Chapo Trap House - Movie Mindset 11 - Cutthroat's Anthem: Hangin' with Hawks

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

A chance meeting of Will & Hesse at a screening in NYC brings you a special bonus episode of Movie Mindset. In lieu of covering this summer’s cinematic event of Barbie/Oppenheimer, we discuss two westerns by American movie master Howard Hawks: 1959’s Rio Bravo and 1966’s El Dorado. We examine the essential place of The Western in American consciousness, and how the western is essentially about taking a bath with the homies.

The End Hello, Hessa! Hello listeners! Welcome back to this bonus surprise episode of movie mindset. Surprise. Hessa, it's been quite a summer at the movies. How was your summer at the cinema been so far? My summer at the cinema has been fantastic. I saw Barbie obviously. I haven't seen Oppenheimer quite yet because that's hard to find better than the iMacs because they're all the shots that aren't shot in iMacs get blown up in the iMacs print from 70 millimeter which makes things look weird. But yeah, I'm still trying to see it on the biggest screen possible. I mean, fuck it, we ball, you know, trying to keep trying to blow my own mind. Well, I have, I have yet to see Barbie. I have seen Oppenheimer and thought it was great. And

this is my way of introducing this episode of saying, I know we promised a Barbieheimer um, uh, summer movie episode of this show. And this has been, uh, an amazing summer for movies. It's been Bafo B.O. for Hollywood. But of course, this is all happening at a time when people feel really energized to go back to the movies, dress up and go to movies. And when two summer releases are like big cultural events and at least as far as Oppenheimer is actually

a very good, serious movie, that being said, we are not doing Barbie and Oppenheimer for our bonus summer movie mindset episode because I support the SAG and WGA strike and also I don't want people getting mad at me. Yeah, I think now keep in mind now listen or keep in mind, if you are listening to this episode of movie mindset, you have already wittingly or unwittingly entered into a contract to never get mad at Hesse or myself. So if you're mad that we're not doing Barbie Oppenheimer or that we were maybe considering doing Barbie Oppenheimer, you are in violation of your contract with movie mindset. So let's take a step back or we can take legal action against you.

This not to say I still really want to do a Barbie in Oppenheimer episode. I have tons of thoughts on Oppenheimer and I'm sure plenty once I see a Barbie. But you know, it's just, this is a gray area here and you know, my status as movie influencer is it's a gray area, but I don't want to trot it in the new ones toes by,

you know, it's a gray area as to what constitutes promoting a current for least Hollywood movie while this strike is going on. So I'm just not gonna, not gonna touch that live wire right now. Just solidarity to the WGA and SAG. Yeah, I just want to clarify, I'm solidarity with the WGA SAG. I don't give a shit. You're rotten now. I'm kidding. What do these greedy actors just get back to work so we can start talking about movies?

You know, we saw asteroid city. Great. Had a great time in that. Really fun. I saw a mission impossible dead reckoning. Possibly the dumbest entry in the franchise yet, but still had a great time seeing that movie. I've got plenty of the, plenty of thoughts to spare, but we're going to put a pin in that for now, dear listener. And just bring you, bring you actually like a report from HESA and I somewhere at the cinema, because today's episode is inspired by our, I recent trip to the sort of, um of the mothership of movie mindset, the Roxy Hotel and Cinema here in New York City, and shout-outs to our friend Nick Newman for helping to present a 35-millimeter screening of Howard Hawks' 1959 Western

Rio Bravo that we attended over the weekend, and this was pure kismate because Catherine I bought tickets to This the showing of real Bravo and Sunday evening We picked out our seats in the theater and then who comes who we like you know like the the doors on the saloon clap open Who comes mozing into town the piano player stop playing? Has to Danny mozing and looking at just looking for a movie. And then I like, oh, here's your ticket and I flipped it into a spatoon for it. I was like, you want to see this 35 millimeter screening of Howard Hawks' classic American

Western. I was there. I was crawling for the spatoon and then Kath stopped me and stopped my hand. Yeah, this is a great bit of a movie, of movie kism and has what was actually sitting right next to Catherine, you know, great movie minds, think alike. And that inspired this episode, we figured, you know, it's summer, it's hot out. What are you going to do? What is there to do in the summer?

Well, the answer is hang out with your friends and take it easy. And like in light of that, we're going to talk about two Howard Hawks classic Westerns, 1959s, Rio Bravo and 1966's El Dorado, which are, gives an opportunity to talk about, you know, American master Howard Hawks, the sort of classic American Western as a genre, but more than anything to talk about two movies that are really at the end of the American Western as a genre, but more than anything to talk about two movies that are really at the end of the day just about hanging out with your friends. They're about smoking cigarettes with your friends,

going on walks, taking a bath with your homie. This is just, this is a movie, a real bravo especially. portrays like everything that makes Howard Hawks the kind of oturist critic and filmmakers favorite director about how he sort of in every genre of every conceivable genre of movie like displayed a total mastery and also sort of smuggled in a lot of his as Roger Ebert called it Leconic values and sort of like his personal style across Westerns, War movies,

Scruple comedies. I mean, Hesse, where do you want to start with Howard Hawks? I mean, where do you even start? He's the king, like noir movies, horror movies. The thing to have, to have not. Bringing up big sleeves. The big sleeves. The three movies right there, there like out think how varied in

but also how similar in stout in his beautiful economy of style uh... howard hawks manages to create in all of his films bringing up baby one of the great thrillers of all time completely nerve-wracking film bring up baby one of my favorite comedies of all time you got uh... uh... sergeant york red river gentleman prefer blondes uh... scar face his girl friday

uh... the list goes on and on here the big sleep yeah and by way of introducing how it hocks to you listen to if you're familiar with his movies or haven't taken the opportunity to watch a classic like real bravo or red river. Basically, if, if, as similar to what I said about viscante and if like Scorsese is your guy, you have to take the time to take the time out to just see the leopard and experience that movie. If John Carpenter is your guy, you must, must, must watch Howard Hawks's movies to understand. The Carpenter is like his same that economy of style that very sparse, stark compositions and his use of music. And

more than anything as we see in Rio Bravo and El Dorado, movies about love stories about men, but people who have to survive under pressure. people who have to come together in a single location besieged by some outer force that they have to learn to work together and survive in this kind of bottle conditions. Yeah, the impending outlaw kind of the chaotic outlaws encroaching on the lawmen who are often hold up always in a hold up in the sheriff's office in the middle of town. Those circumstances that present themselves in both of these movies, like the pressure cooker scenario, is really just an excuse to have three guys kind of get to know who are either already in love with each other and rekindle that love between one another or just kind of like get to know each other and just hang out sing songs like I said take a bath together.

So like real Bravo and Eldorado are basically it's a Eldorado is a remake of real Bravo essentially and then how Hawks would go on again to remake this movie a third time in real lobo. And all three of them star John Wayne, the Duke, you know, the sort of the icon of the sort of classic American Western and kind of reactionary mid-century American masculinity. But like, you know, in these movies, they just, they employ the same tropes. It's just variations on the same themes here. And like I said, there's the theme of hanging out with your friends, taking a walk, but

it's also about having a one homie who fell off and you have to help out. And there's also put on the new kid who wants to be gang, but has a name named after a state like Colorado or Mississippi, sort the the hot young kid there's the sort of there's the rich cattle baron there's the fallen woman there's the horrors of alcoholism and then and then of course you have to have the root and tuton dad gum at 19th century coot stereotype played by a rock of people. Yeah, the guy who says concert and jump at you who's a fat and gang dang gubbit. It's about like I said, male love stories. There's a male camaraderie and

credit against a nickname and for for sharing clips from John Carpenter's TCM curation of some of his favorite movies and him talking about Howard Hawks and Rio Bravo and how influential this movie has been on his career because he's made this movie as a horror movie not a western over and over again like a sultan pre-sick 13 the thing prince of darkness like in the classic american western in these Howard Hawks movies you see it's like the pressure, the men loving each other and thriving under pressure, they coherent to form a kind of

American identity. And like as we talked about in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the formation of a proto-American community and how like the force of the law to bind civilization against the forces of sort of strength, aggression aggression and kind of and money yeah money especially yeah and john carbons movies like the same forces co here to bring about annihilation and the of the

the devil the world was the one who's trying to get into the the jail but like it's about to have like this sort of the repetition and exercise of these tropes and just sort of like And just the great American canvas, the law man, the drunk, the rancher, the fallen woman, how these things could have come together and what they mean about American identity.

