Rio Lobo

Rio Lobo is a 1970 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, from a screenplay by Burton Wohl and Leigh Brackett. The film was shot in Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos and in Tucson, Arizona. The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It was the third Howard Hawks film varying the idea of a sheriff defending his office against belligerent outlaw elements in the town, after Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1966), both also starring John Wayne. Rio Lobo was the last film made by Hawks. Plot During the American Civil War, a secret Union army payroll train is raided by Confederates, led by Captain Pierre Cordona and Sergeant Tuscarora Phillips. Union Colonel Cord McNally loses his close friend, Lieutenant Ned Forsythe, in the raid, and the complexity of the Confederates' scheme indicates that Union traitors must have provided them with the details about the transport. In the ensuing pursuit, McNally's squad is spread thinner and thinner, until he is left alone and captured by the Confederates. McNally tricks them by leading them to a Union camp and raising the alarm; Cordona and Tuscarora are captured, but refuse to tell McNally who sold them their information. Despite this development, the three men gain a mutual respect for each other. After the war ends, McNally visits Cordona and Tuscarora as they are being released. He asks them once more about the traitors, but all they can provide is a physical description. However, they agree to contact McNally if they see either of the two men again. Sometime later, McNally is contacted by his friend Sherriff Pat Cronin of Blackthorne, Texas. Cronin tells McNally that Cordona is staying at the local hotel and wants to talk to him. When McNally arrives in Blackthorne, he meets a young woman, Shasta Delaney, who has come to report the murder of her employer by a deputy of Rio Lobo's sheriff, "Blue Tom" Hendricks. Shortly afterwards, a posse from Rio Lobo arrives and wants to take Delaney away. Delaney identifies their leader, "Whitey" Carter, as the murderer she was referring to. When one of the posse aims a gun at Cronin, Delaney shoots Whitey from under the table, resulting in a shoot-out in which McNally, Cronin and Cordona finish off the posse.