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In 1851, Thomas Dunson and his friend, Groot Nadine,
leave St. Louis and join a wagon train headed for California. When
they reach the northern border of Texas, they decide to remain there and
establish a cattle ranch. Fen, Tom's sweetheart, wants to stay
with him, but he tells her that he will send for her later and gives her
his mother's bracelet.
Soon after Tom and Groot take their wagon and bull and
head south to the Red River, they look back and see that the wagon train
has been attacked and burned by Comanche Indians. That night,
several Indians attack Tom and Groot's camp, and Tom is horrified to
discover the bracelet he gave to Fen on the wrist of an Indian he killed
in the struggle. The next day as Tom and Groot break camp, a young
boy, Matthew Garth, who has escaped the wagon train massacre, wanders
toward them with his cow. Tom and Groot take the dazed boy with
them, cross the Red River and head farther south until, near the Rio
Grande, Tom finds an area he likes. The land legally belongs, by
land grant, to a Mexican; but after Tom kills one of the owner's gunmen
and drives off another, he claims it for himself. Tom's bull and
Matt's cow then become the beginning of a great herd sporting the Red
River-D brand.
Fifteen years later, the ranch boasts thousands of
cattle, but Tom faces ruin unless he can move them from the
impoverished, post-Civil War market. He decides to take ten
thousand head a thousand miles to Missouri, where the railroads serve
the North and East; Matt, now grown to manhood and like a son to Tom,
helps to plan the drive. Tom also agrees to take several head
belonging to a neighboring rancher, and one of the neighbor's ranch
hands, Cherry Valance, joins the drive. Both Cherry and Matt are
expert gunmen and enjoy a friendly, if intense, rivalry.
After a few days on the trail, the men reach the Brazos.
Hills and rocks impede their progress and the cowboys become tired and
unhappy. One night, when the cattle are restless, cowboy Bunk
Kenneally, takes some sugar from Groot's chuck wagon and accidentally
knocks over pots and pans, spooking the cattle and causing a stampede.
Cowboy Dan Latimer is killed in the stampede; although Bunk admits his
mistake, he refuses to allow Tom to whip him and draws his gun.
However, Matt shoots Bunk before he can shoot Tom.
Forty days into the drive, the men are forced to endure
heavy rains and short rations, as a grub wagon was lost in the stampede.
Tom becomes very demanding and faces dissension among the cowboys.
Some days later, a wounded wrangler from another drive rides into camp
and explains that his group was attacked by a large gang of outlaws
after they crossed the Red River. He also tells them about a trail
blazed by an Indian trader, Jesse Chisholm, to a railroad terminus in
Abilene, Kansas. When three of Tom's men state that they should be
heading to Abilene instead of Missouri, and threaten to quit, Tom kills
them. More men desert with supplies and Tom sends Cherry after
them.
When the herd reaches the Red River, Tom decides to cross
immediately, despite the men's exhaustion. That night, Groot
suggests to Tom, who has not been sleeping and has started drinking,
that he tell the men that they did well, but he refuses. The next
day, when Cherry returns with two of the deserters, Tom says he is going
to hang them, but Matt intervenes. As Tom goes to draw his gun on
Matt, Cherry shoots him in the hand. Matt then assumes command of
the drive, and they head to Abilene, leaving Tom behind. Tom
swears that one day he will catch up with Matt and kill him.
On the drive, Matt and the others encounter a wagon train
being attacked by Apache Indians whom they help to drive off. Matt
meets Tess Millay, one of the wagon train's settlers and, before he
resumes the drive, they have fallen in love. Tom and some new men
he has hired to pursue the train catch up with it; when Tess tells Tom
that she had wanted to go with Matt, Tom remembers leaving Fen.
Tess then tries to persuade Tom not to kill his "son," and Tom offers
her half of everything he owns if she will bear him a son. Tess
agrees on the condition that he abandon his mission to kill Matt, but
Tom declines.