And in John Carpenter's comments on this movie, he says that this movie and really a theme throughout all of Hawks' work to him is about the measure of being a professional. There's a line in it where John Wayne says to Dean Martin's character, are you good enough? You know, it's this question of can you do the work? And I think about that, like that mark of professionalism and like this lack of pretension that exists in John Carpenter's work that you see in Howard Hawks as well.

And I just like say, like, our experiencing this projected on 35 millimeter at the Roxy, I mean, was fantastic, because you really get the magic on. The technicaler, the technicaler in both of these movies, those big blue skies, the deep red of John Wayne's cowboy shirts, the way his eyes pop you know called old blue eyes it's just every frame of these movies looks like like a canvas it's just it's so beautifully and

richly and warmly there's just such a vivid like yeah there's such a warmth to Rio Bravo and I guess like basically the same movie I will say say Eldorado is a great Western. It's just a great Western and you've got Robert Mitchum who's awesome, you've got James Conn as Mississippi the young cool kid. I describe like Eldorado is like real Bravo with extra steps. It's got a little more action.

Yeah, a little more back stories, a little bit more fleshed out. It's a great Western western but in expanding the aperture of this like this very simple like the plot and tropes i think it loses something because it's it's merely a great classic western whereas i think real bravo is truly something special i think it's like yeah an american originals a true american masterpiece, a really singular, unique movie. I thought I liked El Dorado more until I rewatched them both this morning. You know, it was like, no, yeah, Rio Bravo is the goat, for sure.

They both go so hard, though. They're both awesome. And Rio Bravo is just, once again, it's like, it's the lushness of the technical era, but it's also the it's this, it's the lushness of the technical era, but it's also like the complete minimalism of it. Like, real bravo is basically a couple set changes. That's what happens in that movie. Like, they just, there's there's three or four locations, and they cycle about walking about back and forth between them. And then there's a climax at the end, but

it really is just the pacing of it is like, I don't know about you, so let's talk about our sort of our relationship with the Western genre because it took me a while to sort of understand and get to like the kind of classic era of 40s and 50s American Westerns because like, I always love the Western genre, but for to me, it was always about Clint Eastwood and those 60s and 70s kind of subversive countercultural, sort of very modern, sort of postmodern Westerners. And like the contrast between Clint and John Wayne is this kind of generational divide.

Because, you know, Clint, whether he was an anti-hero or not, Clint is always cool. John Wayne is just like, he's the antithesis of cool. Yeah, he's a big lug. He's a big lug. He's a big horse as my friends, a little son at Nate Fisher might say. He's a big horse. And he's standing next to Dean Martin.

He's a big guy. Dean Martin, he's a kid. He's doing next to him. Yeah. He's a huge, especially when he's standing next to Carlos in Rio Bravo. He's tower huge especially when he's standing next to Carlos in real bravo towering above him

But he like yeah the Jumwins character in this is very like I Don't know like goofy. It's He has something a kin to like carry grant in bringing up baby Especially in real bravo with a lot of like the quick riparte of the dialogue like the banter between him and Angie Dickinson where it's like the more the more she floats with him the more flustered and angry he gets Yeah, or Carlos where he Carlos, there's a scene where Carlos is trying to explain to him how he got a black eye trying to get Angie Dickinson on the on the carriage and it's just a wonderful comedy of of misunderstandings and yeah there's there's a certain like goofball

while not goofball like almost reluctant kind of silliness to him that I think does come across and that I think it's ignored a lot when people talk about John Wayne's persona. Like they, I think a lot of people think the man who shot Liberty Valence where it's very, like he's very taciturn, very serious, not a joke in sight, just like basically a statue, like might as well be stop motion.

And then in this where he's like kissing Stumpy, in Rio Bravo where he like kisses Stumpy on the forehead and then it runs out of the room before he can like slap his ass. Yeah, they're having fun in this, they're just guys having fun. And you know, like, you're right, like people think of Wayne as this very, like you know, because of his cultural politics or it's just sort having fun. And you're right, people think of Wayne as this very,

like, you know, because of his cultural politics or it's just sort of like being associated with this kind of anti-counter culture. But, you know, he is kind of being a goofball in these movies. And I guess the thing for me with John Wayne is that I always sort of like, I kept him at an arms length when I was younger, but now I wholly embrace him as like a great American

movie star, but the thing wholly embrace him as like a great American movie star. But the thing is, in all of his most iconic movies, he is absolutely outshown and outclassed by his co-stars in every role, in every role. And the thing is, I don't really say that as a demerit on Wayne because to me, like John Wayne is just the constant. Like he's just sort of, he's the assurance. It's like the deal you make when you sit down and press play. Like the handshake deal that you make with the filmmakers. He is the constant, the assurance that all of the other Western tropes

are legible and like correctly placed. It's because him there is this kind of like static figure. Is what makes legible all the other tropes and sort of meaning of the movies. I was thinking like kind of the same thing when I was like rewatching Rio Bravo when I was like, okay, so there's Colorado who represents like this like male vision of like youth

kind of and then there is Stumpy who represents this male vision of youth kind of. And then there is Stumpy who represents this kind of older male character who's like a goofball and who has passed his prime but still useful and still does the work that he still does the work. He still does practice. And then he still acts as the jailer And yeah, if if chance goes in with three fellas, I don't know

The line were what stumpy as Walter Brennan says you know what I'm gonna do. I'm blastin I'm gonna some blastin. I'm the best part of the movie. Honestly, he's so good I'm glad he's the best part of the movie, honestly. He's so good. But then there's Dean Martin as kind of this middle-aged man. Borachon, the drone. Before Jeffree, if Jeffree Libowski's the dude, there was Dino, Dean Martin is just dude. Dude.

And then John Wayne kind of stands outside of this like trinity of like masculine types as kind of just the arbiter, the father of every thing. He is the measure against which all other masculinity are sort of judged and yeah, like sort of contrasted with and yeah, you're you're totally right. There's this the Trinity of like youth middle age and sort of Sindility and yeah, do do did you represented by Walter Brennan and and Snumpy but all of them like it goes back to this carpenter question of are you good enough? You know can you do the job like with Colorado played by Ricky Nelson, who was for his time, like this kind of teen heartthrob, Kruiner, who you like, put a twing in there with him.

And it would be sort of like Harry Styles being in a movie today. Yeah. And you know, he's the young gun, and everyone says how fast he is, and then it's this question of like, is he really fast enough? Is he really as good as people say he is?

And then with Dino, it's a, the real emotional core of Rio Bravo is Dean Martin's character and a truly phenomenal performance by Dino. He's like, who is always like kind of comic relief and playing or sort of a caricature of himself. But this is a, his performance in this movie really does quite movingly and seriously deal with alcoholism and sort of like and the core of the movie is about his, his struggle to reclaim his dignity and the dignity of being useful to others of being noted like of being attentive to and helpful to your friends. My favorite is the way that they portrayed visually through his like costume

and hair and like facial hair because he at the beginning of the movie he's a total drunk and he has this kind of sexy five o'clock shadow but he's wearing like this disgusting like Henley shirt. Yeah and it's, and they do the same with Robert Mitchem. Face is always like like dirty. There's like, but yeah, streaks of mud on his face or just like passing out and like a whole stable. And they do the same with like Robert Mitchem and El Dorado who plays the same type of character, the Rummy kind of. Also, it's very funny to cast people who are like almost definitely actual alcoholics in real life. Yes.

Yeah, no, no, no, Dino struggled with the bottle. And I mean, it was part of his routine practic. I mean, he was like, that's what people expected from him. And I'm sure it took a toll. But on the subject of using wardrobe to portray someone's dissolution, I love in El Dorado. The first person you see on screen is Mitchum. When he has his shit together, and they portray his sobriety because he's wearing one of those

sort of breastplate western style shirts with 11 buttons on it. And they're all buttoned up tight. And then the next time you see him, he is wearing a potato sack. He's wearing it with the worst shirt I've ever seen in any movie. And, but like the way that they do like the Dean Martin like transformation in real Bravo is like he's eventually he like, he wipes the mud off his face and then he gets a shave. And then after the shave, he gets his guns back. And then after that, he gets his clothes back.

