Rio Bravo (film) - High Noon Debate

High Noon Debate

The film was made as a response to High Noon, which is sometimes thought to be an allegory for blacklisting in Hollywood, as well as a critique of McCarthyism. Wayne would later call High Noon "un-American" and say he did not regret helping run the writer, Carl Foreman, out of the country. Wayne teamed up with director Howard Hawks to tell the story his way. In Rio Bravo, Chance is surrounded by allies - a deputy recovering from alcoholism (Dude), a young untried gunfighter (Colorado), an limping "crippled" old man (Stumpy), a Mexican innkeeper (Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez), his wife (Estelita Rodriguez), and an attractive young woman (Feathers) — and repeatedly turns down aid from anyone he doesn't think is capable of helping him, though in the final shootout they come to help him anyway. "Who'll turn up next?" Wayne asks amid the gunfire, to which Colorado replies: "Maybe the girl with another flower pot."