List Price: $14.98You Pay Only: $9.99 You Save: $4.99 (33%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: WAYNE,JOHN
EAN: 9786304696613
Format: AC-3, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 6304696612
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 19, 1997
Running Time: 133 minutes
Sales Rank: 3281
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: September 30, 1948
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Editorial Review:
Description:
One of the finest westerns ever made, this 'monumental, sweeping and powerful' masterpiece (Variety) features impassioned performances, stunning cinematography and adventure on a grand scale. Starring John Wayne, Montgomery Clift (in his screen debut), Walter Brennan, Harry Carey, Sr. and Noah Beery, Jr., Red River is a hard-hitting, action-packed adventure that captures the grandeur, majestyand dangerof the wild American West.Wayne gives 'one of the best performances of his career' (Cinebooks) as Tom Dunson, a self-made cattle baron who'll do anything to protect his way of life. So when plummeting livestock values demand that he drive his herd through thetreacherous Chisholm Trail, Tom proves that he'll risk anything to reach his destination even his own sanity.
Amazon.com essential video:
Any short list of the all-time greatest Westerns is bound to include this 1948 Howard Hawks classic about an epic cattle drive. Red River features one of John Wayne's greatest performances. Like his Ethan Edwards in John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, the Duke plays an isolated and unsympathetic man who is possessed by bitterness. Wayne is Texas rancher Tom Dunson, who adopts a young boy orphaned in an Indian massacre. That boy, Matthew Garth (played as an adult by Montgomery Clift in his screen debut), becomes Dunson's assistant and heir apparent--until Dunson's temper gets out of control during a long cattle drive and Matt intervenes to stop him. From that moment on, Dunson swears he will kill Matt. Red River has everything a great Western ought to have: a sweeping sense of history, spectacular landscapes, stampedes, gunfights, Indian attacks, and, of course, Walter Brennan as Dunson's crusty old cook and comic sidekick, Nadine Groot. As a special bonus, the film also features the legendary Harry Carey (upon whom Wayne would base some of his gestures in The Searchers) and his son Harry Carey Jr., who became a fixture in Ford and Hawks Westerns. Red River is essential for anyone who loves Westerns, or movies in general. This one's a real beaut. --Jim Emerson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Good western
A great genre film is not necessarily a great piece of cinema, for the dictates of genre often run counter to the dictates of art; namely that genre demands familiar elements (aka clichés). As good an example of this dictum that can be found is director Howard Hawks' 1948 (although filmed in 1946) black and white western Red River. There is great debate amongst western aficionados as to who was the greater director of westerns, John Ford or Howard Hawks? Well, if one compares the two westerns most consider the two directors' apexes in the genre, Ford's The Searchers and this film, it's no contest. Red River and Hawks win in a walk. That's because Hawks was basically concerned with narrative and characters while Ford obsessed over myth making and caricatures. Even Ford tacitly admitted Hawks was the superior craftsman, for when he first saw Red River he is reputed to have exclaimed, of star John Wayne: `I didn't know the big son of a bitch could act.' Both films, of course, feature Wayne in an anti-hero role, and both are sweeping tales. But, Red River features realistic characterization, great dialogue and comedy in a first rate screenplay written by Charles Schnee and Borden Chase, which was adapted from Chase's tale The Chisholm Trail. But, above all, the film benefits from the screen debut of Montgomery Clift, who steals the film from Wayne as easily as his character does the cattle herd they are driving north to sell. Note the scene where Matt steps inside a cattleman's office in Abilene. Watch ... Read More
Rating:  - Great movie
One of J. Wayne's best, but not a typical role for him. Very dark characterization.
Rating: - Still fun to watch after 60 years
This is one of John Wayne's better roles, mostly because he is given a more complex character to portray. The film was released in 1948 and directed by Howard Hawks. I used to think someone did a poor job of casting women in these Hawk/Wayne films, but after re-watching this movie, I now believe that the scriptwriters just didn't know how to write realistic dialogue for women. It wasn't how they said their lines, it was that their lines were inane. Too bad. It's the only flaw in this otherwise classic western.
At the beginning of this century, Red River enjoyed a mini-revival after City Slickers mentioned and then reenacted the iconic yelping kickoff of the cattle drive. Great fun to watch them together, but start with Red River. It really explains the motivation for the characters in City Slickers.
The Shut Mouth Society
The Shopkeeper
Rating: - A great western
I love Red River. It is another classic John Wayne western, with excellent acting, wonderful story, and great scenery. Montgomery Clift was superb, as well as John Wayne, Joanne Dru, and Walter Brennan. An excellent western.
Rating: - Take 'em to Missouri, Matt!
With RED RIVER, versatile director Howard Hawks, well-known for his screwball comedies (BRINGING UP BABY, HIS GIRL FRIDAY) made one of the greatest westerns ever in just his first attempt at the genre. This story of the epic first cattle drive up the Chisholm Trail in 1865 is noted for its fine acting performances as well as for its tension-filled and exciting storyline. This was also really the first film in which John Wayne notably plays a troubled anti-hero rather than the more conventional matinee-style hero or villain he was known for previously. The greatest roles that lay ahead in his career (particularly Ethan Edwards of THE SEARCHERS) would follow in this mold.
Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a self-made but ruthless man who has built the largest ranch in Texas with 10,000 cattle that need to go to market. Montgomery Clift, in his first major film role, plays his adopted son Matt Garth, who has just returned from service in the Civil War. Tom and Matt and their cowhands set out on the 1000 mile drive intending to take their herd to Missouri. Although Dunson gives his men the option to opt out before the drive begins, he will permit no man who begins the journey to quit along the way. As the hardships mount up on the trail to Missouri and the men begin to hear of the new, safer Chisholm trail to Abilene, Kansas, morale drops. When Dunson refuses to go to Kansas due to uncertainty about its having access to a railroad, the men begin to leave. Several attempting to leave are shot dead by Dunson. ... Read More
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