And then there's a moment where he gets snuck up on. They get the jump on him. They get the jump on him. And then, yeah, they dump him into a horse troth and then into mud. And then again, he was clean for a very short period of time in the movie. And then he's instantly just filthy

and disgusting again and he has to fight his way back, you know. Uh, taking baths are like a very important hinge point in both of these movies. Yes. You know, Mitchum has to get right, he has to get, you know, soaked up too. They put it just put him in a bucket in the jail and he's like, he's a big, big, big, small, small, smallest bucket ever seen. He's in a team up. So he's like a bump.

He's in a bucket that bugs bunny would put at the bottom of a 200 foot like high dot. He's sitting in that and sour and like bathing. But yeah, I mean, like you said, like, El Dorado is just real bravo with a little bit more back story and set up But I guess like in real Bravo both these movies just begin too It's just you're just like thrown in and you see Dean Martin shambling around and like you know some The the brother of like the big ranch the big landowner the cattle baron He like you know all all the other rummies of the bar,

he got, like, statistically, like, torturing the old drunk played by Dean Martin. And he, like, flips like a silver dollar into a spatoon. Because he's like, oh, you're that, like, if you're that desperate for a drink, like, degrade yourself for our amusement so that you can get another swig on the whiskey bottle. And then, like, right before Dino goes into fish it out,

John Wayne's foot comes and kicks over the spittoon and ruffs him up. And then like out of that altercation, the brother murders a guy in the bar. And John Wayne has to arrest him and then like Dean backs him up. Because like when you you from the movie first start, you don't know if they know each other. But like then it is filled in that like they were they were once very close friends and like, you know, they were they were partners.

It was a she was a sheriff and a deputy. And then like, it's always a mysterious girl. A mysterious girl who left on the stage coach. A girl arrives on the stage coach. You're fine. She leaves on the stage coach. You're drinking whiskey out of a boot for the next three years of your life. Everyone told me that everyone told me she was no good and I didn't listen. That's all they always say that in this and in real Bravo and El Dorado. But something that shocked me that I totally forgot about real Bravo, watching in the theater that my like, jaw was on the floor, is that like the first like 10 minutes are totally silent are like completely like the first words are, maybe not 10 minutes, but the first words are John Wayne

being like Joe, you're under arrest and like pointing the gun at the brother. And I just like the gun at the brother. And I just like, that's so sick. The way that like this complete fiction of like this incredible like legend of the West is playing out and just like total without any dialogue whatsoever. You know the characters, you know the players, you can just like, you know, tell what's going on by the archetypes on screen. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So like, yeah, I was struck rewatching it on film is how much the actor who plays Joe Burdett

looks like Ron DeSantis. Yeah, actually, he would go on to play Sheriff, portray Sheriff Lobo in the T.T.C. series that Homer Simpson wants to be brought back. You know, they have to, they put him in the tetey series that homer simpson wants to be brought back uh... you know that they have to they they put him in the jail and uh... walter brennan is the jailer who's just like you know

you're befitting again three squares and a cut from the but you know waterbrennan one of the one of the great american character actors and one of the greatest and by greatest i mean worst and most evil Hollywood right wingers just a little backstory on Walter Brennan. I guess you could use this in contrast to Bert Landcaster. Walter Brennan was an absolute like John Birch level right wing crank his entire career. His house in San Fernando, California, he kidded it out with a survival bunker, stocked with weapons and food for what he assumed was an imminent Soviet invasion of America. He supported all kinds

of anti-communist causes and then like, you know, prayer in school, but was also known mainly for his virulent racism, which manifested itself in the famous incident of him dancing a jig on the set of the movie he was filming when they heard that Martin Luther King was killed. Oh my god. I get literally they pulled a prospector out of a time machine and put him in movie. He was born in Boston like I guess that makes us of course He was also he's also like the Tennessee preacher that brings Gary Cooper to Jesus in Sergeant York another great Howard Hawks film He was he was the stock character actor for playing these sort of like old-cute type type figures You've also got a ward bond as the guy who's leading like the wagon train into town. The guy who gets killed because he wants to help John Wayne.

Ward Bond was a guy who's basically he's in every John Wayne movie. Like he has a supporting role in most of John Wayne's westerns. He's is he's his homey. And then of course we have Angie Dickinson as feathers. The the fallen woman character who, you know, sparks a romance with John Wayne mm-hmm clean Andy Dickinson and she Dickinson is great in this movie um like I said she gets Wayne heated by flirting with him and I love the scene

where John Wayne says to her you could quit playing cards and wear in feathers because she's got like a bill of a rest out on her she's like you know she was the the kind of the mall to this card sharp who is, you know, traveling the Mississippi, cheating people out of money until it finally caught up with them and he gets killed when they kept cheating. She was the whole Friday and it, you know, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And you know, she's sort of, you know, living by her wits, trying to raise money for the next stage coach, she goes from town to town and stay one, one step ahead of the law.

And John Wayne says to her at one point, you could quit playing cards and wearing feathers and she just goes, no, I'm not going to do that. Yeah. That's who I am. And also he says to her, um, sounds like you had a hard time and she goes, no, I had a good time. It's not bad, but it was like, she's so cool. And I love like, there's several scenes where she, like, is just talking,

is just saying her thoughts out loud, like talking to John Wayne or Colorado. And it just talking long enough for a woman, if you let a woman talk to herself long enough, she'll eventually be in hysterics, who was sobbing about how in love she is with someone. And like, it's really amazing. I love her in this. Well, the best advice about women given in these movies,

because these are movies about men, of course, comes from Carlos, the in keeper who tells John Wayne at one point like about consuela his his wife or girlfriend he goes you know if if she's mad and I'm sorry it will be much pleasure to make her happy if she not mad it's still the same pleasure yeah she's not mad yeah no I love yeah he's just part. Yeah. No, I love that. Yeah, he's just part of the community that kind of co-hears around Dino and John Wayne, as they fend off the aggression and hired guns

of Nathan Burdett, the older, the evil rich cattle baron, which is like played by Ed Asner and Elder F. Oh, yeah. I don't know what, I said, what did you feel about like played by Ed Asner and Elder F. Oh, yeah. I don't know. What did you feel about having actors like Ed Asner and Robert Mitchem show up in Westerns? Cause like, I don't know. It's just like, they're so frozen in my mind as being of the 20th century that like

unlike John Wayne, who yeah, like looks like he walked out of, you know, like a civil war battlefield or something. Yeah. Whereas like something about Mitchem and even Dino, they seem sort of out of place and sort of more modern than their settings. But I mean, I think that's just bias of how I view them as there's in cultural figures. When I think Mitchem, the first thing that pops into my head is him on the Dick Cavit show where he's wearing those like tinted sunglasses and he's like yeah, yeah,

you know, before I was an actor, I was using a steel lathe and a piece of steel flew into my eyeball and I went blind for two weeks, but it didn't go to the doctor and it stopped being blind. That's like a lot. Cool. I'm sort of amazed we didn't in season one of movie minds that do a Robert Mitchem episode, but like rest assured that's got to be coming in the future. Oh yeah.

Because Mitchem is the king. And I remember a long time ago reading or seeing some interview with Mitchem, we're like, you know, in the 60s, because you know, famously he was the first Hollywood celeb busted for smoking jazz cigarettes for smoking marijuana. And, you know, like he was sort of a bridge between that, that old Hollywood and sort of a newer counter culture. And he was kind of one of the old Western gangster actors that was like thought of as hip because he smokes reefer.

