STORY STUDY - CRITERION WEEK 709. “Red River”

The Western genre is typically used for stories about seeking revenge or defending a helpless town. Very rare will they depict a character driven story with coming-of-age elements.

Directed by Howard Hawks, written by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee, and based on the novel “Blazing Guns on the Chisolm Trail” by Chase, Red River is the story of a Thomas Dunson who separates from a wagon train to start a cattle ranch in Texas. He leaves behind his girlfriend, whom he promises to send for her later.

The next night, he discovers that Native Americans have attacked the wagon train, killing a majority of the people, including his girlfriend.

One of the survivors is a young boy named Matthew Garth, whom he takes in.

Over the next fourteen years, Dunson has now created a successful cattle ranch. However, in that same time, he has grown more tyrannical. When one of his men hears a rumor about the railroad reaching one state, hoping it will give them more business, Dunson ignores it, focusing on another state.

When Dunson takes things too far by planning to lynch two men who decided to abandon the cattle drive, Matthew intervenes and takes control of the cattle drive and the men. Dunson vows that the next time he sees him, he will kill him.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the story, I had no choice but to describe almost half of the movie. It’s like trying to describe the plot to There Will Be Blood; the focus is more on the characters, less on the story. Speaking of which, Dunson is very much an abusive boss. He has no qualms with whipping people or shooting to kill. If this film were to be shot today, it would look more violent.

Matthew is the heroic character; the opposite of Dunson. He actually cares about the men on his cattle drive. “His” as in Matthew, since he was promised by Dunson that one day he would have as much ownership to the drive when he earned it.

The film has all the elements of a Western, but it adds a more personal relationship. There is a romance between Matthew and a woman later on, but I’m more talking about the father-son type relationship between him and Dunson. He’s abusive, and Matthew is the only one to make him see the error of his ways.

Is the film dated? Probably. The film implies that Dunson realizes his behavior was wrong, but that certainly doesn’t excuse him for the actions the audience sees him do or attempt to do. He even shot a messenger in order to declare that the land he was standing in was his now. That’s how his cattle ranch started. And remember: he shoots to kill. You’d think the messenger’s boss (the actual owner of the land) would take revenge somewhere in the film, or at least attempt to take his land back, but that never happens.

I found out about this film when looking through the Criterion Collection to see what other films I should add. The neat surprise about this was that it came with Chase’s original novel.

Red River is a unique Western that explores the two types of people you would see back in the Old West; the wide-eyed youth and the grizzled old man who just needs a step in the right direction.