Red River.- artículo en la Wikipedia (Español / English)

Artículo en español:

Río Rojo

Red River
Título	Río Rojo
Ficha técnica
Dirección	Howard Hawks
Producción	Howard Hawks
Guión	Borden Chase Charles Schnee
Música	Dimitri Tiomkin
Fotografía	Russell Harlan
Reparto	John Wayne Montgomery Clift Joanne Dru Walter Brennan Coleen Gray Harry Carey John Ireland Noah Beery Jr.
Datos y cifras
País(es)	Estados Unidos
Año	1948
Género	Western
Duración	133 minutos
Ficha en IMDb

Río Rojo es una película de 1948 protagonizada por John Wayne y Montgomery Clift. La producción, dirigida por Howard Hawks, es incluida por la American Film Institute entre las diez mejores del género Western.

Argumento

La trama gira alrededor del ranchero Thomas Dunson (Wayne), quien, a mediados del siglo XIX, trata de empezar su propia hacienda en Texas. Al inicio de su empresa conoce a un huérfano de nombre Matthew Matt Garth a quien adopta. Al cruzar el río Rojo, y no importándole la propiedad del territorio a manos de otro ganadero, se afinca en la zona. Tiempo después, al terminar la Guerra de Secesión, el rancho de Dunson se encuentra sumido en problemas económicos. Debido a esto, decide emprender la marcha a Misuri donde, según él, encontrará un buen precio por su ganado. Entre sus principales ayudantes se encuentran el entonces adulto Matt (Clift) y Groot Nadine (Walter Brennan). El transcurso de la travesía se desarrolla en io de muchos contratiempos. Agregado a esto, la conducta de Dunson se vuelve tiránica con sus empleados.

Por otro lado, aunque Dunson recibe recomendaciones de enviar su hato hacia Abilene, donde el ferrocarril ha arribado y la ruta es más segura, decide seguir su propósito inicial. En medio de una reyerta, Matt decide dirigirse a Abilene, a pesar de una amenaza de muerte del mismo Dunson ante su rebelión. Matt logra su propósito de vender el ganado en la ciudad, e incluso arregla un cheque a nombre de Dunson para darle parte de las ganancias. Sin embargo, el ranchero logra encontrar al joven Matt y entre ambos estalla una pelea.

Críticas

• New York Times: «en al menos dos terceras partes de la cinta, es una historia real de cowboys y de la dura, peligrosa vida que soportaban».^[1]
• Turner Classic Movies: «uno de los grandes Westerns producidos en Hollywood».^[2]
• Variety: «la producción y dirección de Howard Hawks le otorga una magnífica interpretación a la historia de la formación del oeste estadounidense...»^[3]

Referencias

1. ↑ Red River (1948). .Nytimes.com.
2. ↑ RED RIVER: The Essentials. TCM.com
3. ↑ Red River. Variety.com.

• Red River en Internet Movie Database
• Red River en Filmsite.org
• Red River en Allmovie
• AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres

English text:

Red River

Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Howard Hawks Arthur Rosson (co-director)[1]
Produced by	Howard Hawks
Written by	Borden Chase Charles Schnee
Starring	John Wayne Montgomery Clift Walter Brennan
Music by	Dimitri Tiomkin
Cinematography	Russell Harlan
Editing by	Christian Nyby
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	September 30, 1948 (USA)
Running time	133 min.
Country	United States
Language	English Spanish

Red River is a 1948 Western film directed by Howard Hawks, giving a fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. The dramatic tension stems from a growing feud over the management of the drive, between the Texas rancher who initiated it (John Wayne) and his adopted adult son (Montgomery Clift).

The film also starred Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey, John Ireland, Hank Worden, Noah Beery Jr. and Harry Carey, Jr. Borden Chase wrote the script with Charles Schnee, based on Chase's story, "The Chisholm Trail."