And it was like someone was asking him about John Wayne who was very much held as the opposite. He was like the avatar of the, you know, 60s counter revolution. And they were like, Oh, like the, just, just, just John Wayne, does he indulge or whatever? And Mitch was just like, the thing you got to know about the Duke, the Duke does everything. He was like, the Duke does it all. It's like bills, booze, weed. It was like, don't get it twisted. John Wayne could party. You could fuck it. Don't get twisted. Yeah. John Wayne doing Academy, doing D.H.D. going in nowadays. He's a, yeah, he's a, he's a circuit guy. John Wayne. Yeah. Well, actually, let me ask you about this. I don't know if this is just me being bratty and needing to read homo-erotic

uh, uh, subtext into like classic American stories. But what do you make of the relationship between John Wayne and Ricky Nelson and John Wayne and James Khan in both of these movies? Cause there's definitely like, like a daddy rent boy thing. Uh, am I crazy feeling that? No, I mean, this is like something that's like ever since the very first western. I feel like it's been You know, because the first I think what was the first like

Taki golden arrow Western stage coach probably I think even before stage coach like I think The first like Western I think of is the outlaw which if anyone listening hasn't seen the outlaw There's like Western, I think of as the outlaw, which if anyone listening hasn't seen the outlaw, you need to watch it like ASAP. I've not seen the outlaw, so I'm just gonna... Oh my God, the outlaw is like one of the funniest movies I've ever seen because it's the most overtly gay movie I've ever seen in my entire life.

It's Howard Hughes, it was John, I think it was John Houston directing it, but he quit when he realized how gay it is. Um, like, Howard Hughes, like finished directing it, and it's basically the same as this, where it's like this old gunslinger kind of passing the reins over to a newer gunslinger. But in the outlaw, that's basically the term they use, they keep talking about the horses,

their horses. And it's Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid. And he's like Doc Holliday, someone tells Doc Holliday, oh Billy the Kid's in town. You see, have a look at his horse. It's even bigger than your horse is Doc. And when you were his age, like I'd like to see him try. And he's like, sees Billy the kid and he's like, it's truly insane because he's like, that you don't know this horse knows tricks. You can get it to shake.

You can get the horse to shake if you really want. They're getting like so close to each other's faces. And Billy the kids like, oh, wow, I didn't know that because it's the worst actor you've ever seen in your life, just some twink. And it's very reminiscent of this, like the dynamic between, like all westerns are gay because like the ending of every western is that like the guy, the outlaw type guy finds a girl and then is domesticated. Yeah, it's like the guy, the outlaw type guy finds a girl

and then is domesticated. Yeah, that's like the happy ending, but the real happiness is the journey. It's the part where there's no woman. And which is why in the outlaw, they, the two main characters are having a fight, the whole movie over who has to get married and who gets to keep the horse and keep riding around.

I mean, like, yeah, like, like, that is the Western genre because it's about like, you know, sort of about the law man and the outlaw, but like, you know, men who, who there violence to a certain code and out of that forge of violence and kind of proto civilization comes American community. But like, you're so right that the ending always has to be someone settling down and getting married. But like, the joy of the Western and what it represents in the American consciousness is this like mythology of freedom

and liberation from the constraints of, you know, a feminized bourgeois society. It's just, you know, to be rolling sigs with your homies, playing with guns, going on walks, and taking baths together as I simply must dress. Yeah, exactly. And like that is really, I think that to me is the beauty of Rio Bravo because it's like,

what is it? Like three or four days in this town, and it's just, John Wayne, it's like Dean Martin struggling to put his life back together. But like, but he's able to do that because he's given something to do. And what that is is like, we're gonna walk, that we're gonna walk down the one street in this town

and see what happens. Yeah. And like that's basically the action of this movie. And I also love that like the end of the movie before like the big, right before the big climax, they come to the hilarious realization where they're like, oh, if we just sit in here, then they can't do anything. Yeah. Because they tell Nathan Burdett, like the older brother who's hiring all these all these killers and cutthroats to,

you know, to break out his brother or kill the sheriff and his deputies. When Wayne just tells him he's like, if anyone tries anything in this jail, your brother's the first to die. Like we got to go on him in 24-7. And he's like, well, wouldn't that be murder? And Wayne's just like, who's counting at that point? Well, I'll be dead. What's the problem? And he, the older, the brother is like, the brother is cheek John Russell. Oh, man. Yeah. Real. His, whoever did his filler is alohani.

He was, he was also, he's in a bunch of, he's in a bunch of Clint Eastwood westerns. He's in the outlaw, Josie Wales. And he's also in the pale rider. I know the movie I mentioned on our Clint Eastwood episode. But we should also talk about the music in Rio Bravo, because it's got this great original score, but another thing Carpenter talked about in the TCM clip is the Cutthroat's anthem.

The Cutthroat's anthem is like the coolest shit ever. This was so sick. This is an apocryphal story about the alamo where like the Mexican army was just serenading these guys night and day until they all killed them all at the very end of it. But the music that you heard in this movie is original to the movie. It's an invention of the composer. And it's something they were like Nathan Burdett and his gang are held up at their saloon and he pays the mariachi is to start playing this song. And Ricky Nelson, the Colorado, comes by

the jail and he's just like, well, if Burdett isn't, isn't, isn't spoken to you yet, he's speaking now. Because you know what this song is, it's the, it's the, what they played to the boys, those Texas boys of the Alamo. And the way it is just like, oh, I see no corner, no mercy for the losers. But I just love that idea of like serenading your foes and just being like, you recognize this song? You know what it means? We're going to kill your ass as soon as we can. There's so much, so many like awesome little like touches that you wouldn't necessarily think would be in like a golden arrow

western like that the diagetic music of like the characters hearing this like amazing song and like I don't know a bunch of other crazy little like visual flourishes like when you first see consuela She walks in and like stops right so that like the bull horns above the doorway threshold in the saloon are right behind her head as she's yelling at Carlos So it looks like she has these like horns on her head like the fucking devil and Yeah, just like so much like little shit like that that just always makes me think like Dan's movies.

That's another thing Carpenter said in his TCM interview is that like why his movies matter to him is just like how modern he regards, like how modern the style of Howard Hawks' is and how much that has formed. The generation that came after them, even though like these movies at least unlike, for me as a younger them, even though these movies, at least for me, as a younger age, released on first glance,

seem like a very out-very dated and of a different time. But they're really not. I mean, they feel alive. And they feel warm and alive in a way that I think is really modern and contemporary. Yeah. And as long as we're talking about music in this movie, we have to talk about, to me, the singular scene

of pure, pure cinema in Rio Bravo, that elevates it from an American masterpiece to, like, I think, like, a thing of transcendent beauty. Yeah. That is simply my rifle my pony and me Come I would dream, coming home, sweet, hot darling Just my rifle, I would lean Whip a whiff in the willow, sings a sweet melody It is a scene that is like unannounced comes out of nowhere plays for a really long time But it is just it is it's it's Walter Brennan John Wayne Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson and There it's like their last night. They're like under siege. They're all hold up in the jail together. They got their cigarettes

up in the jail together. They got their cigarettes. Dino's got some beer to keep his hands from shaking. That's another thing that we can talk about. You can be an alcoholic, but if you just drink beer, you're okay. Yeah, that was so funny. But the scene comes out of nowhere, and it's just, it's Dean Martin.

He's lying on the cot. He's got his hat tilted all the way over his eyes and he just gives you some of those beautiful pipes. You can hear that beautiful Dean Martin voice and he sings a little cowboy ballad about a cowboy, there's no more steers left to be broken. He's heading down to Emma Rillo. He wants to be in that purple sunset sky

and he just wants to be with his three good companions, my rifle, my pony and me, and Brennan's tutin' on the harmonica, Ricky Nelson's accompanying backup vocals. He's from the guitar. And then like, it wade has nothing to do in this scene. He's just grinning. He just looks happy with his friends. Yeah, he's hanging out. He doesn't sing. He doesn't contribute. He doesn't say, like, I love that song. But it's just, that's what I mean about like this. There's no reason for it to be in the movie. But like, just letting that scene breathe and just having like these four guys just enjoy each other's company and just bond and then love each other. There's something that's just like, by brain, just hums when that, when that scene happens. Yeah, it's incredible.

And I love that stumpy after they finish the song is like, Entrepreneur, I'm not gonna sing now. And then they actually do, they play a whole... And they do, Cindy. They do it on core, yeah. Yeah, Nick Cave does a cover of that song too. So, get along home, Cindy Cindy.

