El Dorado<\/em> became not a new adventure for the director, this screenwriter, and their star, but rather a strategic retreat, the trio for all intents and purposes remaking their most recent triumph, 1959\u2019s Rio Bravo<\/em> — one of the greatest and most purely enjoyable of all films. Brackett, who considered her script for The Stars in Their Courses<\/em> her finest work, was unenthused about the self-plagiarism, derisively referring to El Dorado<\/em> as \u201cSon of Rio Bravo<\/em> Rides Again.\u201d (Though it\u2019s worth noting that she signed up for this drill once more a few years later, when Hawks pulled the same trick for his final film, 1970\u2019s distinctly less engaging Rio Lobo<\/em>.) Released in America the same summer as Bonnie and Clyde<\/em>, the year The Graduate<\/em> topped the box office, this shambling, backlot cowboy comedy with its two long-in-the-tooth leading men must have felt like a dinosaur, which is indeed a big part of El Dorado<\/em>\u2019s considerable charm. The movie is as comfy as a pair of old slippers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her pan of the film, Pauline Kael said, \u201cyou have the sense of having come in on a late episode of a TV series,\u201d which I think was Hawks\u2019 whole intention. He\u2019d conceived Rio Bravo<\/em> partially in response to the popularity of television Westerns, after noticing how audiences tuned in week after week to spend time with characters whose company they enjoyed, regardless of the episode\u2019s adventures. The picture\u2019s laid-back, hangout atmosphere was by design, locking Wayne\u2019s blustery sheriff, Dean Martin\u2019s washed-up drunk, Ricky Nelson\u2019s singing sidekick and Walter Brennan\u2019s rascally old coot together in the wild west\u2019s roomiest jailhouse for luxurious expanses of screen time. It\u2019s one of those films that gets better every time you watch it because the comedy all comes from behavior. The more you get to know these people, the more they start to feel like your friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo story, Bob. Just you and Duke,\u201d was how Hawks pitched El Dorado<\/em> to Robert Mitchum. He knew he needed a star of Mitchum\u2019s magnitude to hold the screen opposite Wayne in the Dean Martin role of a once-formidable ally who\u2019d crawled up inside of a bottle. (A teaming of titans who\u2019d both appeared in The Longest Day<\/em> but never shared a scene together, the ad campaign for El Dorado<\/em> announced \u201cIt\u2019s The Big One With The Big Two!\u201d) Arthur Hunnicutt assumed the Walter Brennan part of a crotchety old jailkeep, with Ricky Nelson replaced by Hawks\u2019 Red Line 7000<\/em> leading man, a twitchy, 25-year-old up-and-comer named James Caan \u2014 the character of Colorado rechristened Mississippi, in case you were wondering how closely the self-referentiality hews to self-parody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After opening with some surprisingly heavy holdover material from the Brown book, El Dorado<\/em> eventually gets down to business with delightful banter and largely improvised hijinks, coasting on the camaraderie that was Hawks\u2019 stock in trade and the easy, avuncular charm of one of Wayne\u2019s most relaxed performances, and one of Mitchum\u2019s silliest. Wisely deciding not to try and top Dean Martin\u2019s sad, soulful take on the character, the coolest of all movie stars is at his most endearingly clownish, pulling cross-eyed faces and performing pratfalls with aplomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It all comes to a head when the fellas lock up a corrupt cattle baron played by Ed Asner (Lord, how I\u2019d love to hear what he and Wayne talked about on set) and as in Rio Bravo<\/em>, turn the jail into a makeshift fortress. The ad-libbed antics alternate between the appalling \u2014 Caan\u2019s \u201cching-chong\u201d impersonation of a Chinese vendor is especially ugly \u2014 and almost avant garde fourth-wall breaking, as when Wayne starts making fun of how Mitchum\u2019s bullet wound seems to switch legs between scenes. (There\u2019s even a playful shoutout to Francois Truffaut\u2019s Shoot The Piano Player<\/em>.) Ambling through the same old story, it\u2019s a case of familiarity breeding affection, not contempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s also a touchingly autumnal sense of diminishment in El Dorado<\/em>, explicitly addressing infirmity and old age in ways unthinkable for these stars just a few years prior. Wayne turned 60 the year the movie came out. (Mitchum was ten years Duke\u2019s junior but lived hard enough to pass as his contemporary.) These characters are constantly coming up short, Wayne suffering chronic pain from an old bullet wound in his back and Mitchum hobbled by apocalyptic hangovers. Wayne even gets captured by the bad guys, rendered helpless in ways we\u2019re not used to seeing. When it comes time for the final showdown against the best gunslinger around \u2014 strikingly well played by Christopher George \u2014 Wayne only wins by cheating, admitting he couldn\u2019t beat him fair and square. The movie ends not with our stars riding off into the sunset, but hobbling on crutches, laughing and limping their way into legend. “El Dorado” is now streaming on Hulu<\/a> and Paramount+<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/el-dorado-1024x580.jpg\")
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