Introduced by the Warner Bros. Discovery Library Historian George Feltenstein via Zoom from Los Angeles. A Q&A with film and art collector, Bob Rubin –a western specialist– will follow the screening.

“If I were asked to choose a film that would justify the existence of Hollywood, I think I would say Rio Bravo,” wrote film scholar Robin Wood in his book about Howard Hawks. 

A favorite of John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino, this legendary western, directed by Howard Hawks with an all-star cast lead by John Wayne was conceived by Hawks as a sort of anti-High Noon. “I didn’t think a town marshal was going to run around like a chicken with his head cut off asking everyone for help,” famously said the director, referring to Fred Zinnemann’s film, starring Gary Cooper.

Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) throws the brother of evil cattle baron, Nathan Burdette, in jail for murder (the Burdette brothers played by John Russell and Claude Akins). When Burdette’s men lay siege to his jailhouse, Chance holds on until the arrival of a U.S. Marshal with the help of his drunken deputy, Dude (Dean Martin), cranky old man Stumpy (Walter Brennan), a young gunfighter (Ricky Nelson) and the beautiful widow Feathers, played by Angie Dickinson in her first major film role.

Restored by Warner Bros. in collaboration with The Film Foundation.