Daily Dialogue — August 17, 2016
DUDE: Begin with you, Charlie. The shotgun you keep under the bar. Pick it up by the barrels. Easy.
CHARLIE: Thought you were going to ask for a drink. Been a long dry spell.
DUDE: Shotgun first. Set it down. Back up. Jim, Pedro, get over there. All right, the rest of you, not going to tell you twice. You’re going to stand up, stand real still. Now. (Crowd rises.) All right, now, one by one, start with you. Unbuckle your guns, drop ’em, step back.
COWBOY #1: What’s this all about?
DUDE: We’re looking for a man that ran in here.
COWBOY #2: Nobody’s run in here.
CHANCE: We’ll remember you said that.
DUDE: The man we’re looking for has muddy boots. Now, one by one, pull up your feet. (He examines the men’s boots.) Almost forgot about you, Charlie. C’mon out.
CHARLIE: (showing boots) Clean as a whistle. Dude, you been seein’ things again. You better have a drink. (Crowd laughs.)
COWBOY #3: Dude, maybe this’ll help. (Tosses a coin into spittoon. Crowd laughs again.)
Dude unloads Charlie’s shotgun and sets it on the bar. As he studies a beer sitting on the bar, he notices blood dripping into it.
DUDE: Guess I’ll take that drink now, Charlie.
CHARLIE: I thought you would.
As Charlie prepares to pour, Dude whips around and shoots a man hiding above the bar who falls to the ground. One of the cowboys reaches for his holster.
CHANCE: You want that gun, pick it up. I wish you would.
DUDE: He stepped in a puddle, alright. That’s the fellow we wanted. Hey, I guess this was his. Nice, fresh fifty-dollar gold piece. It’s just about what Burdette would figure a man’s life was worth. That’s earning money the hard way.
CHANCE: Paid killer. Nice, fresh fifty-dollar gold piece. (Turns to the man who said no one had run into the bar.) You, mister, you got on in your pocket?
COWBOY #2: Nobody paid me. Nobody.
CHANCE: And nobody run in here, either, huh? (Decks the man with the barrel of his rifle.)
DUDE: Chance.
CHANCE: Aw, I’m not gonna hurt him. Get up. They’re all in it. The whole lot of ’em. You’re gonna get out of town. Take your boy, here, with ya. You can tell Burdette you got Wheeler. You tell him anybody else he sends he better pay ’em more, ’cause they’re gonna earn it. Charlie, I want you to — you finished yet, Dude?
DUDE: You in a hurry?
CHANCE: Not especially.
Dude turns to the cowboy who threw the coin in the spittoon.
DUDE: You threw the silver dollar, didn’t you?
COWBOY #3: Well, yeah, Dude, I —
DUDE: You want it back?
COWBOY #3: Sure.
DUDE: You know how to get it?
The cowboy retrieves the coin.
DUDE: That’s all for me, Chance.
— Rio Bravo (1959), screenplay by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett; based on short story by B.H. McCampbell
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Alcoholism. Today’s suggestion by Will King.
Trivia: The movie was made by Howard Hawks and John Wayne as a counter-response to the underlying theme and point of view of High Noon (1952).
Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “Dude was once a deputy to Sheriff John T. Chance but lost his confidence and ended up a down-on-his-luck drunk. Chance decides to give him another opportunity to redeem himself when a local rancher is murdered and the shooter hides inside the local saloon. This scene places Dude directly into the worst atmosphere for him at the moment, inside a bar with a group of hostile gunmen. But Dude’s innate senses still serve him, and he’s able to not only overcome his alcoholism, but also rebuild his respect among bad guy Nathan Burdette’s henchmen.”