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production 3 Cast 4 See also 5 References 6 further reading 7 External links

Plot

Thomas Dunson (John Wayne) is a stubborn man who wants nothing more than to start up a successful cattle ranch in Texas. Shortly after he begins his journey to Texas with his trail hand, Nadine Groot (Walter Brennan), Dunson learns that his love interest (Coleen Gray), whom he had told to stay behind with the wagon train with the understanding that he would send for her later, was killed in an Indian attack. Despite this tragedy, Dunson and Groot press on, only to chance on an orphaned boy named Matthew Garth (played as an adult by Montgomery Clift), whom Dunson effectively adopts. With only a couple head of cattle, Dunson and the boy enter Texas by crossing the Red River and Dunson proudly proclaims all the land about them as his own. Two Mexican men appear on horseback and inform Dunson that the land already belongs to their boss. Dunson dismisses this inconvenient fact, kills one of the men, and tells the other man to inform his boss that Dunson now owns the land. Dunson names his new spread the Red River D, after his chosen cattle brand for his herd. Fatefully, he promises to add M (for Matt) to the brand, once Matt has earned it.

Fourteen years pass and Dunson now has a fully operational cattle ranch. With the help of Matt and Groot, his herd now numbers over ten thousand cattle, but he is also broke as a result of having been on the losing side in the American Civil War. With the price of cattle in Texas not to his liking, Dunson decides to drive his massive herd hundreds of miles north to Missouri, where he believes they will fetch a much better price. After hiring some extra men to help out with the drive, including expert marksman Cherry Valance (John Ireland), they set off on their perilous journey northwards. Along the way, they encounter many troubles, including a stampede sparked by one of the men making a sudden noise while trying to steal sugar from the chuck wagon.

Deeper problems arise when Dunson's tyrannical leadership style begins to affect the rest of the men. When Dunson attempts to lynch two of the men who tried to desert the drive, Matt rebels. With the help of Valance and the other men, Matt takes control of the drive in order to take it to the closer railhead in Abilene, Kansas, leaving Dunson behind. This infuriates Dunson, who vows to track down Matt and kill him.

On the way to Abilene, Matt and his men repulse an Indian attack on a wagon train. One of the people they save is Tess Millay (Joanne Dru), who falls in love with Matt. Matt leaves in a hurry one night during a rain storm and has to leave Tess behind. Later Tess encounters Dunson, who is still on Matt's trail, and tries to dissuade him from his pursuit. She offers to bear him a son if he'll let Matt live, but he refuses.

When Matt reaches Abilene, he finds men there who have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of such a herd to buy it; Matt happily accepts an excellent offer for the cattle. Unknowingly, he has just completed the first cattle drive along what would become the Chisholm Trail. Shortly thereafter, Dunson arrives in Abilene with a posse to follow through with his vow to kill Matt. The two men begin a furious fight, which Tess interrupts by drawing a gun on both men and demanding that they realize the love that they share for each other. Dunson and Matt see the error of their ways and make peace with each other. The film ends with Dunson telling Matt that he will incorporate an M into the brand as he had promised to do years before and advises Matt to marry Tess.

Production

Red River was filmed in 1946 but not released until September 30, 1948. Footage from Red River was later incorporated into the opening montage of Wayne's last film, The Shootist, to illustrate the backstory of Wayne's character. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Film Editing (Christian Nyby) and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story. In 1990, Red River was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." John Ford who worked with Wayne on many films (such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) was so impressed with Wayne's performance that he is reported to have said, 'I didn’t know the big son of a bitch could act!'^[2] In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Red River was acknowledged as the fifth best film in the western genre.^[3][4]

The character name Cherry Valance was also later used in the novel The Outsiders.

The character name Matthew Garth was also later used in the movie Midway.

Cast

• John Wayne as Thomas Dunson
• Montgomery Clift as Matthew 'Matt' Garth
• Joanne Dru as Tess Millay
• Walter Brennan as Nadine Groot
• Coleen Gray as Fen
• Harry Carey as Mr. Melville
• John Ireland as Cherry Valance
• Noah Beery Jr. as Buster McGee
• Harry Carey Jr. as Dan Latimer
• Chief Yowlachie as Quo
• Paul Fix as Teeler Yacey
• Hank Worden as Sims Reeves
• Ray Hyke as Walt Jergens
• Wally Wales as Old Leather
• Mickey Kuhn as Matt (as a boy)

See also

• John Wayne filmography (1941-1960)
• Harry Carey filmography

References

1. According to TCM, "Arthur Rosson was given co-director credit because of his extensive and acclaimed work guiding the second unit...", http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=158108&rss=mrqe.
2. ^ http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=12472, retrieved 2008-09-21.
3. ^ American Film Institute (2008-06-17). "AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres". ComingSoon.net. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=46072. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
4. ^ "Top Western". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/10top10/western.html. Retrieved 2008-06-18.