On August 14, 1865, Matt's team reaches Abilene and becomes
the first cattle drive to cross over the Chisholm Trail. They
receive a great welcome from the townspeople, and Melville, a
representative of an Illinois trading company, makes Matt a very good
offer for the herd and gives him a check payable to Tom.
That night, Matt finds Tess waiting for him at his hotel.
She warns him that Tom will be coming into town just after dawn to kill
him. The next day, as Matt prepares to face Tom, Cherry challenges
Tom, who shoots him but is injured by his return fire. Matt
refuses to draw his gun against Tom but, when Tom attacks him with his
fists, Matt fights back. Their brawl is interrupted by Tess, who
fires a gun and angrily reminds them that they both love each other.
After Tom tells Matt that he should marry Tess, he and Matt are finally
reconciled. Tom then tells Matt that, as he had promised years
before, he will create a new branding iron to include Matt's name, as he
has earned it.
Notes
The story is based on the serial novel "The Chisholm Trail" by
Borden Chase in The Saturday Evening Post (December 7, 1946 - January
11, 1947).
The summary was based on a viewing of a
modern "Restored Director's Cut" of the film. In a letter
contained in the AMPAS Library file on the film, the attorney for
Monterey Productions stated that the company bought the original story
from Borden Chase, and after certain changes had been made, the story
was published in The Saturday Evening Post.
Exterior photography was done around Elgin,
Arizona, south of Tucson, and interiors were filmed on the Samuel
Goldwyn lot. Red River was the first film
Montgomery Clift made, although his second, The Search, was
released first. According to a interview with Howard Hawks in a
modern source, Joanne Dru was a last-minute substitute for Margaret
Sheridan, who had to be replaced when she was discovered to be pregnant.
A February 1, 1948 NYT news item
noted that the film's original budget was $1,800,000 and that an
organization of private capitalists known as Motion Picture Investors
provided a bond guaranteeing the film's completion at an eventual cost
of $2,700,000. In December 1948, DV reported that the
film's final cost was $4,100,000 and that the domestic gross was "being
figured all the way from $4,000,000 to $5,500,000," with an additional
$2,000,000 in foreign revenues.
Immediately prior to the film's premiere on
August 26, 1948 in theaters in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, millionaire
producer Howard Hughes filed an injunction against the film's openings
in Texas, contending that the climactic gunfight sequence between "Tom"
and "Matt" paralleled that in Hughes'
The
Outlaw, a production on which Hawks had briefly worked in 1940.
To placate Hughes, Hawks cut approximately 28 seconds from the scene.
A DV news item reported that Consolidated and Pathé laboratories
worked through the weekend prior to the film's premiere to produce
prints of the revised sequence and that editor Mel Thorsen was sent to
film exchanges in Dallas, Kansas City and New York to supervise the
changes. The "Director's Cut" of Red River , which was issued in
1987, is approximately seven minutes longer than the original release
print and reinstates the footage excised due to the Hughes injunction.
The 1948 version includes a spoken narration by
Walter Brennan's "Groot Nadine" character, whereas the later version
eliminates the narration and uses handwritten text from the Early Tales
of Texas "diary." Other minor differences include additional shots
before the stampede and the saving of the wagon train sequences, as well
as a brief conversation between "Matt" and "Melville" as the cattle
enter Abilene.
Modern sources add Pierce Lyden, Lee Phelps,
George Lloyd, John Merton and Richard Farnsworth to the cast. A
radio adaptation of the film, starring Wayne and Dru, was broadcast on
Lux Radio Theater on
March 7, 1949. Red River received Oscar
nominations in the Motion Picture Story and Film Editing categories.
On April 10, 1988, the CBS network broadcast a remake of Chase's story,
starring James Arness and Bruce Boxleitner, and directed by Richard
Michaels.
Includes the song "Settle Down," words and
music by Dimitri Tiomkin. |
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