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Red River

Director: Howard Hawks (Dir) Release Date: 17 Sep 1948 Premiere Information: World premiere: 26 Aug 1948 Production Date: 5 Sep--late Dec 1946 at Samuel Goldwyn Studios; addl scenes began 29 Apr 1947 Duration (in mins): 126 Duration (in feet): 11,363 Duration (in reels): 13			Print this page Display Movie Summary

Cast:	John Wayne	(Thomas Dunson)
	Montgomery Clift	(Matthew Garth)
	Joanne Dru	(Tess Millay)
	Walter Brennan	(Groot Nadine)
	Coleen Gray	(Fen)
	Harry Carey Sr.	(Melville)
	John Ireland	(Cherry Valance)
	Noah Beery Jr.	(Buster Magee)
	Harry Carey Jr.	(Dan Latimer)
	Chief Yowlachie	(Quo)
	Paul Fix	(Teeler Yacey)
	Hank Worden	(Sims)
	Mickey Kuhn	(Garth as a boy)
	Ray Hyke	(Walt Jurgens)
	Hal Taliaferro	(Old leather)
	Paul Fierro	(Fernandez)
	Bill Self	(Wounded cowboy)
	Lane Chandler	(Meeker)
	Glenn Strange	(Naylor)
	Ivan Parry	(Bunk Kenneally)
	Shelley Winters	(Girl with wagon train)
	Dan White	(Laredo)
	Tom Tyler

Summary:

In 1851, Thomas Dunson and his friend, Groot Nadine, leave St. Louis and join a wagon train headed for California. When they reach the northern border of Texas, they decide to remain there and establish a cattle ranch. Fen, Tom's sweetheart, wants to stay with him, but he tells her that he will send for her later and gives her his mother's bracelet. Soon after Tom and Groot take their wagon and bull and head south to the Red River, they look back and see that the wagon train has been attacked and burned by Comanche Indians. That night, several Indians attack Tom and Groot's camp, and Tom is horrified to discover the bracelet he gave to Fen on the wrist of an Indian he killed in the struggle. The next day as Tom and Groot break camp, a young boy, Matthew Garth, who has escaped the wagon train massacre, wanders toward them with his cow. Tom and Groot take the dazed boy with them, cross the Red River and head farther south until, near the Rio Grande, Tom finds an area he likes. The land legally belongs, by land grant, to a Mexican, but after Tom kills one of the owner's gunmen and drives off another, he claims it for himself. Tom's bull and Matt's cow then become the beginning of a great herd sporting the Red River-D brand. Fifteen years later, the ranch boasts thousands of cattle, but Tom faces ruin unless he can move them from the impoverished, post-Civil War market. He decides to take ten thousand head a thousand miles to Missouri, where the railroads serve the North and East, and Matt, now grown to manhood and like a son to Tom, helps to plan the drive. Tom also agrees to take several head belonging to a neighboring rancher, and one of the neighbor's ranch hands, Cherry Valance, joins the drive. Both Cherry and Matt are expert gunmen and enjoy a friendly, if intense, rivalry. After a few days on the trail, the men reach the Brazos. Hills and rocks impede their progress and the cowboys become tired and unhappy. One night, when the cattle are restless, cowboy Bunk Kenneally, takes some sugar from Groot's chuckwagon and accidentally knocks over pots and pans, spooking the cattle and causing a stampede. Cowboy Dan Latimer is killed in the stampede, and although Bunk admits his mistake, he refuses to allow Tom to whip him and draws his gun. However, Matt shoots Bunk before he can shoot Tom. Forty days into the drive, the men are forced to endure heavy rains and short rations, as a grub wagon was lost in the stampede. Tom becomes very demanding and faces dissension among the cowboys. Some days later, a wounded wrangler from another drive rides into camp and explains that his group was attacked by a large gang of outlaws after they crossed the Red River. He also tells them about a trail blazed by an Indian trader, Jesse Chisholm, to a railroad terminus in Abilene, Kansas. When three of Tom's men state that they should be heading to Abilene instead of Missouri and threaten to quit, Tom kills them. More men desert with supplies and Tom sends Cherry after them. When the herd reaches the Red River, Tom decides to cross immediately despite the men's exhaustion. That night, Groot suggests to Tom, who has not been sleeping and has started drinking, that he tell the men that they did well, but he refuses. The next day, when Cherry returns with two of the deserters, Tom says he is going to hang them but Matt intervenes. As Tom goes to draw his gun on Matt, Cherry shoots him in the hand. Matt then assumes command of the drive, and they head to Abilene, leaving Tom behind. Tom swears that one day he will catch up with Matt and kill him. On the drive, Matt and the others encounter a wagon train being attacked by Apache Indians whom they help to drive off. Matt meets Tess Millay, one of the wagon train's settlers, and before he resumes the drive, they have fallen in love. Tom and some new men he has hired to pursue the train catch up with it, and when Tess tells Tom that she had wanted to go with Matt, Tom remembers leaving Fen. Tess then tries to persuade Tom not to kill his "son," and Tom offers her half of everything he owns if she will bear him a son. Tess agrees on condition he abandons his mission to kill Matt, but Tom declines. On 14 Aug 1865, Matt's team reaches Abilene and becomes the first cattle drive to cross over the Chisholm Trail. They receive a great welcome from the townspeople, and Melville, a representative of an Illinois trading company, makes Matt a very good offer for the herd and gives him a check payable to Tom. That night, Matt finds Tess waiting for him at his hotel. She warns him that Tom will be coming into town just after dawn to kill him. The next day, as Matt prepares to face Tom, Cherry challenges Tom, who shoots him but is injured by his return fire. Matt refuses to draw his gun against Tom, but when Tom attacks him with his fists, Matt fights back. Their brawl is interrupted by Tess, who fires a gun and angrily reminds them that they both love each other. After Tom tells Matt that he should marry Tess, he and Matt are finally reconciled. Tom then tells Matt that, as he had promised years before, he will create a new branding iron to include Matt's name, as he has earned it.

