Review of El Dorado

Introduction

Just how many times can one man make the same movie? If that man is Howard Hawks, then the answer is three. The similarities between 1959`s Rio Bravo, 1970`s Rio Lobo and 1966`s El Dorado far outweigh the differences, not least of which is the casting of John Wayne in the leading roles for all three. I guess it boils down to personal preference as to which is best. The characters in all three are pretty much the same, including the addition of an ornery old coot character (2 cowboy points if his name is Gabby), a drunk and a young handsome stranger. Rio Lobo is not that noteworthy, with the only notable co-stars being Jack Elam as the ornery old coot and Mike Henry of Tarzan and Smokey & The Bandit fame as the bad guy. For the true Western connoisseur, the choice has to be between Rio Bravo and El Dorado. The earlier film has Dean Martin as the drunk, Walter Brennan as the old coot (ornery) and Ricky Nelson as the young handsome stranger, Colorado. But El Dorado is more top heavy with acting talent, with the Duke joined by Robert Mitchum hitting the bottle, Arthur Hunnicutt as the OOC and James Caan as the handsome stranger, here named after the Mississippi river.

El Dorado is a town caught in the middle of a range war. The MacDonalds own the water rights and Bart Jason wants them, and he is willing to pay any hired gun to get them. The gun he initially hires belongs to Cole Thornton, but in El Dorado Cole meets his old friend J.P. Harrah, the town sheriff who puts him straight about a few things. Not wishing to end up facing his friend, Cole rides out to turn down Bart Jason`s offer. But word has got through to the MacDonalds about Thornton`s arrival and they are jumpy, and a trigger happy young Luke MacDonald is killed by Thornton is self-defence. Cole feels guilty about this and explains what happened to the MacDonald family, but while the patriarch accepts Cole`s story, Joey MacDonald is having none of it, and she puts a bullet in Thornton`s back, that will come back to haunt him.

Six months later, a chance encounter in a saloon informs Thornton that there is a new gun working for Bart Jason, and his feeling of guilt for the MacDonalds sends him back to El Dorado to help his old friend the sheriff. With him is a young gambler and knife fighter, Mississippi, whose lack of skill with the gun requires him to carry a sawn-off shotgun in his holster. But the intervening months haven`t been good for Sheriff Harrah, who has loved and lost, and has buried his head in the bottle. Getting J.P sober is hard enough, but when one of the MacDonalds is shot, keeping Bart Jason in jail could turn out to be impossible, especially when he has offered $1000 to anyone who can spring him.

Video

The picture for El Dorado is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. It certainly is clear and colourful, though at times the image is a little soft and grainy. There is the inevitable print damage as well. The typical Western locations are evident, but in many ways, El Dorado is atypically claustrophobic and stifling, with many of the action sequences taking place at night.

Audio

The sound once again is a choice of DD 2.0 mono tracks. You can choose from English, German, Italian, Spanish and French. The dialogue is clear enough, but I must say the music is off-putting, sounding like something out of an Adam West Batman television episode. More problematic is that the hiss occasionally rises to an unacceptable level

Features

A theatrical trailer. It would take less time to list the languages that this film is not subtitled in (Exaggeration).

Conclusion

El Dorado is the quintessential classic Western, providing thrills and spills, good old gun fighting action and great dialogue as well as more than a few laughs. John Wayne once again is that larger than life character that he is so well known for, but Robert Mitchum is excellent as the Sheriff laid low by the demon drink. It`s all tongue in cheek and pretty much played for laughs, especially the cure and his reaction to it. Providing the noxious cure is Mississippi, played by James Caan. His is an entertaining character, defined more by the ridiculous hat and pocket blunderbuss than any particular quirk of performance, and his tendency to lapse into poetry soon begins to grate. Arthur Hunnicutt as the cantankerous Bull Harris, who has an excellent way with words if not a bugle, completes the unconventional group.

El Dorado isn`t the kind of film made to provoke thought or make any particular statement about the old West, it`s just about fun pure and simple, and in that respect is delivers admirably. It`s the sort of basic good guys versus bad guys story that was a staple of the genre, relying more on stereotypes than any detailed characterisations. There`s always the code of the gunmen, a siege situation to promote some male bonding, some pretty women to remind the heroes what they are fighting for, and some foolhardy action sequences that will make those same women fret, and that anyone other than the heroes would have no chance of surviving. But what it boils down to is that these films weren`t about innovation and originality, they were about comfortable movies that delivered exactly what you expected. If you went to see a John Wayne movie, then by golly that is what you would get. El Dorado sticks to the perfect Western formula and keeps it fresh and entertaining. This is the kind of movie that you can rely on, and it`s nice to watch a dependable movie from time to time.

Paramount provides a typically light disc. The extras are non-existent, the picture is adequate but the sound is a little below par. Still, the film makes up for it.