When imagining John Wayne, it’s hard not to picture him as a rip-roaring gun-slinging hero of the West (or at the very least the film’s protagonist), but in one of the legendary Howard Hawks’ most acclaimed pictures he took on a role of great complexity that saw him descending from hero to villain with Shakespearian depth.
The film in question is 1948’s Red River, a true film about cowboys, in the sense that it’s not about outlaws or bounty hunters but a large group of cattle ranchers herding hundreds of cows all the way from Texas to Kansas over the historical Chisholm Trail.
If that sounds unexciting then guess again, as between the stampedes, attacks from Native American tribes, and tensions mounting within the group, there’s plenty of drama to go around.
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