I'll marry you someday. But yeah, like just like the time that that takes out of the movie of like, and this is like in the third act, it's like right before the climax, it would seem to like halt all the momentum of the movie, but it really just, it crystallizes everything that the movie is about in a way that's so unexpected

and beautiful and like it just comes out of nowhere. But it's just sort of like, there's Dean Martin's voice is so good and just it's just so much fun. It just makes you wanna be there and hang out with these guys. Yeah, it's like, it really, like the whole movie is about like the American,

like males kind of like, I don't know, journey of like trying to get shit done and getting over their demons by doing that. And I think like, DeMartin kind of represents that. And like, yeah, it's this beautiful thing that like only, you know, only DeMartin can be doing that while also singing a beautiful ballad about, you know, being in cowboy. And you're right, it's about getting over your demons, but by doing things, by doing the work, get back to this idea and like this. And like so often throughout the movie, Dino's character, dude is sort of distracted from

the DTs, from like his hands shaking, and like him just like sweating gasoline, because of how badly he like fucking needs to hit that bottle, that he has sort of got, he has sort of, he kicks, he kicks his habit because he's given something useful to do. He's given something to distract his mind from the terrible physical and mental toil, toll of alcoholism. Yeah, the moment where it all really crystallizes for him

is where he's about to take another swig of, he's about to take a shot and give up. After he gets his clothes all dirty to get and stuff, and he pours the drink into the shot glass and then freezes, and because the cutthroat, the cutthroat anthem is playing, and he's just like, and then he's like, didn't spill,

pours it back into the bottle and he's like, didn't spill a drop. Cause it's the call is a, yeah. Drock, sober or whatever, you'd have to be a fucking brain surgeon to do that. To pour a shot back into a bottle without spilling anything. None of you would've gone through my head, could I pull that off? It's so cool.

And like, he's like, it's the cutthroat anthem is like the claxon call to action. It's like, all right, enough bullshiting. It's time to do, it's time to like, man up. And he realizes it and just like completely stopped shaking. And it's like, yep, time to like, man up and he realizes it and just like completely stop shaking and it's like, yep, time to go. Well, after being like a very kind of patient and sort of low key movie, the climax of this movie is just pure fun.

The shootout at the end of this movie is just, if the homie's weren't having fun before, once they start throwing dynamite at a house full of people and shooting dynamite sticks in the air as they blow up, you're having a blast with your friends. Cause like, you know, when Dean Martin takes a bath, the cutthroats, they get the drop on them. They get the drop on Wayne and Martin. And they take Dean Martin hostage, and they're going to ransom Dean Martin for

the brother. And there's this like, you know, there's supposed to be this trade off, but like as they're passing each other walking towards each other, Dean Martin just tackles this guy and then the shootout commences. And then they've told, they've told our dear old stumpy, we don't need you. You're too old and disabled, but he's like, can't start it.'s like concerted if there's gonna be shooting not gonna have a good seat for it and he shows up and saves them

but then they're like no stumpy you're shooting from right next to a chug a wagon full of tea dynamite and he's like oh my god but who's a fat but then he has a brilliant idea he's like well let me just take one of these creates a dynamite i was just gonna start chucking them because like Burdett and all his all his guns are like they're hold up in this farmhouse and they just are chucking dynamite

at this farmhouse until they all just come out with their hands up and Stumpy has an arm on him he really he cranks some of that those dynamites it's really funny because he keeps throwing them short and they keep like yelling at him like get your throw you throw him any further? And he's like, the working is way up to throwing them. Like they got to get their money. So I thought about that. He's trying to blow down.

We're trying to blow that whole thing house or whatever. And John wins like, that's the general idea. So they emerge victorious. You know, like the law is, you know, like the forces of civilization stand up to those of money and sort of the bullying and privilege that goes with being able to. And we see this in El Dorado too. There's a theme of like the masculine ideal of the American man is one who can stand alone by themselves and like defend themselves

or earn a living with their skill or particularly with their revolver. Because that's like the demarcation of like your willingness and comfort with using lethal violence against other men is sort of like what that's the boundary between you and other men. And if that boundary can be transgressed, then you're not a man at all. Like you'll just be you'll be pushed around by the next guy with a gun. And there's this idea about like that wealth and power gives you the ability to just buy other men who have a gun and are willing to die or kill for it.

But like it's the way that distorts the kind of the heroic ideal of being a standing being a man who can stand for himself rather than have just use money to let other people do it for you. And there's also kind of a judgment call, like a further demarcation in El Dorado where, you know, John Wayne gets offered, the movie starts with John Wayne being offered that kind of higher gun roll, and he turns it down because he's like, actually, my friend is the sheriff,

but also he's like this family that owns this town is actually a noble family, and they worked hard for their keep. And I don't wanna to be part of like bullying them. And that's kind of the line drawn between John Wayne and Nelson McLeod, the... McLeod, the spark face. She's gunslinger, yeah.

Who's awesome in that movie. Oh, the crowd is great. Yeah. So cool. And he's like, there's a real respect between John Wayne and him. Professional courtesy is this it to each other back and forth many times in that movie. Yeah. Yeah. And he, it's, it's like, um, you know, but John Wayne gets the drop on my

cloud because he underestimates him. And he, like, dives and shoots him with his, like, bum arm. Yeah. And McLeod is like, Oh, great moment where he was just like, he was like, the whole throughout the whole movie, him and McLeod are like, when they first meet each other, he's like, he doesn't know who John Wayne is, but he's like, there's only three guys I know

who could be as fast as me. Like this dude, he names John Wayne's character and some other guy. And he's like, well, I am this guy. So from that point, he's like, their rep precedes them. He's like one of them's dead with the others me. And the third is you. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's this question of like if they end up on opposite sides of this range war, are they ever going to get to truly test out? You know, are you good enough? You know, who's better? Who's faster? And at the end of El Dorado, which is like, you know, it you good enough? You know, who's better, who's faster? And at the end of El Dorado, which is like, you know, it's made in 1966,

it's like seven or eight years later. And in both the Mitchum and Wayne character who are a little bit older at this point, there begins to be like coming out of middle age more because John Wayne's character gets shot early in the movie and he has like a bullet lodge near his spine or something. Yeah.

Just sort of deals with for most of the movie. Yeah. But there's a question about like the doctors like I can't dig it out, but you know, just try to go to another doctor and ask them about it later on maybe. You okay. But like you know, you're the climax of El Dorado like John Wayne has the upper hand during a shootout and like his back sees his up and like the whole left side of his body becomes paralyzed. Yeah.

He can't hold the gun anymore. So like both him and Mitch of that movie, it's a question not just of like, can you do the work, but can you still do the work? Yeah. You know, is your body going to give out on you? Like, are you, are you, are you truly as fast or as tough as you once were? And the other movie like Wayne kind of plays possum and he kind of dives off this stage coach and just shoots McLeod as he's falling like he doesn't give me a chance to draw.

And as he's dying McLeod sort of smiles at him and he goes you never even gave me a chance, did you? And John Wayne goes you're too good. Like that's the only chance I have you're too good. Like, you're too good to give chance to. That's the only chance I have. You're too good to give any chance to. And then he, like, it's not even cheating. He just sort of smiles and gets it. Because once again, it goes back to this idea of the work and being a professional. It's all about the, you got to get the job done, you know.

There's a few things I want to talk about in El Dorado, but I just want to get to the last scene in Rio Bravo, where like you said, John Wayne has to be domesticated. Is feather is going to leave on that stage coach. And he goes to her room at the hotel and she's wearing this like very sort of like 19th century hoe outfit. She's got the lingerie, the feather boa. And the corset, yeah, the corset, you know, she's all pushed up and there's sort of like there's this question of like, oh, like is she just going to be a

prostitute to pay her way to the next, the next town. And then like, there's this whole like, you know, this moment with her where she gets like, she wants to know, will, will he let her go outside wearing this corset? And then he finally breaks down. He's like, if you go out wearing that all arrest ya. And that's when she knows that he loves her. Yeah, he's like, he's like, he's like, usually he already is like that. Those tips belong to me. I want to claim my tits.

No one else can see those tits. And she's like, well, was she like, was you like me to dress like this only for you? And he's like, you betcha. Yeah. And it also, it h you like me to dress like this only for you. And he's like, you betcha. Yeah. And it also, it harkens back to their first meeting when Carlos is showing him this. These sexual pantaloons that he got. Because for consuela. Yeah, sexual style pantaloons.