Production Company:	Monterey Productions, Inc.
Distribution Company:	United Artists Corp.
Director:	Howard Hawks	(Dir)
	Arthur Rosson	(Co-dir)
	William McGarry	(Asst dir)
Producer:	Charles K. Feldman	(Exec prod)
	Howard Hawks	(Prod)
Writer:	Borden Chase	(Scr)
	Charles Schnee	(Scr)
Photography:	Russell Harlan	(Photog)
Art Direction:	John Datu Arensma	(Art dir)
Film Editor:	Christian Nyby	(Film ed)
Music:	Dimitri Tiomkin	(Mus comp and dir)
Sound:	Richard DeWeese	(Sd)
	Vinton Vernon	(Mus rec)
Special Effects:	Donald Steward	(Spec eff)
	Allan Thompson	(Spec photog eff)
Make Up:	Lee Greenway	(Makeup)
Production Misc:	Norman Cook	(Prod mgr)
	Bobbie Sierks	(Scr clerk)
	Thomas Thompson	(Grip)
Stand In:	Riley R. Waters	(Stunt double for John Wayne)
Country:	United States

Songs:	"Settle Down," words and music by Dimitri Tiomkin.
Composer:	Dimitri Tiomkin
Source Text:	Based on the serial novel The Chisholm Trail by Borden Chase in The Saturday Evening Post (7 Dec 1946--11 Jan 1947).
Authors:	Borden Chase

Copyright Claimant	Copyright Date	Copyright Number
Monterey Productions	17/9/1948 dd/mm/yyyy	LP1809

PCA NO:	12398
Physical Properties:	b&w:
	Sd:	Western Electric Recording


Genre:	Western

Subjects (Major):	Cattle drives
	Chisholm Trail
	Rivalry
	Texas
	Vocational obsession

