Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17824 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-01-22
• Format: NTSC
• Running time: 114 minutes

From Amazon.com
The final film by the legendary director Howard Hawks, released in 1970, found him paired with longtime leading man John Wayne in a story slightly similar to their more familiar Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Set at the end of the Civil War, the story finds Wayne playing a Union army colonel who recovers some stolen gold and roots out a traitor. Though a little creaky (Hawks had been making films since 1926), Rio Lobo nevertheless has his trademark, crackling dialogue, appealing characters, and ensemble spirit among the cast. This was a worthy finish to a fantastic career by a first-rank filmmaker. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Not the best, but entertaining
OK, it's not the best western ever produced. It's more of a full color film in the style of the old Republic westerns of the 30s and 40s. What it does have is a pretty fast moving story line, scene stealing character actors, and very pretty music (except for Jack Elam's mouth harp...).

John Wayne is moving from leading man with love interest to lovable old coot. Jorge Rivera takes over as the hunk. This is early in his acting career and very early in his English, but he's a doll to look at and OBTW, he does an outstanding leap over a fence. Christopher Mitchum looks very much like his father, and the chemistry between him and Wayne is similar to that of his father and Wayne (see Bob in El Dorado and Chris later in Big Jake).

This was Jennifer O'Neal's first movie, and it shows. But Wayne was famous for introducing new actors, even when it was clear they needed practice. Must have been because of the way Wayne himself was mentored in the 30s by John Ford, et. al. Watch his early work and see his own improvement.

Sherry Lansing was sexy and later vengeful. In the latter role, she, too, chewed up the scenery. She could have had a respectable acting career, but chose to shatter the movie mogul glass ceiling instead, and more power to her.

Then there's the scene stealers. David Huddleston can steal one just by being in it. Victor French is both scary and a coward simultaneously, a hard combination, but he can certainly pull it off. Hank Worden only had one scene, but he's as neat as ever. And finally, Jack Elam was a scenery chewing, crazy eyed loonie, with some of the funniest lines in the whole movie.

No, it's not the best, but I like it. It will always be in my personal movie stash.

You Need a Lobotomy to Enjoy Rio Lobo
I am a big John Wayne fan, and frankly, he is the only good thing about this movie. However, even John Wayne looks like he is going through the motions in this film. When I decided to see this film, I had high hopes, but was sorely dissapointed. This is not one of Howard Hawkes' best directorial efforts.


The major problems with this film are two fold. One, the acting for many of the leads is painfully bad, and the script is absolutely unbelievable, even for a western. The dialogue is painful to listen to at times, and often seems forced. The fact that Jennifer O'Neil and Jorge Rivero cannot act only makes it more painful. Even the great character actor Jack Elam is dissapointing in his role, since his over the top performance makes his character more suitable to a comedy than to a western that seems to want to be taken seriously. In some ways, this is another problem, since this film doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, a comedy western or a serious western exploring typical western themes.


This film is only bearable entertainment for the true John Wayne fan. I personally watched the whole film simply because I enjoy watching John Wayne perform. If you are not a big John Wayne fan, this film is a waste of time.

The worst western ever made? Rent it & decide.
Stupid? Slow moving? Hard to follow? Yep. This one's so bad it's actually pretty entertaining. The thing to do is get hold of this movie, have some friends over (bringing beer), and spend a winter weekend afternoon discussing Rio Lobo's vast flaws and shortcomings. Take US Cavalry Col. John Wayne's unique strategy for chasing a gang of train robbers, for example: every time you come to a fork in the road, say: "Half you men go that way -- the rest, follow me!" Of course, you can only do that so many times before you end up, as The Duke does here, chasing the bad guys all by yourself. This apotheosizes John Wayne's mythic solitary hero persona. Or maybe it's just really stupid (but maybe it's unfair to expect much, given that the JW character's civilian occupation is "aimless drifter"). Take the slow meandering repetitive dialogue -- "You can't arrest this woman without a warrant. Do you have a warrant to arrest this woman?" "Golly, I didn't think of getting a warrant to arrest her." "Well, if you don't have a warrant you can't arrest her. You'll have to go back and get a warrant." "But I don't have time to go back and get a warrant..." Oh, you get your money's worth of talk out of this one alright. Take the way the Evil Cattle Baron (or whatever he is--it's not clear what he does for a living besides being Evil) gets captured by the Good Guys (a seriously motley crew that includes a Mexican Confederate officer called Frenchy) a third of the way through the movie, so he spends the remaining two-thirds just kind of tagging along--his part's over, you understand, but he's still there, in some corner of the screen in almost every shot till the end ("Hi, mom!"). You can even take the ECB's giant humongous fake eyebrows, leftover makeup from a caveman movie I'm guessing. You'll still have plenty of points for discussion, cause this is a very long movie (although not as long as it seems). That's "Rio Lobo", folks. See it and find out why they don't make westerns any more.