Red River

Empire to the West: Red River <I 948) ROBERT SKLA R Interpreting the Hollywood Image Edited by John E. O'Connor and Martin A. Jackson Foreword by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. in social significance, Red River is as teeming with messages as it is with meat on the hoof. The inevitable encounter ben.vcen Tom Dunson U?hn. Wayne) and Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift) as the cattle Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. drIve IS completed. New York (Photo courtesy of Museum of Modern Art) 16 7 Red River 1 6 9 Ultimately the critical consensus on Red River succeeded too well. Bed River is one of the curioSItlcs in American film historv. It enshrined the film on a pedestal, a masterpiece of old-fashioned -' Nearly everyone pays homage to it, almost no one pays attention to movie entertainment, a spectacle without, thankfully, social signifi- it. Howard Hawks's first vVestern-incredibly, after two decades of cance; it rendered the film irrelevant. Some of the most penetrating directing and nearly thirty films, this was his first vVestern- was interpretations of Hawks's career ignore Red River completely. hailed on its release in September 1948 as an archetypal Western, the Those who aspire to complete coverage generally notice Red River quintessential Western, the kind that tingles all the nerve endings for its mise-en-scene, its spectacular (what else?) set-pieces, the but never touches the brain. A rattling good outdoor adventure stampede, the river crossing, the final confrontation between Dunson movie, was Time magazine's assessment. Peter Bogdanovich in The and Matt. Last Picture caught the core of its iconographic value by show- No one noticed that there might have been a motive in the dual ing the commencement of the cattle drive on a small-town Texas gesture of honoring and dismissing Red River, that there is a curious theater screen. "Take 'em to Missouri, Matt," crusty Tom Dunson note of overkill in Bazin's and the reviewers' remarks-that they says, the music flares, and we see that classic sequence of cowboys protest a little too much Red Ri'v'er's mindlessness, as if trying too in closeup yelling, " Ya hoo. Hi yaa. Ya hoo. Whoopee. Yaa. Ya hoo. hard to keep us from seeing some things they prefer us not to see. Yaa Yaa." A magnificent horse opera, Pauline Kael called Red River, No one noted that film criticism as much as any other intellectual and there is no denying that a chorus of "ya hoos" does not address or artistic pursuit has its ideological foundation, even when its the deeper issues of that time, our time, or any time. ideological project is to deny the presence of ideology. No one "vVhen things get tough in Hollywood they start the horses observed the most obvious fact of all: that Red River is rich in social galloping," wrote Kyle Crichton, in the midst of the backlash from significance, is as teeming with messages as it is with meat on the hoof. the blacklist, in his 1948 Collier's review of Red River. "Nobody Red River announces itself, in fact, boldly. It is a film about the can yell 'propaganda' at a motion picture full of cows, horses, gun issues of empire. It is a film about the territorial expansion of one play, brave women and daring men." It became the central theme society by the usurpation of land from others, and the consequences of Red River criticism, that here was a motion picture happily in- arising therefrom-in the relations betwcen men and women, in the nocent of ideology, and the great French critic Andre Bazin a few relations between men and other men, in the social compact that years later gave this attitude toward Red River its definitive binds people together for a common purpose. And these human expressIOn. themes, important as they are, are subordinate to even more funda- "Howard Hawks, indeed," Bazin wrote, "at the height of the mental issues of economic survival, of commodity production, above vogue of the superwestern should be credited with having demon- all of the need to find a market for one's goods. Red RiveT is a film strated that it had always been possible to turn out a genuine western about cows, horses, gun play, brave women, daring men-and based on the old dramatic and spectacle themes, without distracting capitalism. our attention with some social thesis, or, what would amount to the vVhen Matthew Garth brings Tom Dunson's herd into Abilene, same thing, by the form given the production. Red River (1948) opening the Chisholm Trail route for Texas cattle to reach a Kansas and The Big Sky (1952) are western masterpieces but there is noth- railhead, Chicago stockyards, and distant consumers, the Red River ing baroque or decadent about them." dialogue