Red River

Red River is pretty much Howard Hawks saying to Howard Hughes that if you're going to take my movie away from me, then I'm going to make the movie much better. Plus, putting John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in place of almost anyone will usually be an improvement. Especially in a Western. Clift is very good, while John Wayne just feels like he is being John Wayne. Maybe I should have seen this before The Searchers, because he plays basically the same character. And that one felt much less claustrophobic, John Ford directing and filming in Monument Valley and many more impressive long shots. Hawks focuses much more on the human interaction than Ford did, but he doesn't have enough in it, and the movie just never gets over the hump from being a good movie to being a great movie. Hawks can do screwball comedy very well, but his directing style is usually a little claustrophobic for a Western. It only works well in Rio Bravo, which is intentional, since it's set almost entirely in a jail.