MovieChat Forums > Rio Lobo (1970) Discussion > Alcoholics

Alcoholics

posted 17 years ago by kobelj
17 replies | jump to latest

I liked the movie, but did anyone else notice that everyone in this film is an alcoholic!! haha. I think it's funny. I'm not very politically correct, and neither is this movie!

Off the top of my head, here are a few of many alcohol references:

John Wayne getting drunk and passing out when camping with Frenchie and Shasta.

John Wayne asks the Rebs if they minded drinking with a blue belly and one of them replies something like, "I'll drink anytime, anywhere with anyone as long as they're buyin"

Shasta makes a living selling liquor in a caravan.

When Mcnally visits the sheriff, he asks him for a drink.

The dentist brings beer and sandwiches to the jail and Mr. Phillips attacks it like a crack fiend in withdrawl.

I think a good drinking game would be to take a drink every time John Wayne does, or anytime alcohol is referenced....haha...you wouldn't make it very long!

[–] dinoandscaly 17 years ago

You are right, I only watched this for a short while but in every scene they were guzzling down whisky or rum!

[–] highwaystar50 17 years ago

So what you're both saying is that this western is like about 90% of all the other westerns where drinking alcohol is concerned? I just wanted to make sure you weren't singling out this movie in particular because that would be sort of unfair. For what it's worth, John Wayne many times played a hard drinking character in his movies - not just the westerns.
Karl

[–] lightfootsalive 17 years ago

Interesting observation...and did you happen to notice, but none of the "bad guys" like Hendricks or Ketchum or their henchmen drank at all? Maybe that's because they didn't live long enough. Perhaps Howard Hawks was trying to tell us that "Good Guys Drink Whiskey."

McNally: "What's in that canteen?"
Tuscarora: "Corn liquor."
McNally: "I could use a little of that myself!"

[–] jacawaro 14 years ago

No Message

[–] kwb400 17 years ago

I am quite sure that in 1870, politcal correctness wasn't a consideration. I've said it many times, you cannot equate 21st century sensabilities with a movie made 40 years ago about a time 100 years ago.

They say "Gone With the Wind" might be the most racist and politically incorrect movie of all time, but what do you expect from a movie made in 1939 about an event that occured just 70 years earlier?

I hear it all the time about smoking. A friend of mine watched Casablanca with me and couldn't beleive everyone was smoking! Well, that's what they did in 1940. Same with drinking and Westerns. If you beleive movie history, it seems that's all they did, drink, chase women and kill each other. Well, welcome to the Old West!

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] lesleyanne-hay1 17 years ago

There is non-stop drinking from start to finish!

[–] lewisherschell 16 years ago

"There is non-stop drinking from start to finish!"

It's a Howard Hawks movie. What more needs to be said? :D In Hawks' films, men (and selected women) bond over alcohol, but there's also an acknowledgment that sometimes it can lead to your downfall (witness Dino in Rio Bravo, for example).

'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958).

[–] mike171979 14 years ago

Alcoholics???

Come on, they like a drink at night but other than that only old Jack Elam was constantly drinking.

But I mean come on, your hanging out with some guys in a saloon at night, do you want them to drink water???????

[–] grumpy736-1 13 years ago

I didn't really notice all the alcohol consumption. But it does explain how this thing got put together -- dulled senses just going through the motions.

I miss Big Band music and talented singers. Leonard Cohen is my idol. Civility, harmony, unity!

[–] amiNotAwake 13 years ago

Best explanation for this disappointing Wayne movie I've heard yet.

"Didn't you go to school stupid?"
-"Yep, but I came out the same way."

[–] ksf-2 13 years ago

... wasn't much else to do in those days. and it was probably even less drinking than they did in old europe & asia. for the past 1000 yrs, everyone was chugging mead/wine/saki. its no coincidence that the more- scientific inventions started occurring when people slowed down the alcohol intake and started drinking coffee and tea. and in the 1800s, one probably didnt live long enough to get liver failure anyway

[–] hankpac 13 years ago

I don't know about the others in the cast, but John Wayne, was a big drinker anyway. He and Ward Bond sloshed on the set.

[–] bari2525 13 years ago

Complete bull fertilizer.

There was lots of drinking at night during most of the films JW & WB made, especially those with John Ford. According to ALL sources, there wasn't any drinking going on while they worked.

In other words...NOT on the set.

I don't act...I react. John Wayne

[–] kbarada 10 years ago

I believe it was a fair representation of how pervasive and ingrained the use of alcohol was in the 19th century. Use and abuse of alcohol was so widespread and destructive to the fabric of society that it led to a strong temperance movement late in the century and culminated in the passing of the 18th constitutional amendment in 1920 which banned alcohol use (Volstead Act)and created 13 years of Prohibition.

So, that's just how it really was back in the day. Drinking morning, noon, and night.

[–] foster11 9 years ago

While what you say is true

Clean potable water was a big deal in those days

Lets say your riding along, come upon a stream, creek, river, whatever, so you drink some, and there was a dead deer laying in it 1/2 mile upstream

You may just get the runs, and it may just kill you

You weren't much safer in town

Sooo you drank coffee, tea, beer, whiskey, wine.

It was safer

Until the advent of water treatment plants, cholera, and dysentery were real killers in this country

booze avoided that

You don't have to stand tall, but you do have to stand up!

[–] fatdogtavern 8 years ago

I've seen every JW movie 100x since Stagecoach and The Duke has more drinks in this movie than any other. I always thought that RL would make a great drinking game movie. Everytime JW drinks, you drink too! You'd be hammered by the end of the show!