Western Film Series: "Red River" (1948)

John Wayne and Montgomery Clift clash as father and son in this fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. It includes such classic scenes as Wayne telling Clift, “Take ’em to Missouri, Matt!” and director Howard Hawks’s famous montage of weathered cowboy faces in closeup and exaltation, as they cry “Hee-yaw!” and wave their hats in the air, what critic Roger Ebert called, “as quintessentially Western as any ever filmed, capturing the exhilaration of being on a horse under the big sky with a job to do and a paycheck at the other end.”

With dusty trails, family tension, heroes, and villains, the first film in our Western-themed film series is a fitting dramatic accompaniment to the cattle, cowboys, and landscapes represented in our current Frank Reaugh exhibition.

This film runs 133 minutes in the Ransom Center’s Prothro Theater. Seating is first-come, first-served, and doors open at 2:30 p.m.