Connections

Movie

Movie

Both films have shady leading ladies named Feathers, as well as scenes where the villain throws money into a spittoon to see if the drunken sidekick will fish it out. (Howard Hawks was involved with both films.)

Belt buckle worn by John Wayne has brand from the Tom Dunson ranch. Wayne played the Tom Dunson character in Red River.

Shot of John Wayne walking away from the camera, framed by a doorway, the screen dark except for the light coming through the door.

In both Howard Hawks films, John Wayne has a drunk friend and reforms him into a competent lawman, later the town is besieged by criminals trying to break a high profile prisoner out of jail.

Both films were directed by Howard Hawks, screenwritten by Leigh Brackett, starred John Wayne, had similar plots, featured an old man with an itchy trigger finger on a shot gun, and almost identical ending sequences, although the opening sequences are a bit different. Rio Lobo was the third Hawks film varying the idea of a sheriff defending his office against belligerent outlaw elements in the town, with each including a prisoner trade, after Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1966). Hawks and Brackett denied that the latter two films were remakes at the time.

A large part of the plot spoofs Rio Bravo's basic formula.