El Dorado
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2025 12:01 am
EL DORADO (1967): Gun-for-hire Cole Thornton (John Wayne) comes to El Dorado, Texas for three reasons: to see his old flame Maudie (Charlene Holt), to check on his friend Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), and to see about working with cattle baron Bart Jason (Ed Asner) as force against the nearby MacDonald family that Jason claims is abusing his land rights. Maudie and Thornton agree they want to settle down together sometime in the not-too-distant future. Harrah warns Thornton that Jason is the one trying to bully the MacDonald family out of their land and water rights and just wants to use Thornton to threaten them. So Thornton goes to Jason's place to turn down the job, give back what's left of the forwarded expense money, and insult Jason's hired guns.
Passing by the MacDonald land to go to Sonora to work as a security guard for a silver mine operation, Thornton is shot at by a young MacDonald boy and he shoots him in the gut, not knowing he's just a kid. The wound is survivable, but the kid thinks it's fatal, and shoots himself in the head shortly after Thornton meets with him. Thornton brings they boy's body to the MacDonald ranch and tells them what happened, but older sister Josephine "Joey" MacDonald (Michele Carey) doesn't believe him and rides off to shoot him near his spine as he rides toward Sonora. Thornton has paralysis on his right side from time to time for the rest of the movie.
After nearly a year working at the mine, Thornton heads back to El Dorado, along the way encountering a young man nicknamed Mississippi (James Caan) who knifes one man at a saloon for the murder of his mentor. But the man he knifes happens to be one of ace gunslinger Nelse McLeod's (Christopher George) men, & McLeod would have had one of his men lying in wait for Mississippi but for Thornton stepping in and threatening to shoot. McLeod and Thornton treat each other with professional courtesy, agreeing they could shoot it out later to see which of them is the fastest. Thornton keeps Mississippi from going oo the front saloon door into an ambush, and McLeod tells Thornton his friend Sheriff Harrah has turned into a drunk over a woman that used him and dumped him.
Thornton and Mississippi head to El Dorado to help Harrah's deputy Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt) sober Harrah up so that they along with Maudie, can help Joey and the rest of the MacDonald clan fight off Jason, McLeod, and the rest of the hired guns. I'll stop with the plot summary right there.
This movie is a quasi-remake of the earlier (and somewhat better) 1959 western Rio Bravo (it has the same writer, Leigh Brackett; the same director, Howard Hawks, and also stars John Wayne). The movie isn't as good as Rio Bravo because of an unfortunate racist moment when Mississippi pretends to be Chinese, and because the sneaking down alleyways in town gets to be repetitive. The characterizations are overall very good, and there is great chemistry amongst all the cast. The cinematography by coaxed-briefly-out-of-retirement Harold Rossen is fantastic in how it fits the story: eerie and murky in the tense scenes, and sharp and clear when moments are more upbeat and feature camaraderie. In the spirit of the theme song, you can "ride, boldly ride" through most of this film and have an agreeably good time.
Passing by the MacDonald land to go to Sonora to work as a security guard for a silver mine operation, Thornton is shot at by a young MacDonald boy and he shoots him in the gut, not knowing he's just a kid. The wound is survivable, but the kid thinks it's fatal, and shoots himself in the head shortly after Thornton meets with him. Thornton brings they boy's body to the MacDonald ranch and tells them what happened, but older sister Josephine "Joey" MacDonald (Michele Carey) doesn't believe him and rides off to shoot him near his spine as he rides toward Sonora. Thornton has paralysis on his right side from time to time for the rest of the movie.
After nearly a year working at the mine, Thornton heads back to El Dorado, along the way encountering a young man nicknamed Mississippi (James Caan) who knifes one man at a saloon for the murder of his mentor. But the man he knifes happens to be one of ace gunslinger Nelse McLeod's (Christopher George) men, & McLeod would have had one of his men lying in wait for Mississippi but for Thornton stepping in and threatening to shoot. McLeod and Thornton treat each other with professional courtesy, agreeing they could shoot it out later to see which of them is the fastest. Thornton keeps Mississippi from going oo the front saloon door into an ambush, and McLeod tells Thornton his friend Sheriff Harrah has turned into a drunk over a woman that used him and dumped him.
Thornton and Mississippi head to El Dorado to help Harrah's deputy Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt) sober Harrah up so that they along with Maudie, can help Joey and the rest of the MacDonald clan fight off Jason, McLeod, and the rest of the hired guns. I'll stop with the plot summary right there.
This movie is a quasi-remake of the earlier (and somewhat better) 1959 western Rio Bravo (it has the same writer, Leigh Brackett; the same director, Howard Hawks, and also stars John Wayne). The movie isn't as good as Rio Bravo because of an unfortunate racist moment when Mississippi pretends to be Chinese, and because the sneaking down alleyways in town gets to be repetitive. The characterizations are overall very good, and there is great chemistry amongst all the cast. The cinematography by coaxed-briefly-out-of-retirement Harold Rossen is fantastic in how it fits the story: eerie and murky in the tense scenes, and sharp and clear when moments are more upbeat and feature camaraderie. In the spirit of the theme song, you can "ride, boldly ride" through most of this film and have an agreeably good time.