There's like the hottest thing you can wear as a woman in the 19th century was just like bright red MC hammer pants that you would wear on her eight other dresses. So funny. And like he's like, like Angie Dickinson appears in the door and is like, they have like a little teta teta and then as John Wayne is leaving, she says, head of tech and then as John Wayne is leaving she says, Oh, chef, you forgot your pants. You like freezes for as like it. It's like the pants are on the other, the other legs, I guess, at the end. But yeah, like, uh, was it Carlos helps him out during the shooting?

I just think real bravo as compared to older, Rado, it's just so much more focused on the town and its residents and its inhabitants. Whereas Alderado really is more just a kind of about John Wayne and Robert Mitchum and their various paths in life. It's, Alderado seems like more of a conventional movie in a lot of other movies. What you expect from the plot of a movie than real Bravo. It seems like much more conventional in a lot of ways. For example, the, I think, kind of the analog you can draw

between the two is Rio Bravo has the songs that Dean Martin and it has those songs. And then it also has the Cutthroatroat anthem, which is this recurring musical motif and then in In El Dorado instead of a song. It's this poem that James Con keeps saying I growl and Poe yeah, yeah, I don't know I got the feeling I was watching it thinking like, like, I wonder if James Conn, if they asked him to sing this and he was just a bad singer, they couldn't do it.

And so he just has to say it like a poem because it's a very awkward, it's kind of awkward him being like, well, time to say this poem now. And the kind of equivalent of the cutthroat song, I guess is they're the stumpy of that film's like bugle call that he does. He's like a cracked cavalry veteran who just like, he's not as old or decrepit as stumpy,

but like you, he sort of, he needs to communicate through his bugle. He's always just running in out of rooms, signaling retreat or advance on his, yeah. And there's not, there's not as much comic relief. It's much more, yeah, it's so much more straightforward. I mean, actually, I think, honestly, like Robert Mitchum's portrayal of alcoholism is way more played for laughs than Dean Martin's. Yeah, absolutely. I was like, okay, remember the scene where, Wayne is encountering Mitchem, and like, by the way, like in this movie, it's very clear that like, they've only been apart for like seven months, but in that like half a year, Robert Mitchem's life

is completely gondicious. Yeah. Then he is just not crawling out of a bottle for the last like half a year. And like, you know, he's tied one on tight and he's just like passed out in the, in the jail. And then like, they have to like, because like, you know, the McLeod and his killers are coming like they, they, they, way knows that they've been hired and they're coming to town to take out Robert

Mitchem. So they have to sober him up. And James Khan's character, Mrs. Cippy, whose real name is like, what's his name in that movie? His name, hang on, I have it pulled up here on another window. Hang on, Alan Bordeon Traherne. So everyone just call him Mississippi. So the bootleg sort of hangover cure

that James Khan comes up with that movie where they basically mix like cayenne pepper and motor oil together. Yeah, cayenne pepper, like, adds in, like, yeah, it's end gunpowder is the final ingredient. Open up a bunch of bullets and pour them into this deadly concoction. And they just, you know, they, so there's a thing they think they like um... pinches nose and just pour this down his gullet to sober him up and then like it's it's so toxic that you throw up everything

in your stomach and it also prevents it's it's it's so brutal to your stomach that it prevents you from drinking alcohol after you've taken the cure so and one of the funniest scenes in al Dorado they just pour this down mitchum's throat, as he's like, you know, barely conscious. And then as soon as they do, he starts convulsing and Wayne goes, let's get out of here. And then just lock him and they're like, hey, guys, quick run. It's like, it's like, it's like, they just went to dynamite or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just gave this highly dubious

folklore, uh, cure to our friend here. They're like, I don't know what's happening. Better get out of here, run. It's literally loony tunes. It's like, did that to Bugs Bunny and his head explode it? Or something? Yeah, I think a lot more of the comic relief is saddled on. And I wonder if this is because like as Hawks was getting older,

he thought, he thought to like shift this in a way or something. settled on and I wonder if this is because like as Hawks was getting older he Thought he thought to like shift this in a way or something, but the a lot more a lot less of the comic relief is on the older character the older member of the posse and a lot more of it is on James Conn and the younger kind of like most of the comic relief is Robert Mitchem and James Con. Because James, Robert Mitchem doesn't even know who James Con is until like an hour and a half into the movie.

Yeah, he's like who is this guy? Who is this? He's saying Mississippi. Who is that? Because he's like blinded drunk until like the last half hour of the movie. Yeah. Yeah. I will say though, like, uh,

Eldorado, I think in the, the young kid character, I think Eldorado has the edge because I think James Khan is Mississippi is just a lot cooler than Ricky Nelson as Colorado. Well, I have a few thoughts on this. I think that, um, Ricky Nelson is God bless his heart, not a great actor. In this movie, I mean, no. He plays the, that's like a character. He plays that character perfectly, the outlaw type, you know, like in the outlaw, the same character is played by, I forget the actor, but it's the exact same performance. It's always like the mouth opens, like eyes squinted, barely moving, barely getting your words out of your mouth same performance. It's always like the mouth opens like eyes, squinted, barely moving, barely getting your words

out of your mouth type performance. And I think like Ricky Nelson's, my theory is that they did some alchemy and they were like, okay, real bravo, we had a twink, like a pure twink, Ricky Nelson. And then for El Dorado, he was like, what if we take the twink and we subtract the femininity and we take that and put it separately,

then we got James Conn and then this femininity. What do we do with it? Well, let's give the McDonald family, the good family. Let's give them a daughter who's like feisty. Kind of much. Yeah, she's good. Yeah. It has messy hair and it's sort of like tougher than her brothers and she's the one who shoots John Wayne at the beginning of the movie. Yeah. Yeah. She's the one who fucks everything up by shooting John Wayne at the very beginning. But this is by the way, this is after John Wayne killed her younger brother basically for no reason.

I mean, not for no reason, but like, yeah, like he just kills this kid because he like wakes up too quickly and starts firing a rival. Well, it's, it's an even stoner like admonition of the one who wanted to do the work job. Yeah. Yeah. Who can't do the work. You know, it's all about doing the work. And like that scene, we're like, okay, so like the younger brother has been left behind to sort of like guard his post. And like if Ed Azner's goons are coming for them, like he's to fire a shot in the air to warn them and then high-tail it out of there

and get back to the house, he falls asleep on his post and as John Wayne is riding back from like an unrelated encounter, he sort of stirred awake and uh... just like wakes up and just starts firing a rifle and john wain just sees a guy with a high ground shooting a rifle and he just you know whips out his six-shooter and plugs him right in the stomach

and then the dude kills himself yeah that was really dark beginning to the movie because he's like your gut shot and like there's basically nothing I can do for you. So then you hear well no here says here a second shot. He says um John Wayne yells the dad because he's like he said the dad was the one who told them that like a gut shot You should just kill yourself. Yeah, John Wayne's like he probably could have made it and Wayne's like, he probably could have made it here. He's so literally. And it's like, it really is like,

a lot, there's like a cynicism in El Dorado that is not present. Like, even the kid like, when he's gut shot being like, my insides are on fire, I can't even move. Like it hurts so bad. It's like, wow, that's something that would never be in real bravo. If Dean Martin got shot, he would be like, I'm all right. Just skimmed me.

Something, you know. But yeah, when John Wayne's character comes back to the Good Families Ranch with just their youngest brother slung over his horse and just depositing his body there. He's sort of like angry at the at the father. Yeah, like you said for sending a boy to do a man's job and he's dead because like not to really fall to my own even though I basically killed them, but like he was just not competent enough to do the work. You didn't take it seriously.