Further reading

• Pippin, Robert B. Hollywood Westerns and American Myth: The Importance of Howard Hawks and John Ford for Political Philosophy (Yale University Press, 2010) 208 pp.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Red River (1948 film)

• Red River (1948 film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Red River (1948 film) at the TCM Movie Database
• Red River (1948 film) at Allmovie
• Internet Archive: March 7, 1949 radio adaptation of the film originally broadcast by Lux Radio Theater
• Detailed review of Red River

[hide] v • d • e Films directed by Howard Hawks
1920s	The Road to Glory • Fig Leaves • The Cradle Snatchers • Paid to Love • A Girl in Every Port • Fazil • The Air Circus • Trent's Last Case
1930s	The Dawn Patrol • The Criminal Code • La Foule hurle • Scarface • The Crowd Roars • Tiger Shark • Today We Live • The Prizefighter and the Lady • Viva Villa! • Twentieth Century • Barbary Coast • Ceiling Zero • Sutter's Gold • The Road to Glory • Come and Get It • Bringing Up Baby • Only Angels Have Wings
1940s	His Girl Friday • Sergeant York • Ball of Fire • Air Force • To Have and Have Not • The Big Sleep • Red River • A Song Is Born • I Was a Male War Bride
1950s	The Thing from Another World • The Big Sky • Monkey Business • O. Henry's Full House • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes • Land of the Pharaohs • Rio Bravo
1960s	Hatari! • Man's Favorite Sport? • Red Line 7000 • El Dorado
1970s	Rio Lobo

The Big Lift.- foto del rodaje (1)

Esta foto corresponde al rodaje de The Big Lift (Sitiados, 1950). Pertenece a la web Mptv como se ve en el logo que tiene. Monty aparece entre las ruinas de Berlín y el otro hombre está sin identificar, parece muy joven para ser el director George Seaton.

Para ver más fotos del rodaje, ver este post.

Artículo de The New York Times

El periódico The New York Times me ha servido como una excelente hemeroteca para rastrear críticas cinematográficas de los estrenos de las películas de Montgomery Clif. Es decir, artículos de prensa escritos en el mismo momento del estreno.

En esta ocasión me he encontrado con este artículo-reseña que recoge la biografía y la filmografía del actor. No lleva fecha ni autoría.

Montgomery Clift

Alternate Name: Edward Montgomery Clift

• About This Person
• Biography
• Filmography
• Awards

Actor
Gender: Male
Born: October 17, 1920
Died: July 23, 1966
Birthplace: Omaha, Nebraska, USA

About This Person

From All Movie Guide: Along with Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift typified the emergence of a new breed of Hollywood star: Prodigiously talented, intense, and defiantly non-conformist, he refused to play by the usual rules of celebrity, actively shunning the spotlight and working solely according to his own whims and desires. A handsome and gifted actor, he channeled the pain and torment so rampant in his private life into his screen and stage roles, delivering remarkably poignant and sensitive performances which influenced generations of actors to come. Born October 17, 1920, in Omaha, NE, Clift began performing in summer stock at the age of 14 in a production of Fly Away Home. Within seven months, the play was running on Broadway, and throughout the remainder of his teen years he remained a fixture on the New York stage. Next, in 1935, was Cole Porter's Jubilee. In 1940, Clift also appeared with the Lunts in There Shall Be No Night, and in 1942 performed in The Skin of Our Teeth. His work in the Lillian Hellman smash The Searching Wind brought any number of offers from Hollywood, but he rejected them to appear in The Foxhole in the Parlor; finally, after earning acclaim for Tennessee Williams' You Touched Me, Clift agreed to make his film debut in the classic 1948 Howard Hawks Western Red River.

Full Biography

From All Movie Guide: Along with Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift typified the emergence of a new breed of Hollywood star: Prodigiously talented, intense, and defiantly non-conformist, he refused to play by the usual rules of celebrity, actively shunning the spotlight and working solely according to his own whims and desires. A handsome and gifted actor, he channeled the pain and torment so rampant in his private life into his screen and stage roles, delivering remarkably poignant and sensitive performances which influenced generations of actors to come. Born October 17, 1920, in Omaha, NE, Clift began performing in summer stock at the age of 14 in a production of Fly Away Home. Within seven months, the play was running on Broadway, and throughout the remainder of his teen years he remained a fixture on the New York stage. Next, in 1935, was Cole Porter's Jubilee. In 1940, Clift also appeared with the Lunts in There Shall Be No Night, and in 1942 performed in The Skin of Our Teeth. His work in the Lillian Hellman smash The Searching Wind brought any number of offers from Hollywood, but he rejected them to appear in The Foxhole in the Parlor; finally, after earning acclaim for Tennessee Williams' You Touched Me, Clift agreed to make his film debut in the classic 1948 Howard Hawks Western Red River.

