Rio Grande
Rio Grande, the third and final installment in John Ford’s loosely-conceived Cavalry Trilogy (preceded by Fort Apache and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon) stars John Wayne as Lt. Col. John Kirby Yorke (the role he inhabited in Fort Apache) alongside Maureen O’Hara (in the first of five films she’d co-star in alongside Wayne) as his estranged wife, Kathleen, a woman set on keeping their son, Jefferson (Claude Jarman Jr., The Yearling), now under Yorke’s command, out of harm’s way. Filmed throughout Moab, Utah and the majestic Professor Valley – photographed in exquisite gradations of black and white by Stagecoach cinematographer Bert Glennon – Rio Grande offers nuanced observations on love, family, and honor, while firmly adhering to the western genre, showing Ford at his most measured and mature as a storyteller. Written by James Kevin McGuinness (Men of Boys Town) based on the Saturday Evening Post story by James Warner Bellah, Rio Grande features J. Carrol Naish and a supporting cast of familiar faces, many of them from the Ford stock company of actors including Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson, Victor McLaglen, Chill Wills, and Grant Withers.
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- Audio commentary by Nancy Schoenberger
- "Telling Real Histories" – Raoul Trujillo on representations of Indigenous Americans in film
- "Songs of the Rio Grande" – Marc Wanamaker on the Sons of the Pioneers
- "Strength and Courage" – Patrick Wayne on his father
- "Bigger Than Life" – with Claude Jarman Jr.
- Visual essay by Tag Gallagher
- "The Making of Rio Grande" – with Leonard Maltin
- Essay by Paul Andrew Hutton
- Theatrical Trailer