So then he ended up dead. And he was like, yeah, like you told them about the gut shot thing and he was like, I was trying to help him, but he basically had a gun I didn't see. And you do the math and he said, do you want to ask me any more questions? But the dead is like not even mad at John Wayne,

you're sort of like, well, thank you. Yeah. Otherwise, like if you just left them there, like coyotes would have just eaten his body. So I guess we can give him a Christian burial now, but thank you guy who's good at his job of killing people for sort of, yeah, sort of in monitoring me for having a son who's not good at killing people. Yeah, there's like a crazy weird respect between, you know, John Wayne and Mr. McDonald, because he, it also is like this question of legacy and, you know, there's

a good, a good side that has control of the town and a bad side that's trying to wrestle control of the town. And part of what makes the good side good, I think, and this is like kind of seen, is the McDonald's, it's this father and he has three sons and one daughter. And he has this family that he's gonna pass the town down to his family and they've been working on it for this whole time. It's their own blood sweat and tears.

And then there's Ed Asner, who doesn't have a family, just buys hired guns. And that's kind of bad. Yeah, definitely see this in even in the late, like the 70s or 80s Clint Eastwood Westerns as well. It's a constant theme even in the classic and then like the game. Yeah, as well. It's a classic theme about a skepticism of,

I don't know if a lack of a better word capitalism and like money and power, but it's this thinkly American and kind of like Republican, it's the big business is bad, but small business is the most virtuous thing you can be engaged in. It's like, you know, like the prospector, you know, like the small farm,

just like the cowboy, it's the family business that has ties to a community and has sort of like worked the land to hue out of it civilization. And they are entitled to the fruits of that, whereas then there's like the railroad baron, the cattle baron, like these oligarchs that just represent just wealth to buy a version of community for themselves

or authority that is not their right because they haven't worked for it and Yeah, that that's something I noticed in real bravo I noticed a line that I like don't think I've ever heard before in the movie Like fourth time watching it because the subtitles were on but when Stumpy is talking to the bachik bone like baron brother, he says, they're in the jail cell and Stumpy's like, yeah, your brother's liable to get accidentally shot and Stumpy's like, heck, I'll make sure of it.

I'm just in a great line. And I know, like, there's another summer the brother behind bars, he was like, if you do anything, this guy's crazy enough to kill me or shoot me or something and Stumpy goes, he's not a dumbest bars, he was like, if you do anything, this guy's crazy enough to kill me or shoot me or something and somebody goes, he's not a dumbest I thought he was. Yeah, so good. And, but the, the bachikbone brother is like,

still some bad, still some bad blood between us, I see. And Stumpy says, 460 acres might not seem like a heck of a lot to you, but it was to me. And it's like, oh, okay. So this guy must have bought Stumpy's land out from under. Yeah, bottom out, but yeah, yeah. Yeah, which is like an interesting little thing to just throw in there, you know, one line.

Like, at least the cheekbone guy, at least he has a brother, but like Ed Asner and El Dorado is just a man alone. Like he doesn't even carry a gun, and John Wayne makes a point of, you know, pointing that out to him at one point, but like yeah, he is just a man alone with the people and power that he buys. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Like I said, like El Dorado is a very similar plot. It's just like the law man and drunk roles are just reversed. Mitchum starts out as the upright law man and Wayne is kind of the more of the gun for higher, a little bit more rough around the edges, but it's Wayne who becomes the law man and has to save Robert Mitchum, who has become completely besotted by drink. It's, you know, Mississippi is the kid instead of Colorado. But like, yeah, it's basically like the plot happens about halfway through the movie when they arrest Ed Azner and put him in the jail. And then like, that starts the clock on that pressure cook or scenario, like when they're going to break them out, how they're going to try to break

them out, how they're going to stand up to all these hired guns and then included headed at this time by a guy who actually has a name, like the thugs in Rio Bravo like are not characters at all. But in this you have the McLeod character who's like just like a different a slightly more amoral version of John Wayne in this movie. But they he's not evil. They just both he's willing to work for evil people and that's what separates him and John went. Yeah, he's more mercenary and that's kind of the only difference the only thing edging him out. He's more mercenary, and in a weird way, he has this more honor for combat than John Wayne, because he's like, oh, I wanted to kind of face you down in a, you know, an even, you know, draw-type scenario.

One V1 straight up. But it doesn't matter because he's mercenary and more like less moral overall, therefore, because John Wayne did do a bit of a dirty trick, but it was for good in the end. I mean, dude, you're being paid money to kill people. There's no such thing as fair or unfair. It's exactly exactly.

And that's what I love so much about this scene at the end between John Wayne and the cloud character is the begrudging respect of not giving him a chance. Because that's really what it means to be that good. Is don't get, don't be dumb enough to give the other guy a chance. Exactly. And it's like, you know, it's John Wayne's experience

kind of tells me that because he keeps, he always calls Mississippi Green, like throughout the whole movie, he's like, yeah, he's green because he saves his life like twice within the first five minutes of meeting him because he's just like, you know, very impulsive and reckless and kind of a liability to the whole team

until the very end of the movie. I think I love about the Mississippi character is that he doesn't even use a gun. Like when we first meet him, he like stares down like five guys at a card table being like, you know, I've, you know, I've killed three other guys, you know, it's a classic, you know, revenge mission

because like they killed his father figure and he's been tracking them down for three years and you're the last one on my list and McLeod's like wait a second he doesn't have a gun I want to see how this plays out I want I want to see how he gets the upper hand on a table full of guys with guns when he's unarmed but no he he looks and he has a knife like down the collar of his shirt which is a knife arrangement I've rarely seen ever in movies or else right now he's hiding a blade down like the back of the collar of his shirt and he throws it kills a guy with a knife but then i also love him john wane when john wane sort of adopts mississippi and sort of like uh what man's

him up a bit he's like we got to get you a gun and he takes them to the sweet and i love this because this is literally like this is like a red dead redemption. This is just the video game where they're just like, hold on, before we go to the next mission, we have to upgrade your kit. We go to the gunsmith. And he gets, he's like, what, can you give me a gun for a guy who can't shoot?

And he just gives him this fucking double barrel saw it off, fucking like, but like as a pistol. They just like, the spray on this thing is like a 30 yard rate. It's like 30 yard radius. Just gets peppered with fucking buckshot. And he still can't hit anyone with this thing. It's so funny. He's still like the only person he hits is John Wayne on accident. He's at one point. It's like, um, the, I also love that when he's like, he's has Mississippi and takes him out into the desert and he's like, all right, let's see if you got

what it takes to use a gun. And then he's like, all right, now draw and shoot that cactus. And then he shoots and he shoots like a foot to the left of the cactus once. And he's like, all right, you're hopeless. He's like, all right, that's enough for that. We need to get you a big shotgun.

And you know, like, also, I really love in the, as I gleefully read into it, the homoerotic relationship between John Wayne and James Conn in this movie, is it like, after he gets some gun shopping, he's sort of like, James Conn changes outfits and like, John Wayne just starts dressing him and the first thing you see as they, like when they get to the town of El Dorado is James Conny

Everyone's making fun of the stupid hat He wears it throughout the whole movie because it's like his friends hat But it's not a proper cowboy hat But the next thing you see with him after he like gets adopted by John Wayne He's in like a skin tight leather shirt. Yeah Dresses in pure fetish gear like from that like for the rest of the week. He's wearing like Gambit's hat from X-Men and a fetish like leather fetish gear. It's so cool. And there's another moment in Rio Bravo where the scene where as you

Dickinson throws the flower pot out of the window to give Ricky Nelson the distraction he needs to like shoot the throw throw John Wayne his rifle and shoot these two guys who had got the drop on him. And then like after he does that, he walks away and there's a scene where John Wayne kind of turns around and looks at him as he goes and just starts grinning. He has this grin that goes up to like his ear and he's just like, I'm liking what I'm seeing in this young cow. I can't wait to break this horse in. Yeah. It's so cool. Oh, here's another detail that connects these two movies.

