Red River

Even John Ford acknowledged that it was Howard Hawks who drew out John Wayne’s first great performance (“I never knew the son of a bitch could act,” he is supposed to have remarked). Playing older than his 39 years, Wayne found new authority as tyrannical cattle-driver Tom Dunson.

The story (by Borden Chase) is basically Mutiny on the Bounty out on the range. Dunson is a pioneer, a self-made man who sees no reason to trust anyone but himself. In just his second film, Method man Montgomery Clift is Dunson’s adopted son Matt Garth. He represents a younger, softer generation. Clift (who was homosexual) and Wayne hated each other off-screen, and the film is a fascinating record of old Hollywood’s man’s man facing off against the sensitive “new man” of the coming era.

The two figures remain emblematic of archetypal tensions between progressives and conservatives, fathers and sons, and Hawks’ Western puts an epic framework around the drama. This was the director-producer’s bid to become independent of the studios, but even though it was a big hit – and is still universally recognized as one of the greatest Westerns ever made – Hawks spent so much of his own money going over budget he was forced to return to the fold.

A landmark film that brought a new psychological complexity to the genre and gave John Wayne the first truly challenging role of his career… The film introduced to the screen Montgomery Clift, one of the greatest American actors of his time, as Matt Garth, Dunson’s quiet, gentlemanly adopted son.

Philip French, The Observer

Probably the finest western of the 40s.

Geoff Andrew, Time Out