MovieChat Forums > Red River (1948) Discussion > Cherry's Fate

Cherry's Fate

posted 19 years ago by smurfthumper
7 replies | jump to latest

Has anyone here actually read Borden Chase's The Chisholm Trail? I suppose I could secure a copy of it through my university's interlibrary loan, but then I would have no reason to pin this shiny new bulletin to the up on the loose cork of the Red River board. I would also have to wait anywhere from one week to a month before the book actually made its way to me.

I'd really like to know what happened to Cherry. It was suggested elsewhere that Dunson might have shot Cherry in the hand as an act of "poetic justice." I made this argument to another Red River enthusiast, recently, only to have that argument pooh-poohed. The pooh-pooher asserted that "Dunson doesn't shoot people in the hand."

The pooh-pooher has a good point.

My assumption is that Cherry does not die, and my reason for assuming this is that everyone is too happy after the reconciliation for Dunson to have killed him. Then again, Dunson and Matt are in their own little world at the end of the movie. They do not seem all that concerned with the state of Cherry's being.

[–] smurfthumper 17 years ago

My assumption is still that Cherry does not die.

After all this time, I still haven't bothered to try to find a copy of The Chisolm Trail.

Not that I expect it to answer all my life's questions. Or even that of Cherry's fate. Cherry may not even be in The Chisolm Trail.

[–] thbryn 17 years ago

Personally I thought Dunston went for an chest/ab shot, certainly not the hand. Cherry shot second while wounded and he did look like he hit Dunston in the side.
There are a three ways either shot could end in fatality. Damage to a vital organ, bleeding out, and infection that leads to organ failure. Medicine being what it was at the time, if you were hit you likely weren't going to survive.

[–] j-b-book 17 years ago

In the book, Cherry duels Dunson. Since Tess interferes, pushing Cherry's arm when he draws, Cherry dies, Dunson is heavily wounden. Tess gets Dunson to Matt, they make up (since Dunson is dying and needs someone to leave his estate to); Matt, Tess and Dunson go south. Dunson has enough breath left to stand one last time on Texas soil before he dies.

[–] smurfthumper 16 years ago

Thanks!

[–] vawlkee_2000 16 years ago

Cherry goes down for the count and Dunson takes a hit as well. Dunson shoots low and hits Cherry....I doubt he dies.
Once Monty and the Duke start mixing it up you can see people attending to Cherry in the bg, guess we'll never know.

Oh BTW, there's one thing that bugs me about this film...It's a technical matter though.The film's considered an "inde" but it was obviously shot by Columbia..Any fight scene where you hear fists connecting with flesh are the same as used in the Three Stooges shorts...OUCH! Let's hear it for the Foley guys!
That final big fight with Wayne and Clift is tough for me to take at times - being a diehard Stooges fan!
Robert

[–] bradford-1 16 years ago

When Cherry is shot, Harry Carey, Sr. immediately rushes to him and holds on to him. Cherry appears to be conscious and alive, but since it is in the bkgd., it's hard to be sure.

[–] Techto (1299) 6 months ago

Cherry dies in the book but his fate is left unresolved in the movie. However, elsewhere in a different moviechat discussion thread, someone claims to have heard John Ireland, the actor who played Cherry, say that there was an unused scene filmed in which Cherry was shown in a bar with his arm in a sling, indicating he had survived the duel and there were no hard feelings.