Subjects (Minor):	Abilene (KS)
	Apache Indians
	Bracelets
	Branding
	Comanche Indians
	Cooks
	Cowboys
	Fistfights
	Friendship
	Grief
	Gunfights
	Land claims
	Mexicans
	Obsession
	Railroads
	Ranches
	Rivers
	Romance
	Stampedes
	United States--History--Reconstruction, 1865-1898
	Wagon trains

Note:	The summary was based on a viewing of a modern "Restored Director's Cut" of the film. In a letter contained in the AMPAS Library file on the film, the attorney for Monterey Productions stated that the company bought the original story from Borden Chase, and after certain changes had been made, the story was published in The Saturday Evening Post . Exterior photography was done around Elgin, AZ, south of Tucson, and interiors were filmed on the Samuel Goldwyn lot. Red River was the first film Montgomery Clift made, although his second, The Search (see below), was released first. According to a interview with Howard Hawks in a modern source, Joanne Dru was a last-minute substitute for Margaret Sheridan, who had to be replaced when she was discovered to be pregnant. A 1 Feb 1948 NYT news item noted that the film's original budget was $1,800,000 and that an organization of private capitalists known as Motion Picture Investors provided a bond guaranteeing the film's completion at an eventual cost of $2,700,000. In Dec 1948, DV reported that the film's final cost was $4,100,000 and that the domestic gross was "being figured all the way from $4,000,000 to $5,500,000," with an additional $2,000,000 in foreign revenues. Immediately prior to the film's premiere on 26 Aug 1948 in theaters in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, millionaire producer Howard Hughes filed an injunction against the film's openings in Texas, contending that the climactic gunfight sequence between "Tom" and "Matt" paralleled that in Hughes's The Outlaw , a production on which Hawks had briefly worked in 1940. To placate Hughes, Hawks cut approximately 28 seconds from the scene. A DV news item reported that Consolidated and Pathé laboratories worked through the weekend prior to the film's premiere to produce prints of the revised sequence and that editor Mel Thorsen was sent to film exchanges in Dallas, Kansas City and New York to supervise the changes. For more information on the controversy, see entry above for The Outlaw . The "Director's Cut" of Red River , which was issued in 1987, is approximately seven minutes longer than the original release print and reinstates the footage excised due to the Hughes injunction. The 1948 version includes a spoken narration by Walter Brennan's "Groot Nadine" character, whereas the later version eliminates the narration and uses handwritten text from the Early Tales of Texas "diary." Other minor differences include additional shots before the stampede and the saving of the wagon train sequences, as well as a brief conversation between "Matt" and "Melville" as the cattle enter Abilene. Modern sources add Pierce Lyden, Lee Phelps, George Lloyd, John Merton and Richard Farnsworth to the cast. A radio adaptation of the film, starring Wayne and Dru, was broadcast on Lux Radio Theatre on 7 Mar 1949. Red River received Oscar nominations in the Motion Picture Story and Film Editing categories. On 10 Apr 1988, the CBS network broadcast a remake of Chase's story, starring James Arness and Bruce Boxleitner, and directed by Richard Michaels.

Bibliographic Sources:	Date	Page
Box Office	17 Jul 1948.
Daily Variety	12 Jul 48	p. 3, 6
Daily Variety	23 Aug 1948.
Daily Variety	7 Dec 1948.
Film Daily	14 Jul 48	p. 4.
Hollywood Reporter	5 Sep 46	p. 1.
Hollywood Reporter	6 Nov 46	p. 3.
Hollywood Reporter	29 Apr 47	p. 10.
Hollywood Reporter	12 Jul 48	p. 3.
Hollywood Reporter	16 Aug 1948.
Hollywood Reporter	18 Oct 48	p. 7.
Los Angeles Times	20 Aug 1948.
Motion Picture Herald Product Digest	17 Jul 48	p. 4241.
New York Times	1 Feb 1948.
New York Times	1 Oct 48	p. 31.
Variety	14 Jul 48	p. 12.
Variety	21 Oct 1987.

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