Rio Grande

John Wayne, though he passed away in 1979, has never left us. He has a place inside of every American that likes a man who does the right thing even though it is the hard thing. No, the Duke is with us still. And in the new Blu-ray release of Rio Grande he's looking good. Rio Grande is the third and last of John Ford's cavalry movies starring Wayne. It is the least favorite of the three by most standards but it is not a bad movie. In short, Wayne plays Lt. Colonel Yorke, the commander of a frontier cavalry post. He is trying to deal with three problems at the same time: the arrival of his son as an enlisted soldier who recently flunked out of West Point, the arrival of his wife whom he has not seen in years, and most deadly of all the Apache raiders who are attacking Americans all along the Mexico border. The story is simple enough but fun to follow and includes comedic moments, some great dramatic acting from Wayne and Maureen O'Hara (Mrs. York) and of course some good battle scenes toward the end. What surprises most is the picture and sound quality. For being an old movie, shot in 1950 in the desert where the dust and heat would have affected the quality and longevity of the movie and film reel itself respectively, the A/V quality of this HD release is stunning. Much like when The Wizard Of Oz was released in HD, my hat is off to the folks who cleaned this up. There is only some grain apparent and no artifacts on the film that I readily noticed. The special features were ok given the age of the movie. There was the original trailer and a documentary. Ok but nothing to blow your socks off. All around, I give this HD release five stars. With the A/V quality and strength of the story and acting, this movie is a good buy for any Wayne fan or anyone who just likes films about the Old West in general.

I don't think I have seen one john Wayne movie I didn't like

John Ford and his stock company can do no wrong, right down to the extras like having actors doing their own impressive stunts (i.e. Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr. doing the Roman style two horse ride). Reviewers have covered the movie but I'd like to add a couple of comments about the Olive collection blu ray edition. Olive sucks. My old DVD had more to offer. Olive just slaps stuffs things together and throws it on the market. This had no captions and only two not so special features; a trailer and a "Making of". To demonstrate the care they put in it, "The Making of Rio Grande" feature had a menu heading that said "The Making of High Noon".

I really wanted to love this movie, been revisiting John Ford as well as watching a few I've never seen, like Rio Grande. And while it has a wonderful cast, and some great humor and character moments, it's clearly not a passion project of Ford's, but rather a quickly made potboiler that only exists so that Republic Pictures would finance The Quiet Man. Everytime you think the story is finally moving along, it grinds to a halt for inane singing sequences.Now mind you, when I watch a John Ford film I except there to be singing, but in Rio Grande it is annoyingly excessive. This is undoubtedly the weakest entry in the "Cavalry Trilogy"

The print is gorgeous. After viewing this, I consider it one of my favorite John Ford westerns. It is THAT good. The cast is top notch but again - that print is beautiful.

Well, it is John Wayne so that is a good start. This is Blu-ray and the upgrade was worth it. Excellent picture and sound. I would recommend this to everyone.

Like many, I have been upgrading my John Wayne Collection to Blu-ray as available. All have been very good until this one.#1 Cover - Wrong picture - Duke's character in this film has a mustache.#2 Extra - The making of says it is the "Making of High Noon" (error), 2nd missing a great extra of "Along the Rio Grande" with Maureen O'Hara.#3 It is not in widescreen or even offered in both versions.So, unless you really want Blu-ray, skip this one & get the Rio Grande Collector's Edition DVD released in 2002, it fixes all my criticisms above. I put 3 stars only because I could not give this 5 Star move a dislike level. Blu-ray rating would be 1 STAR, thus the average is 3 Stars.

I enjoyed the movie and scenery. John Fords group of players.

This review is for the blu Ray version of the movie that is region freeRio Grande is regarded as the weakest of Fords trilogy. That’s a matter of opinion.For me, the weakest movie is Fort Apache. Once again that’s a matter of opinion. Rio grande is a marvellous yarn and pure escapism. One can’t ask for more than thatPicture quality is good and is the weakest of the three movies but it’s stikk very good.I now have all three movies and they really are fine.Legend has it that Ford only made this movie so Republic would finance The quiet man to made in Ireland and in full colour. Considering Rio Grande was put together very quickly it really is a marvellous effort and illustrates what a tremendous director John Ford wasI would recommend fans of westerns to get all three movies in the trilogy. You won’t regret it.

very good

The third picture of director John Ford's cavalry trilogy starring John Wayne, Ben Johnson,Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen, Harry Carey,Jr., Claude Jarman,Jr., and Chill Wills in another great cavalry picture.

Absolutely great movie and in Blu-ray even more enjoyable. Not much in the way of dimming/brightening picture or crap images (but there are still a couple). Sound is great too. Shame it costs so much on .ca as opposed to .com, but I got a gently used one for the same price in Canadian $ so a very good deal. Overall, one of my favorite John Wayne/John Ford movies. Plus you get Maureen O'Hara! Also great to see Ben Johnson (he should have been a HUGE star), Harry Carey Jr.and, of course, Victor McLaglen.

Bought for my hubby. He wanted this Bluray for a long time. Most older movies are very expensive so the price was a bit high. But the look on his face when he opened it was worth it.