From the outset, Clift refused to play the studio game: He did not sign any long-term contracts and chose to work only on projects which intrigued him, like Red River. However, the film was so long in post-production that screen audiences instead got their first glimpse of him in Fred Zinneman's The Search, where unanimous praise for his sensitive, unsentimental, and Oscar-nominated performance made Clift among the hottest commodities in the business. He agreed to appear in three films for Paramount (only completing two): The first was William Wyler's 1949 adaptation of Henry James' The Heiress, with Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard scheduled to follow. At the last minute, Clift backed out of the project, however, to star in 20th Century Fox's 1950 war drama The Big Lift. Upon returning to Paramount, he starred in George Stevens' classic A Place in the Sun, earning a second Academy Award nomination for his performance opposite Elizabeth Taylor, who became his real-life confidante. Clift then disappeared from view for two years, coaxed out of self-imposed exile by Alfred Hitchcock to star in the 1953 thriller I Confess.

For Zinnemann, Clift next starred in the war epic From Here to Eternity; the film was the biggest success of his career, earning him another Best Actor bid (one of the movie's 13 total nominations; it took home eight, including Best Picture). After headlining Vittorio De Sica's Stazione Termini, Clift returned to Broadway to appear in The Seagull; in order to commit to the project, he needed to turn down any number of screen offers, including On the Waterfront and East of Eden. In total, he was away from cinema for four years, not resurfacing prior to the 1957 smash Raintree County; its success re-established him among Hollywood's most popular stars, but offscreen Clift's life was troubled. Tragedy struck when a horrific auto accident left him critically injured. He gradually recovered, but his face was left scarred and partially paralyzed. Still, Clift continued performing, delivering performances informed by even greater depth and pathos than before. His first project in the wake of the accident was 1958's The Young Lions, his first and only collaboration with Marlon Brando.

In 1959, Clift next reunited with Taylor for Suddenly, Last Summer, then starred in Elia Kazan's Wild River. In 1961, he co-starred in The Misfits (the final completed film from another Hollywood tragedy, Marilyn Monroe), then delivered a stunning cameo as a witness in the Stanley Kramer courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremburg. He then starred as Freud for director John Huston. The film was a box-office disaster, suffering a lengthy delay in production when Clift was forced to undergo surgery to remove cataracts from both eyes. He later sued Universal to recover his 200,000-dollar fee for the project; the studio countersued for close to 700,000 dollars, alleging his excessive drinking had doomed the picture's success. The matter was settled out of court, but it crippled Clift's reputation, and because of this, and his increasing health problems, he did not work for another four years until director Raoul Levy offered him the lead in the 1966 thriller Lautlose Waffen. At the insistence of star Elizabeth Taylor, he was then offered a supporting role in Reflections of a Golden Eye, but before filming began, he died of a heart attack at his New York City home on July 23, 1966. He was just 45 years old. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Education

Institution - Dalton School
Location - New York, New York
Year range - 1936

Institution - Actors Studio
Year range - 1947

Filmography

George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey (1984)
Role: Himself

The Defector (1966)
Role: Professor James Bower

Freud (1962)
Role: Sigmund Freud

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Role: Rudolf Petersen

Watch Trailer » | Tickets & Showtimes »

The Misfits (1961)
Role: Perce Howland

Watch Trailer »

Wild River (1960)
Role: Chuck Glover

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
Role: Dr Cukrowicz

Watch Trailer »

Lonelyhearts (1958)
Role: Adam White

The Young Lions (1958)
Role: Noah Ackerman

Raintree County (1957)
Role: John Wickliff Shawnessy

From Here to Eternity (1953)
Role: Robert E Lee "Prew" Prewitt

Tickets & Showtimes »

I Confess (1953)
Role: Father Michael Logan

Watch Trailer »

