El Dorado Details

“Ride, boldly ride…” sings George Alexander over the Remington-styled western paintings that accompany the titles to this elegiac masterwork, a fabulously entertaining, immensely skilful and warm-hearted tale from ace director Howard Hawks. John Wayne plays gunfighter Cole Thornton, a flawed hero whose actions lead to the suicide of a boy (Johnny Crawford) in a superbly staged preface to the plot, and whose resulting wounds dictate the pace and outcome of the movie. More than a match for the Duke is the great Robert Mitchum, in one of his best screen roles as alcoholic sheriff JP Harrah, destroyed for the love of a woman. This film suffered on its release by comparison to Hawks's earlier western masterpiece Rio Bravo, but with the passing of time this screen meditation on ageing proves to be one of the most pleasurable of all Hollywood movies.

Easy-going, semi-somnolent, generally likeable but disappointing Western É an old man's movie all round.