RIO BRAVO / Made in Tucson!

Sunday, August 22nd at 12:00 p.m.
Admission: $8.00 general; $6.00 Loft members

August is Tucson's birthday month (its 235th!), and we're cinematically celebrating with a special screening of Howard Hawks' classic 1959 western RIO BRAVO, filmed right here in the Old Pueblo!
Featuring an all-star cast including John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson, this thrill-packed Old West adventure (created from equal parts laughs, suspense and blazing bullets ... not to mention musical numbers!) is one of the quintessential Hollywood westerns and one of the most famous films to be shot at Old Tucson Studios.
Spit shine your silver spurs, sidle up to the snack bar, and grab yourself a slice of our special "Bravo Tucson!" Birthday Cake (while supplies last), and enter our free raffle for a fabulous RIO BRAVO GIFT BASKET as we celebrate one of the greatest Tucson-shot films ever made!

"If I were asked to choose one film that would justify the existence of Hollywood, I think it would be RIO BRAVO." - Robin Wood, film critic and author of BFI Film Classics: Rio Bravo

Shot at world-famous Old Tucson Studios in the late '50s, RIO BRAVO was one of the biggest hits from legendary tough-guy director Howard Hawks, following in the wake of a staggering line-up of Hollywood classics he had been generating since the 1930s, including Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, The Thing From Another World, Red River and Gentleman Prefer Blondes.
Created by Hawks as a reaction to the popular 1952 western High Noon (which he disliked immensely because he "didn't think a good sheriff was going to go running around town like a chicken with his head off asking for help"), RIO BRAVO was the cantankerous director's ode to heroism as he himself saw it, embodied in the film by the one-and-only John Wayne, who was then at the very peak of his movie career.
The simple storyline has sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) arresting a murderer and keeping him locked up until his trial. It soon becomes evident that the jailed prisoner has plenty of armed friends and they plan an all-out attack on the jail. Luckily, sheriff Chance, who is outnumbered forty to one, gets some unexpected backup from the least likely characters - an unsteady alcoholic drifter (played by Rat Pack crooner Dean Martin), a crippled old man named Stumpy (legendary Western sidekick Walter Brennan), a naive young gunslinger (teen idol Ricky Nelson, then riding high on the pop music charts with such hits as "Poor Little Fool") and a beautiful dance-hall girl (future Police Woman star Angie Dickinson). Before the explosively exciting finale brings it all to a close, friendships are made, love affairs are rekindled, black coffee is swigged, and a nifty song is sung (Dino and Ricky duet on "My Rifle, My Pony and Me").
A cult film favorite (Quentin Tarantino has said he uses the film as a litmus test for potential girlfriends), and a major influence on countless later movies (Hawks himself basically remade the film twice, as El Dorado in 1967 and Rio Lobo in 1970, and horror director John Carpenter re-worked the film in his 1976 urban thriller Assault on Precinct 13), RIO BRAVO is an endlessly entertaining slice of vintage Hollywood action at its finest.

Visit the official "Happy Birthday Tucson" website to find out what else is happening around town in August!
http://www.tucsonsbirthday.org/