zniva-96130 Wonderful mix of family story and insight in every day's life of an soldier in the old west. Beautiful shots in black and white and good acting of Wayne and O'Hara! Not to forget the sentimental music of Victor Young!

antoniocasaca123 This "RIO GRANDE" is a long forgotten western of the legendary director John Ford that surprises pleasantly. Irish songs and a very good level of romance make this movie a beautiful western, which has a great humor also present (the character Quincannon, played by actor Victor McLaglen, gives the film extremely funny scenes). This is a very effective western, although of a substantially different style to others of the Ford / Wayne duo (for example, the first time the character Yorke, starring John Wayne, picks up a gun happens only 6 minutes from the end of the movie !). The good virtues of the film make to forget its (enough) small faults, that end up not having great importance in the development of the plot. Perhaps the only one that is more noteworthy is the (sadly) little participation and importance given to the character Kathleen, played by the extremely beautiful Maureen O'Hara (here in the first of five "romantic" partnerships she would do with John Wayne). On the other hand, one of the very positive aspects of the film is the importance and excellent performances of the secondary actors, such as Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman Jr, Harry Carey Jr and the aforementioned Victor McLaglen. In short, this "RIO GRANDE" is a beautiful surprise.

SnoopyStyle After the Civil War, Union officer Kirby Yorke (John Wayne) is in charge of an output on the Rio Grande fighting the Apache. He hasn't seen his son Jeff in 15 years who recently failed out of West Point. He is surprised when Jeff shows up as one of the new troopers. It's not a happy reunion which adds to the tension of the undermanned outpost. Jeff's mother Kathleen Yorke (Maureen O'Hara) arrives and old feelings are stirred up. They are attacked by Indians and the prisoners escape. The women and children are evacuated but some are captured in an Apache ambush. Kirby leads the men on a rescue mission.It's an old fashion John Ford western. I can do without the old fashion singing. However there is some impressive horsemanship. The riding stunts are terrific. The story is simple. The romance is limited but O'Hara gives it her all. John Wayne is his great self. At one point, John Wayne meets his Mexican counterpart on the Rio Grande. If he crosses the river to continue the chase, this movie could have been a great action thriller. Instead he turns around and the momentum is lost.

Dark Jedi In this old classic John Wayne had not yet become the somewhat grumpy old tough guy as he is in many of his classical movies. He is somewhat younger and his character as Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke is a bit more emotional than the characters that he often played and there is a bit more romance in this movie as well. At least in my experience with John Wayne's movies.I was not sure if I was going to like this movie so much since it is generally put in the Romance genre as well as the Western genre. However I can without a doubt say that I did indeed like it quite a lot. It is still a good old-fashioned Western movie with brawls, fistfights and a lot of shooting. John Wayne is great in his role and a lot of the supporting characters are very enjoyable. I especially liked the old Sgt. Major and I would have liked there to be a more official scene of forgiveness between Mrs. Yorke and him. There were a lot of nice interaction between the Sgt. Major as well as between other characters in the movie. At times the movie was really funny due to these interactions between several of the rather original characters in the movie.To my understanding John Ford was more or less forced by Republic Pictures into making this movie in exchange for his pet project, The Quiet Man, to be produced. I would say that this was a good move by the movie company even though the movie was produced as a low-budget movie even by the standards at the time.The only thing I feel sorry about is that it was shot in black & white. As is often the case in good old Western movies there are a fair share of lovely nature scenery and I think some of that would have been much better in full color.Oh by the way, one thing puzzles me. Why on earth did they make a movie poster with John Wayne without a mustache when he is having one throughout the whole movie?