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953)
Role: Giovanni Doria

A Place in the Sun (1951)
Role: George Eastman

Tickets & Showtimes »

Red River (1948)
Role: Matthew Garth


Nomination

Best Supporting Actor - 1961 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Pic - 1961 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Best Actor - 1953 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie

Best Actor - 1951 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie
Best Actor - 1948 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie

Artículo de Hoy Cinema

Montgomery Clift

• Filmografia
• Biografía
• Noticias
• Comentarios
• DVD

Montgomery Clift ha colaborado con:

• Alfred Hitchcock
• Edward Dmytryk
• Elia Kazan
• Fred Zinnemann
• George Stevens
• Howard Hawks
• John Huston
• Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Raoul Levy
• Stanley Kramer
• Vittorio De Sica
• William Wyler

Filmografía de Montgomery Clift

• El desertor 1966, Actor / Actriz.
• Vencedores o vencidos 1961, Actor / Actriz.
• Vidas rebeldes 1961, Actor / Actriz.
• El juicio de Nuremberg, ¿Vencedores o vencidos? 1961, Actor / Actriz.
• Río salvaje 1960, Actor / Actriz.
• De repente, el último verano 1959, Actor / Actriz.
• El árbol de la vida 1958, Actor / Actriz.
• El baile de los malditos 1958, Actor / Actriz.
• Yo confieso 1953, Actor / Actriz.
• De aquí a la eternidad 1953, Actor / Actriz.
• Estación Termini 1953, Actor / Actriz.
• Un lugar en el sol 1951, Actor / Actriz.
• La heredera 1949, Actor / Actriz.
• Río Rojo 1948, Actor / Actriz.
• Los angeles perdidos 1948, Actor / Actriz.

Monty nació justo después que su hermana gemela Roberta y 18 meses después de su hermano Brooks. Su padre hizo bastante dinero en bancos pero fue bastante pobre durante la depresión. Monty apareció en algunas obras de Broadway antes de llegar a Hollywood.

Destacó por la intensidad con la que interpretaba sus papeles. Su película debut fue Red River, con John Wayne, seguida por el éxito de The Search, A Place in the Sun, From Here to Eternity y Judgment at Nuremberg. En 1950 tuvo problemas con alergias y colitis, además de problemas con el alcohol. Gastó mucho dinero en psiquiatras.En 1956, durante el rodaje de Raintree County estrelló su coche contra un árbol tras abandonar una fiesta de Elizabeth Taylor. Su cara fue reconstruida. Más tarde siguió teniendo problemas con drogas y fue homosexual.

Broadway plays:* Fly Away Home (1935)* Jubilee (1935)* Your Obedient Husband (1938)* Eye On The Sparrow (1938)* The Wind And The Rain (1938)* Dame Nature (1938)* The Mother (1939)* There Shall Be No Night (1940)* Mexican Mural (1942)* The Skin Of Our Teeth (1942)* Our Town (1944 (1944)* The Searching Wind (1944)* Foxhole In The Parlor (1945)* You Touched Me! (1945)* The Seagull (1954).

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"In Search of Montgomery Clift" by Ace Preston

En esta web aparece un artículo de este periodista sobre su visita a la tumba de Montgomery Clift.

(English text)

Last March 2010 while in New York I set to photograph the grave of Montgomery Clift as a kind gesture for an associate of mine who happens to be a fan of Monty but is also a paraplegic. I was pressed for time but didn't want to split without giving him the photo as I promised.

What most people don't know..which is what Ace Preston does know is that Montgomery Clift is buried in a rather unknown unheard of secluded Quaker Cemetery somewhere inside Prospect Park Brooklyn New York...now you know..

However..

I was highly disappointed being that I always had the greatest respect for the Quakers since they practice what they preach especially when my elegant hero Robert Capa also my favorite photographer of all time died in Thai-Binh Viet Nam 1954 when he accidentally stepped on a land mine while taking a photograph in Indo-China but wasn't permitted to be buried elsewhere because he was Jewish. Capa's real name was Endre Erno Friedmann.

