DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks

BOTTOM LINE:

In one of the greatest Westerns ever made, director Howard Hawks takes us along the infamous Chisholm Trail and the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas. John Wayne, in one of his most emblematic roles, is Thomas Dunson, the rancher who initiates the affair while Montgomery Clift is Garth, his adopted adult son. Of course, they clash at every opportunity in the great script by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee.

The year was 1948 and Clift was breaking out all over, his star being born repeatedly in his dramatic confrontations with Wayne, his American soldier in Fred Zinnemann’s “The Search” and as the unfortunate gentleman caller in William Wyler’s “The Heiress”. “River” was his film debut and it’s kudos all the way, particularly, when you realize that he was diving in at the deep end by doing some major flirting with John Ireland’s gunslinger Cheery Valance. The two become inseparable and, in one classic scene, Valance asks to see Garth’s gun. They compare sizes and have a shootout! It’s one of the great gay moments in Queer Cinema.

POST TITLE: 55 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967) (Part 1) – TheBrownees

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SUBCATEGORY: Queer Film

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