12 thoughts on “Even Better

  1. Two completely different films. I guess the comparison is unavoidable since one was supposedly made in response to the other. But they were both enormously influential in different ways.

    And not for nothin’: Grace Kelly.

  2. High Noon is great stuff, far superior to Shane, which I know you love. Rio Bravo is fun, but not in the same ballpark as High Noon.

  3. speaking of Grace Kelley could one imagine the reaction had she not married Prince Ranier in 1956 and Hitch had been able to use her as Marion crane in Psycho in 1960. Using Janet Leigh was effective enough, but she had just the tiniest hint of sleeze to her to make it palateable. Killing America’s Sweetheart with that Phallaic staabbing like knife would have left an entire generation with PTSS

  4. The Mexican whore is a complete bore in the movie. Best scene is when Cooper goes to that old lawman, who laments how it’s a waste. Good movie, but it’s not Rio Bravo. And Dickinson has the looks factor over Kelly.

  5. It should be no surprise that Wells, who seems incapable of feeling anything even remotely resembling joy, would not prefer a movie as delightful as RIO BRAVO.

  6. What Cadavra says.

    Robin Wood, for his part, famously wrote that RIO BRAVO was the movie that justified the existence of Hollywood.

    David Newman and Robert Benton said it was one of the three best movies ever made. (Not sure what the others are, but maybe JULES ET JIM?)

    And yet Wells prefers the clumsy and pretentious
    HIGH NOON, not even a good Western?

  7. surprised Wells hasn’t mentioned that the Olive Johnny Guitar is 1.37:1 — “vindication,” “Furmanek must be slitting his wrists,” “Olive beats the fascists,” etc.

    maybe that’s just because Johnny Guitar is mere camp for the international elite film snob community, that Nicholas Ray sure wasn’t a patch on Fred Zinnemann

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