play comedy element with just a touch of parody, still, one might add, probably fulfilling Ford's own particular vision of revering the heroes who have helped conquer the West...
The McLaglen sergeant seems drawn on the spreading of lines, but in retrospect, one realizes that somehow, paradoxically, he has inspired a remarkable degree of realism into the three motion pictures... (They would be not the same without him.)
'Rio Grande' has a very strong domestic flavor...
John Wayne - a casualty of the Civil War - is a cavalry officer, under strict orders, with great family problems... He's a northerner who, not surprisingly, has left his wife, a southerner, because he obediently did his military duty and burned several southern plantations - including the one owned by his wife's family... Maureen O'Hara - bringing a fitting maturity to her stereotyped assignment in the film - never forgives her husband for burning her plantation, and abruptly takes their son and goes away, effectively ending their marriage...
Fifteen years later, Wayne, promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Cavalry officer, attempts to maintain the truce calm at his southwestern post, which is besieged by marauding renegade Apaches who are continually using the border with Mexico as an escape route after their raids, a lost cause since the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed that their military forces will not cross the Rio Grande under any circumstances...
He hurries to put down an Indian uprising when his past and his wife cross his path again... He is confronted by a new recruit: his West Point dropout son (Claude Jarman Jr.) and, later, the arrival of his frigid wife, desperate to buy her son out of the cavalry...
Everything, domestically and militarily is, of course, resolved successfully and, indeed, predictably, but it is the texture of the film that gives it its enjoyment - the gentle study of the reconciliation of a colonel and his estranged wife; the interplay of a father compelled to send his son on a dangerous mission; the peculiar supporting contributions of the 'beloved brute sergeant,' or the cavalry side-kicks, Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.
The three films (even considered singly) give a feeling of frontier military life, however colored by a director's highly personal viewpoint, that has hardly been approached, let alone surpassed...
There's a beautiful scene in which Wayne and Maureen are serenaded by soldiers of his troop... We can observe a husband meditating about all that went wrong with his marriage, and watch the inclination and desire that exist in his longing sideways brief look at his wife...
With first rate acting and lushly sentimental score, 'Rio Grande' can never be missed... It is the last of John Ford's cavalry movies and the most sentimental...
The McLaglen sergeant seems drawn on the spreading of lines, but in retrospect, one realizes that somehow, paradoxically, he has inspired a remarkable degree of realism into the three motion pictures... (They would be not the same without him.)
'Rio Grande' has a very strong domestic flavor...
John Wayne - a casualty of the Civil War - is a cavalry officer, under strict orders, with great family problems... He's a northerner who, not surprisingly, has left his wife, a southerner, because he obediently did his military duty and burned several southern plantations - including the one owned by his wife's family... Maureen O'Hara - bringing a fitting maturity to her stereotyped assignment in the film - never forgives her husband for burning her plantation, and abruptly takes their son and goes away, effectively ending their marriage...
Fifteen years later, Wayne, promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Cavalry officer, attempts to maintain the truce calm at his southwestern post, which is besieged by marauding renegade Apaches who are continually using the border with Mexico as an escape route after their raids, a lost cause since the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed that their military forces will not cross the Rio Grande under any circumstances...
He hurries to put down an Indian uprising when his past and his wife cross his path again... He is confronted by a new recruit: his West Point dropout son (Claude Jarman Jr.) and, later, the arrival of his frigid wife, desperate to buy her son out of the cavalry...
Everything, domestically and militarily is, of course, resolved successfully and, indeed, predictably, but it is the texture of the film that gives it its enjoyment - the gentle study of the reconciliation of a colonel and his estranged wife; the interplay of a father compelled to send his son on a dangerous mission; the peculiar supporting contributions of the 'beloved brute sergeant,' or the cavalry side-kicks, Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.
The three films (even considered singly) give a feeling of frontier military life, however colored by a director's highly personal viewpoint, that has hardly been approached, let alone surpassed...
There's a beautiful scene in which Wayne and Maureen are serenaded by soldiers of his troop... We can observe a husband meditating about all that went wrong with his marriage, and watch the inclination and desire that exist in his longing sideways brief look at his wife...
With first rate acting and lushly sentimental score, 'Rio Grande' can never be missed... It is the last of John Ford's cavalry movies and the most sentimental...