Did you notice that like when we first see Robert Mitchem in El Dorado and he's like rousting John Wayne out of his bed because he thinks he's been hired to like gun him down? He's carrying that repeating a carbon rifle. And it's the same exact one that John Wayne has and walks around and carries it every second to Rio Bravo. And in El Dorado, John Wayne goes to some about that looks familiar and Mitchem says to him, he goes, I have it set up in exactly the same way you used to. So it's the sort of like acknowledgement that connects these two movies that like that, not just that they may take place in like the same universe

but they are like, it's winking that they are the same movie. Which is, Mitchum has taken the mantle of the rifle carrying law man from John Wayne. Yeah, exactly. It's incredible. I also, we, we, I think like the one beat that really connects these movies, like, I think like the one where I was like, oh, these are the same movie was when there's a part

in both movies where the drunk gets kind of laughed out of the evil saloon because it's a western. So there's a good saloon in town that's cool. And then there's an evil one that's like shady and that's where the people there say this and crawl. Yeah. Yeah. And they were like the someone goes into the evil saloon. The drunk goes into the evil saloon, gets laughed at and then leaves and then they drive a bad guy, would be assassin out of a barn

and he escapes into the bad guy's saloon. And then the drunk character goes in and everyone, no one takes them seriously. Like, oh, no one came in here. And then in both movies, there's one guy in the bar who's like, no one came in here. What are you talking about? And then they both go, I'll remember you said that. Yeah. Remember you said that. Yeah. Yeah.

Because yeah, of course, when they like in in in real bravo, he's like on the second floor and Dean Martin, he shoots, so like turns around and shoots him from like, he falls off the balcony. And then El Dorado, he's hiding behind the piano. And there's a great thing with a piano player. He's, he keeps playing throughout all this tension, but he keeps playing worse and worse and worse. Yeah. And so you're playing a lot of sour notes on that there. piano. Would you like to stop? And he's like, yes. And he just dives away. And he just shoots the piano and he shoots the guy through the piano. He's crushed behind it. It's so sick.

I was still like, there's definitely more action in El Dorado. Like I think the shoot out in the church is like a really good, the last action scene. Like the set of success. It's just awesome. Like where the guys are like, they're sniping at them from the bell tower and then like they just start shooting the bell

so that they can like, you know, advance like they'd cover, but the noise of that bell going off is rifle bullets hit it, and then they get in the charts. It's just a great Western shootout, which is like, El Dorado, real bravo, there's a couple of shootouts, but there really is only one big action set piece at the end with the downmight, whereas real bravo, it just expands the aperture. There's way more like, in the beginning, there's big scenes of like big open sky and like horses being corralled through a tree and just like, so the western stuff, you

know, whereas real Bravo really is just, it could be a play. It could be like, you could just like, you could stage it as a play like, mm-hmm, all the action in it without cutting really anything. Yeah. Oh, we also got to talk about James Kahn's, um, the scene that brought, uh, a dead silence to the theater. Oh my God. When I saw, I saw it at the museum of the moving image.

Yeah. This is a questionable that this one was made in 1966. But yeah, as a, you explain the James K the James Con scene, the yikes for me dog. Yeah, there's a scene where James Con and, you know, James Con, the older guy who has a, a bow and arrow because they're on a stealth mission. And there's a guy. So clutch for stealth missions. So yeah, yeah, exactly.

And there's a guy guarding the back door. And the older guys like, it's James Conn, the old guy. And I think is it Robert Mitchem or is it? Yeah, it's Mitchem goes in the back with him. Yeah. Yeah. And the old guys like, all right, let me just draw back and let me just draw draw beat on this guy and

sniping with my bow and James Khan is like wait, I just checked the game. I got a better idea. I just checked the game manual And he's gonna scream if you do that. So hang on. I have I have a way better idea And he just like goes over and I have a way better idea and he just like goes over and puts on like a racist hitman disguise of a flower pot on his head and like a like a Like a black curtain like just over his shoulders. Yeah, and then he starts immediately talking in like mock Chinese like pigeon Chinese like so Sally and does the eyes even does the eye thing which is so crazy and I love the idea of him walking up the guy pulling his eyes back and

just going I am Chinese yeah and the guy is like well oh hey there fella sorry but you can't come in here she what's so funny about that scene at least from like our modern perspective is of course the whole area's racism but even funnier than that is the idea that that would have worked on any way yeah it's not how strong you are the james con coming up to you with a flower pot and his head going so solid so solid each of these and they just like is this an asian or what I don't know what's going on here. Yeah, it's so ridiculous. It's absolutely insane. Maybe that's just how dumb,

but I think it's like there were a ton of Chinese people in the old Western times. It's like there's a Chinese person who ain't dumb they were back then. Like in real bravo, there's a Chinese thing. It's about in racial, yeah, there is an actual Chinese guy who's like the town corner. Yeah, and that was made in 1959 not

1966. They got worse in 1966. I bet I honestly like, what if James Con was like, I have an idea for this. I have this I have this character. I've been meaning to try meaning to bust out. You know. Oh, yeah. So that that was definitely a highlight of the movie, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know much more on either of these movies. Yeah. I mean, you've definitely watched these movies.

They're incredible. They're amazing. I mean, this was, this was our first foray into like the Western genre, which I'm, you know, I'm glad we did even as a bonus episode. Because, you know, to me, it's like the Western, of that 40s and 50s, the golden era of Hollywood, it really is. The genre of the Western, the noir, or gangster movie, and then the screwball comedy,

or the distinctly American film genres that we we invented everyone else was everyone else was influenced by it like midwife so much of the style that we take for granted today but like particularly for American movies like in those genres it's really on the canvas on which we kind of like communicated our own sense of self and like in our sense of destiny of like what we're like what the 20th century would become. Yeah, absolutely. And the personal journey of the American man and his quest to beat homosexuality. And find a wife.

And you know what, it always works. And you know, despite being associated with being like this culturally reactionary genre, like the classic question for me, despite having certain reactionary archetypes or racist stereotypes to Chinese people or Mexican people, when it comes to this portrayal of the American masculinity, I think like people might hear that and you might think it's this like very kind of stern, I don't know, like, Andrew Tate kind of thing,

or at least compared to today, the today's conception of what it means to be a man is like the opposite of ever having fun with anyone, but alone you're absolutely. It's just like, there's just no fun. It is such a grim, grim, a grim and brutal world, you might say, but it's just, it's so austere, and the portrayal of masculinity in these world, you might say, but it's so austere and the portrayal of masculinity in these movies, while serious and traditional in certain senses, I think is like what it

comes down to is just having fun with your friends. And getting over yourself, being an asshole and being selfish so that you can continue to have fun with your friends. Yeah, like modern masculinity is very, you know, you have to be an ascetic monk without a religion. Basically, you have to know. Yeah, that believing in God, you have to deny yourself all the shit that people used to do, but at least there is some expectation of eternal reward. This is just sort of like, well, people think I'm scary on the internet or like, well, some imaginary woman want to have sex with me. Yeah, and this is more like, you know, you got to, it's you

in your homies against the world, you know, and you got to, you got to keep the jail safe. And you got to protect, protect what's yours, protect, you know, the law and what you stand for in your values. And, um, and then like, you know, definitely drink, but like if it becomes too much of a problem, you know the law and what you stand for in your values. And then like, you know, definitely drink, but like if it becomes too much of a problem, you know, stick to beer. And I do like at the end of, I like at the end of Elder Rottles.

You remember actually, you just pours himself a nice glass of whiskey. But he's got the buttoned up shirt, so he's like, it's all okay. I can handle it. He's good, he's good. He's good. Just, you know, one before a bed at night, it's fine.

Yeah. It's so cool. So yeah, that does it for this movie mindset episode. A little bit shorter than our normal ones, but, you know, fuck you, you didn't think you were getting anything today. So, there you go. And, you know, stay tuned on Barbie and Oppenheimer. I have yet to see Barbie.

I would really like to talk about those two movies, because I think they really make a really interesting pairing. And I think they say a lot of interesting things about where movies are now that there's just a lot to talk about there, but just hold your horses, just be a little bit patient. Like I said, gray area, we'll figure it out, but we don't want to step on anyone's toes.

If you are a guild official or on the board of SAG or WGA, please send us an official dispensation to do the episode. Yeah. If you would like to hear us talk about Barveen Hopper and Hyde Gray, but gambling that one of you out there is on one of those boards. Yeah, absolutely. We're not official letterhead, send it to us, we'll do the episode. And also I'll use this opportunity to say, I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode, but

officially now, October 4th will be the reappearance of movie mindset in our Goolvie Screamset horror movie special, five episode run for this spooky season. We do it horror movies for you, this Halloween, We're coming back on October 4th, but stay tuned. We may drop some bonus surprise episodes between now and then. So, as said the next time. Bye bye. ... I'm going to go. you