Daily Dialogue — October 21, 2015

GUNMAN 1: Sheriff, we ran into some trouble on the road. Al here’s hurt. His horse threw him. Your deputy said we could find a doctor.
CHANCE: Around the corner, about three or four doors to the right.
GUNMAN 1: Stay away from that rifle, Sheriff. You can see we’ve still got our guns.
GUNMAN 2: That ain’t your deputy up the street, my friend.
GUNMAN 1: Unloosen that belt.
CHANCE: What have you done to him?
GUNMAN 2: Don’t worry about him.
GUNMAN 1: Worry about yourself. He’s alright. But he ain’t gonna be and neither are you unless you do as you’re told.
COLORADO: (Pushing Feathers back from the door) Stay back here.
GUNMAN 1: We’re goin’ down to the jail. You’re gonna turn Joe Burdette loose or you and your deputy are gonna stop worrying about this whole thing. Take your choice.
FEATHERS: You just gonna stand here?
COLORADO: If you want to get him shot, just go out there.
GUNMAN 1: What’ll it be?
COLORADO: If you want to do something, when I get out on the porch in the clear, take that flower pot and throw it through the window, then duck after you throw it.

Colorado walks casually out of the hotel.

GUNMAN 2: Just keep coming mister.
COLORADO: Who, men?
GUNMAN 2: Yes, you.

Feathers throws the flower pot through the window. Colorado uses the distraction to toss Chance’s rifle to him and together they kill all the gunmen.

— Rio Bravo (1959), screenplay by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, short story by B.H. McCampbell

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Selflessness. 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: “Up to this point Colorado Ryan hadn’t really chosen sides in the dispute between Sheriff John Chance and cattleman Nathan Burdette. Seeing Chance caught off-guard, Colorado helps Chance recover, which commits him to becoming a deputy or risk being hunted down by Burdette’s men. This scene is the first glimpse we get into Colorado’s decision-making character.”

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