continuity script has a voiceover line (later eliminated from the completed film) spoken by Groot the cook: "It was just the first of thousands of such drives bringin' beef to the world." That the Copyright © 1978 by Robert Sklar. This article, written expressly for the present volume, appeared by arrangement with the author and the publishers issues Red River raises of empire and markets were also central issues in Cineaste, Fall 1978, Vol. IX, No.1. of American economic power and expansion after World War II 17 0 AMERICAN HISTORY/AMERICAN FILM Red River 1 7 1 should come as no surprise to anyone, except those film critics who spoken by Groot. The cutting continuity script, however, dated prefer their masterpieces to be meaningless. the same time as the dialogue script, lists the shots of the "Early Tales of Texas" manuscript, the narrative backbone Hawks finally Red River is not only about capitalism; its form and its destiny chose to use. were also the products of capitalism, specifically of the changing There ma y be no such source with the precise title "Early Tales economic structure of the Hollywood film industry in the postwar of Texas," but at least one of many first-hand accounts of cattle years. The film's director and producer, Howard Hawks, was a man drives was almost surely used by Chase in developing his story. not unlike its hero Thomas Dunson, a man with a vision, a man Joseph G. McCoy was an IlIinois businessman who set up a shipping leaving the ordinary ways and trying to establish himself inde- center for Texas cattle in Abilene in 1867 and wrote Historic pendently, struggling to find a market and gain a return on his Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and the Southwest, pub- investment of time and toil. He was to face as many challenges as lished in J 874. McCoy seems clearly to have been the model for Tom Dunson in reaching his goal. Melville, who greets "Matthew Garth in Abilene with the words, Hawks was among the half dozen or so long-time studio directors "Matt, I'm the Greenwood Trading Company of lllinois." Around -Frank Capra, William Wyler, Leo McCarey, Preston Sturges, and the basic economic tale of a commodity finding its outlet to markets, George Stevens were others-who aspired after World vVar II to the screenwriters and director wove their stories of men with and work independently of the Hollywood factory system. They wanted without women, of tyranny and rebellion and reconciliation, of a to break away from assembly-line studio production methods, to man and a boy grown up. develop their own properties, and maintain control of the filmmak- Hawks cast John Wayne as Dunson, Walter Brennan as Groot, ing process from beginning to end. \"'hat they wanted was soon to and a young New York actor, Montgomery Clift, as Matthew be commonplace in posttelevision Hollywood, but for some of them Garth. Joanne Dru replaced Margaret Sheridan in the role of Tess the desire was a few years premature. Hawks was actually one of the LVlillay at the last minute when the latter actress became pregnant and few to accomplish what he set out to do. left the cast. Location shooting began early in September 1946 at In December '945 Hawks took part in establishing a corporation, Rain Valley Ranch and other ranches south of Tucson, Arizona, Monterey Productions, Inc., with himself as president. Red River and production ended in December '946 after more than seventy was Monterey Productions' only product. The last one hears about shooting days. Red Ri'ver was budgeted at approximately 2.4 million Monterey Productions is some six years later, when Pathe Labs tries dollars, much of it provided as a production loan by Motion Picture to sell the negative and sound of Red River to recover four Investors Corporation, a firm established to channel funds from thousand dollars it claims M.onterey still owes them. The intervening individual investors into independent productions. years are replete, as Hawks himself delicately put it, with "unforeseen Rain Valley Ranch unfortunately lived up to its name, and bad production difficulties." weather was the first of the "unforeseen production difficulties" to The genesis of Red River was an original story by Borden Chase, beset Red River. Extra location days began to drive up the picture's later published in Saturday Evening Post as a serial, "The Chisholm cost, and years later an outfit called the Arizona Wranglers, the men TraiL" Chase wrote the first Red River screenplay and Charles who cared for the cattle, was still trying to collect 32,000 dollars in Schnee was called in to tighten Chase's somewhat unwieldy and wages from Monterey Productions for the additional days.

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