"In Search of Montgomery Clift" by Ace Preston | Photo 02

see larger image

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The Quakers responded to this by donating a burial plot for Capa at the Friends Cemetery in upstate NY... I always admired the Quakers for that but recently I became disappointed with them when I encountered a fence blocking my entrance into the Quaker Cemetery in Brooklyn . The fence and the sign at the Quaker Cemetery came as a surprise and shock to me in Prospect Park. The sign clearly stated that the cemetery was closed to the public and private property. There was nothing that could be done about it. The cemetery had a modern gate recently constructed surrounding the entire complex thus sealing itself from the outside world and my death camera from photographing the grave of Montgomery Clift. Later on that day I read from the Book of Isaiah, Job, Deuteronomy, and 2 Samuel 24:1, 1 Chronicles 21:1.. to my paraplegic friend who couldn't move and was saddened by the news.

Later that evening a mighty storm arose in the New York City area. A storm of immerse power and fear which torn down trees and ripped apart man made intrusions. The next day I decided after utilizing my sixth sense to visit the Quaker Cemetery one last time and perhaps attempt to get a photograph from behind a fence from a distance using a telescopic lens which I did not carelessly bother to bring the day before. David Peel once said to me.."any picture is better than no picture" which went against Matthew B. Brady's philosophy of photography that "the camera is the eye of history therefore one should never take a bad picture"...David was right.. Upon my return to the death spot the very next day..the beautiful Osage Orange tree which man no longer deserves to see, had fallen directly on the Quaker Cemetery fence flattening it and cutting a path directly to the grave of Montgomery Cliff. Sure there were Lacebark Pines, and Pignut Hickory..Tulip Trees..London Planetree..Sophora..White Mulberry..Bald Cypress (where I went searching days before for Edward Osterman's grave in nearby Cypress Hills Cemetery, who also had to change his name because he was jewish to Monk Eastman, the greatest New Yorker of all), and the Weeping Beech, the Japanese Red Pine, and Camperdown Elm but it was the Osage Orange which the gale force hurricane wind known as the northeastern dropped down upon the man made obstacle.. wood stronger than metal can bend steel..the fence crumbled leading a path directly to the grave of Montgomery Clift.A sadness did consume me about the tree being taken down but perhaps if left much longer on the earth it could have fallen another day on some innocent bystander like several trees had already fallen earlier that day, one killing an innocent man walking through Central Park on his way to work as a waiter.

Upon seeing the break in the fence I would have thought it was a miracle compelling me at that moment and according to my Afro-Cuban Catholicism to make a sacrificial offering to the gods but being in Brooklyn I was limited to what Pink Floyd would say were "several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict" to consist of squirrels, raccoons, pigeons, and rat fink bastards.

I thought to myself and decided that even with this opening in the fence I should not take advantage of such a tragedy by further disrespecting the rules and wishes of the Quakers. I would find another way in.. on another day and attempt to get special permission from the Quakers themselves. They weren't the type to say "no" to a decent act...besides I had brought my telescopic lens this time but looking through the shutter I still couldn't locate the grave..

Instead I opted to listening to the song titled "The Right Profile" sang by Joe Strummer of the Clash which was written about Montgomery Clift.. on my ipod on the way to the airport.. "I see a car smashed at night.. cut the applause and dim the lights..that's Montgomery Clift, honey!"

Red River.- crítica (2)

Red River

Cover of VHS tape of "Red River," a black-and-white film Grit and glint

By Carter B. Horsley

The non-nonsense swagger, good looks and long career of John Wayne made him the most famous male movie star of the 20th Century and a major icon of American culture.

He was the quintessential quiet but strong leading man who was given more to force than words. Widely imitated and parodied, Wayne's success was based on his persona as a "he-man hero" without peer. His early reputation was based mainly on his glamour and he achieved major stardom in "Stagecoach," a 1941 western, after about a decade of work mostly in minor westerns.

In this film, Wayne portrays Tom Dunson, a troubled, embittered and mean rancher who loses the respect on a cattle drive of his fellow cowboys and his adopted son, Matthew Garth, who is portrayed by Montgomery Clift in his screen debut. Wayne's portrayal of Dunson demonstrated that he could be a very good actor for he ages admirably in the film and his performance is memorable not only for its strength but also its subtlety.

While the movie is far from perfect, it is extremely interesting in its pairing of Wayne and Clift in the leading roles. Clift is quite wonderful. He is cocky, sensitive, tortured, romantic, headstrong, uncertain, fearful and respectful, and very expressive, all qualities that James Dean would embody a few years later in his brief but stunning career. Clift's persona is rather poetic whereas Wayne's is titanic and bold. Both are highly mannered but in very different ways.

