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Rating:  -
El Dorado has its considerable charms, not least for the partnership of the Duke and Robert Mitchum, plus the addition of a very young James Caan, as a roving gambler named Mississippi with irregular taste in headgear - who is also absolutely hopeless with firearms. (Ed Asner is also featured, as is Christopher George, as an ice-cold villain.) All of these characters are in service to a plot which generally was done over and over - and by Howard Hawks at least three times ( Rio Bravo and as Rio Lobo being the other two iterations.) It's all very familiar, and as my daughter remarked, very much as if "Blazing Saddles" had thrown up all over "Silverado". Two old pals, plus a young whippersnapper and a crusty sidekick, find themselves on one side of a range war, out of a sense of honor and obligation to old friends. This all takes place in the classic never-never land of the Old West, sometime during indeterminate post-Civil War era, in a town with dusty streets, and wooden sidewalks shaded by the porches of plank-built businesses in Victorian style, where the sound of a rinky-dink upright piano spills out between the batwing swinging doors of a saloon. The women are feisty and fearless; in the case of one character, she goes the extra mile and wears trousers and shoots as well as any of her brothers. The dialog is snappy and character-driven; in one exchange, Robert Mitchum's character asks "What in hell are you doin' here" and the Duke growls, "I'm lookin' at a tin star with a drunk pinned on it." El Dorado is basically your generic John Wayne Western - but it boasts a top-notch cast, all of whom seemed to be having a thoroughly marvelous time - and there are much, much, much worse DVD movies out there to watch on a rainy Saturday evening.
There are the usual extravagant extras included in this release, of which only a vintage feature called the Artist and the American West is memorable.
Rating: -
The town drunk - a disgraced lawman; a young punk who thinks he's "all that"; an old fart given to countrified aphorisms - and the tough-guy Duke, beloved of all the ladies and apparently unstoppable no matter what happens to him. Howard Hawks' RIO BRAVO of course - or maybe not. It's the conventional wisdom that both this film and RIO LOBO four years later are just thinly-disguised remakes by the same director of the 1959 film which has become a beloved classic. But plot was never all that central to Hawks' films, and the mere fact that John Wayne is not playing the sheriff, and Robert Mitchum as the drunk is actually the man who is supposed to be in charge ought to be enough to show that EL DORADO is aiming in a slightly different direction.
Wayne is Cole Thornton, a gunslinger who seems to have managed to largely stay friendly with - or at least not make enemies of - the law in his career. He's come into the town of El Dorado to take a job with Bart Jason (Edward Asner), but before he can accept it his old sometime-friend Sheriff Harrah (Robert Mitchum) gives him the lowdown - that Jason is a no-good land thief and he's trying to drive the other big ranchers in the area, the MacDonalds, out by force. Thornton doesn't take the job, but as he's leaving the area he's forced to shoot a young member of the MacDonalds who fires on him, and is in turn shot by Joey MacDonald (Michele Carey). The El Dorado "doctor" can't remove the bullet, and Cole takes off, ostensibly to get fixed up.
Which he never does, however, instead befriending a young knife-throwing kid, Mississippi (James Caan, 26 and in one of his first major roles) and having a wary conversation with Nelse McLeod (Christopher George) who it turns out is planning to take the job for Jason that Cole turned down. Cole, stung by guilt feelings over killing a MacDonald, decides to return to El Dorado when he hears that the sheriff has gone around the bend with drink, and allows the punk kid to come along, trying to teach him to shoot along the way. Back in town, he finds himself taking charge of the situation when Harrah proves essentially useless, and eventually the semi-sobered-up sheriff, the gunslinger with the bad back, the punk kid and the elderly ex-Indian fighter deputy Bull (a superb Arthur Hunnicutt) end up having to keep the captured Jason in jail, all the while fending off his men including the fast-draw McLeod.
Of course, like most if not all of Hawks' films, EL DORADO is mostly about male camaraderie at heart, but the form that takes is a little different from the previous film, and the focus is if anything even more on the relationships, the dialogue, the fun and games than on getting to the climax of the film - which ends up feeling very anticlimactic, even perfunctory, when we do reach it. In the earlier version of this story (partially written, like this film, by the great Leigh Brackett) Wayne's John Chance is the leader from the beginning - the sheriff and the most competent man. Eight years later, with an older Duke and a paunchy Mitchum playing both the lead lawman and the Dean Martin drunkard role, it's a more level playing field. Hunnicutt's Bull is also far more competent than his analogue in the earlier film played by Walter Brennan. Interestingly enough the kid played by Caan here recites poetry; Ricky Nelson of course sang.
So there are just as many differences as overt similarities; what they add up to is a film that is more about slightly shifting but more equal power dynamics, friendships that are a little easier-going and dialogue that is more witty than tough. The youth of the kid - and the women in the film - are deemphasized, the age and infirmities of the other main characters are a little more obvious. I suppose it ends up feeling like an "old man's film", a more relaxed and "fun" piece of work, and so it unsurprisingly lacks somewhat in narrative drive. RIO BRAVO, and Hawks' earlier RED RIVER managed to fit the dynamics of the conversational and the confrontational together a little more smoothly, and as funny and low-key as they are at times still manage to have rousing conclusions. As beautifully put-together as this film is - and I should mention in particular Harold Rosson's gorgeous burnished autumnal cinematography - EL DORADO doesn't quite get there, but the journey is fun just the same.
I have the earlier version of the DVD, which is no-frills except for the trailer, but the transfer is excellent and I have no complaints really. This is one of the best late films for both director and costars Wayne and Mitchum and I'd certainly say it's a must for fans of any or all of them.
Rating:  -
This is a great movie and this Paramount Centennial Collection movie is a nice addition to our collection of John Wayne movies.
Rating:  -
The only reason to keep this very very poor re-write of Rio Bravo is for the maganificent Olag wieghorst oil paintings and the wonderful title song and Ms Holt who is quite hot and delivers the classic line 'I am woman enough for both of you'.
James Caan and the costumes are bad especially his stupid hat.
Even Olag and Ms Holt could not persuade me to keep this dvd or watch it again.
How can Hawks make such a good film as Rio Bravo and then this nonsense ?
Rating: -
every once and a while me and my father will buy a classic western no matter how cheesy or weird it may look, today he came home with this movie El Dorado, at first i was expecting not too much due to how many westerns that were made, though i should have thought better whenever i saw that it starred two great film actors John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.
i may be young but i know good actors when i watch them on screen these two played beautifully off each other and so did another great actor James Caan
all the characters were played to perfection, even though anyone can play an alcoholic sheriff with a broken-heart Mitchum really made the role shine, of course John Wayne did wonderful as The Hired Gun, but my favorite role was that of Mississipi played by James Caan, in my opinion he did an astonishing job in this role and the scenes with him and Wayne were glorious.
in a lil side note the action scenes were done really well and there was also a slight editing issue during one of the scenes I'm sure you'll notice(but you must take into consideration the time when the movie was made)
thank you and you really must see this movie that could never be done today due to the fight between stars in leading roles.
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