In the Broken Saloon at El Dorado, two old friends, each with a reputation, meet again But Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) greets Cole Thornton (John Wayne) with a pointed rifle Harrah has heard his friend works now for Bart Jason (Edward Asner). Thornton admits Jason offered him good money but he doesn't know what he has to do to earn it
Harrah explains that Jason showed up here around the end of the war with a pocketful of money and nobody could find out where he got it, but everybody else around here was broke Having money, he started to grow But now he needs more water There's only one place to get it Trouble is somebody was there ahead of him, about 20 years ahead His name is Kevin MacDonald (R. G. Armstrong).
MacDonald got four boys and a girl All worked real hard They hung together through the rough times and how things were looking up, MacDonald was not ready to sell So he's holding and Jason was pushing, and the sheriff was standing right in the middle
Warned that Thornton has gone to Jason's, MacDonald has left his youngest boy out there to do a man's job He went to sleep When Cole came by, Luke (Johnny Crawford) woke up, jumped up and started firing his gun All Cole was seeing was somebody shooting at him from the rocks Thornton, thinking himself the target, shoots and drops the boy Luke explains the error then To escape the pain of his mortal wound, he kills himself
Thornton takes his body to his fathers' place, and after he explains what happened, his sister, Joey (Michele Carey), a wild cat in buckskin pants who didn't believe him, tried to kill him Her brother stops her and her father asks her to get in the house
After Thornton leaves the ranch, Joey (Michele Carey) ambushes Cole at a creek, dropping him with her riffle bullet He manages to get back on his horse and escapes to Maudie's place, where Doc Miller (Paul Fix) treats him The bullet was dangerous up against his spine, however, as Doc advises him to find a better surgeon for the bullet's removal
After a short time, Thornton leaves El Dorado
One of the best moments in the film came in a Cantina near the Mexican border when James Caan (Mississippi) enters the place and calls one of four men sitting at a dinner table, reminding him if he remembers him or if he remembers the blue hat he is wearing? Mississippi says he caught up with his other three companions and he killed them all, and that he was the last of the four He asks him to stand up and as the audience observed, Mississippi wasn't wearing, at all, any gun
Obviously, when Jason just brought his outfit into town, the action started
Robert Mitchum is 'the tin star with a drunk pinned on it.' He was too mad to be scared and too sick to worry about it..
Charlene Holt plays Maudie the gambler's widow who throws her arms around Cole, sees Harrah, and bursts out laughing when she finds her old flame and her current one are friends She tells the sheriff that Cole gave her a stake, and helped her get on her feet
Michele Carey plays Joey, the wild girl who thinks that Mississippi looks a lot better without that silly hat
Christopher George plays Nelse McLeod, a dark, thin-faced man with a scar on his eye
"El Dorado" was the third of four Westerns that Howard Hawks made with John Wayne Hawks' massive reputation as a director of Westerns virtually rests on just two films ("Red River" & "Rio Bravo") but these two are sufficient to reveal a highly skilled, intuitive filmmaker, and one who has managed to satisfy large audiences and serious critics alike within a commercial system
Harrah explains that Jason showed up here around the end of the war with a pocketful of money and nobody could find out where he got it, but everybody else around here was broke Having money, he started to grow But now he needs more water There's only one place to get it Trouble is somebody was there ahead of him, about 20 years ahead His name is Kevin MacDonald (R. G. Armstrong).
MacDonald got four boys and a girl All worked real hard They hung together through the rough times and how things were looking up, MacDonald was not ready to sell So he's holding and Jason was pushing, and the sheriff was standing right in the middle
Warned that Thornton has gone to Jason's, MacDonald has left his youngest boy out there to do a man's job He went to sleep When Cole came by, Luke (Johnny Crawford) woke up, jumped up and started firing his gun All Cole was seeing was somebody shooting at him from the rocks Thornton, thinking himself the target, shoots and drops the boy Luke explains the error then To escape the pain of his mortal wound, he kills himself
Thornton takes his body to his fathers' place, and after he explains what happened, his sister, Joey (Michele Carey), a wild cat in buckskin pants who didn't believe him, tried to kill him Her brother stops her and her father asks her to get in the house
After Thornton leaves the ranch, Joey (Michele Carey) ambushes Cole at a creek, dropping him with her riffle bullet He manages to get back on his horse and escapes to Maudie's place, where Doc Miller (Paul Fix) treats him The bullet was dangerous up against his spine, however, as Doc advises him to find a better surgeon for the bullet's removal
After a short time, Thornton leaves El Dorado
One of the best moments in the film came in a Cantina near the Mexican border when James Caan (Mississippi) enters the place and calls one of four men sitting at a dinner table, reminding him if he remembers him or if he remembers the blue hat he is wearing? Mississippi says he caught up with his other three companions and he killed them all, and that he was the last of the four He asks him to stand up and as the audience observed, Mississippi wasn't wearing, at all, any gun
Obviously, when Jason just brought his outfit into town, the action started
Robert Mitchum is 'the tin star with a drunk pinned on it.' He was too mad to be scared and too sick to worry about it..
Charlene Holt plays Maudie the gambler's widow who throws her arms around Cole, sees Harrah, and bursts out laughing when she finds her old flame and her current one are friends She tells the sheriff that Cole gave her a stake, and helped her get on her feet
Michele Carey plays Joey, the wild girl who thinks that Mississippi looks a lot better without that silly hat
Christopher George plays Nelse McLeod, a dark, thin-faced man with a scar on his eye
"El Dorado" was the third of four Westerns that Howard Hawks made with John Wayne Hawks' massive reputation as a director of Westerns virtually rests on just two films ("Red River" & "Rio Bravo") but these two are sufficient to reveal a highly skilled, intuitive filmmaker, and one who has managed to satisfy large audiences and serious critics alike within a commercial system