Wayne is simple and brutish. His walk/saunter is that of a determined, possessed, focused man.

Clift is more dimensional. His hesitatations, ponderings and waverings are that of a sensitive, reflective, idealistic individual.

Their characters, however, are not black-and-white. Clift is agile with his gun and no coward. Wayne may not hesitate to shoot someone, but will honor them with a "reading" over their grave.

Many critics and reviewers have commented that the film's "love interests," initially Coleen Gray for Wayne and later Joanne Dru for Clift, slow the film's momentum. They are, however, necessary as Gray's death early in the film helps the viewer sympathize with Dunson's bitterness and lack of humor and Dru's appeal to Dunson to spare Matt's life after he has led a mutiny of Dunson's men and expelled him from the cattle drive is a quite remarkable and surprising scene in which her willingness to sacrifice her love of Matt by agreeing to give Dunson an heir is as startling as Dunson's request. Dru, a very beautiful brunette who would appear in other Westerns with Wayne, portrays a "pioneer" woman of formidable strength. She handles this scene very well and it is perhaps the finest in Wayne's career. When Matt first encounters Dru, she has been wounded in her right shoulder by an arrow during an attack by Indians on her wagon train. The scene is quite surreal as she asks Clift many personal questions while he is shooting at the attacking Indians. Many reviewers have scoffed at the scene's incongruous dialogue, but it is one of the film's surprises, which is needed because of its quite slow beginning. We take most of the clichés of the Western genre in stride and because this film used many as well as setting many the scenes with Dru are jolting, but they serve the purpose of making the drama much more interesting as well as giving a pre-politically correct culture a big dose of feminism.

Most critics and reviewers have been disappointed with the film's ending when Dru breaks up the "showdown" fight between Dunson and Matt with a long harangue about how much they love one another. Virtually all those critics and reviewers note that however much they are dismayed by this "happy" ending, the intensity of the film is not seriously impaired. To a large extent, they are right: Matt refuses Dunson's demand that he draw, but after being punched about he does fight back, although the viewer suspects that Matt would not kill Dunson under any circumstances and Dunson's march on foot through a herd of cattle suggests that nothing will dissuade him from revenging Matt's mutiny. In retrospect, however, the ending fits well with the scene in which Dru appealed to Dunson to spare Matt. Dunson has been humiliated and humbled by Matt, the presumptive heir to his empire. Dunson recognizes that Dru is a remarkable enough woman to ask her to have his child. He has raised Matt for about 15 years and clearly had come to love him.

Wayne's decision to relent after her harangue is really not all that surprising. One often sees the humor, if not futility, of anger at the moment of rage. It is one of the thin lines that usually makes truth stranger than fiction. A hero encounters fear. A villain discovers guilt, or remorse, or just tiredness. Anger needs to be spent somehow and time often is a fine cure and some things that appear ultimate and vital and uncompromisable sometimes are shocked in different perspectives.

The characters portrayed by Wayne, Clift and Dru are absorbing and interesting. We are fascinated by them and their unpredictability and their maturing. Our interest in them is also supported by its focus on people's often misplaced hope that other people can change their personality.

This epic Western film is about the first cattle drive in 1865 on the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Abilene. Like some of John Ford's westerns, it suffers some from the rather hokey singing that would be more appropriate for a children's campfire than the rigors of a real cattle drive, and one wonders why both directors resorted to such campiness in this genre. Presumably, such scenes were included for a bit of levity and relief from the more somber realities of the stories and perhaps to appeal to a wider "family" audience, but apart from establishing camaraderie, which is not unimportant, they detract from the sweep and impact of the stories.

The American mythologizing of the "pioneer" West goes back a long ways, but this film is one of the classics that defined the genre. "Westerns" would not begin to treat Native Americans with much respect for another couple of decades and their appeal has always been the primary notion of rugged individualism in a wild and awesome physical environment. Pure lyricism, of course, rarely made for good drama. Simple morality of the good guys and the bad guys did, even though life is more complex and this film, to its credit, focuses on those complexities to a good extent.

This film ranks 51st in Carter B. Horsley's Top 500 Sound Films and 245th in the Internet Movie Data Base Top 250 List.

En la web The city review aparece esta crítica de Red River (Río Rojo, 1946):

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