Studio: Warner Brothers
Release Date: August 1, 2023
Rating: NR
Film: 4/5
Plot Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) is in some hot water with a local rancher when he arrests his brother for murder. With the help of only two deputies, a recovering alcoholic Dude (Martin) and an old codger Stumpy, they all have to fight off a bunch of hired henchmen who are trying to help the prisoner escape. To complicate matters, a young gunslinger (Nelson) is in town as well as a mysterious female card shark, Feathers (Dickinson).
My ThoughtsI grew up watching reruns of Wayne movies when I was a kid and I vaguely remembers seeing this movie at some point in my life. The story isn’t overly complicated, although the second act is a bit drawn out. One thing I noticed is that for such a small town, Rio Bravo has a lot of bars on its main street. I guess in the “old days” there were no home theaters and the only form of entertainment was to drink every night.
Warner is one of the best studios on restoring classics and this is no exception. This Technicolor presentation shines in 4K and teems with detail. Colors are well saturated and vivid, the grain is preserved, and overall, this is a very film-like presentation. Like the older Blu-ray (and HD DVD), the credits look very rough and ugly, but once the film begins, the picture takes a major jump in resolution and cleanliness. One area of the picture that surprised me was the HDR treatment, which show off their mettle on the sunlit exterior scenes. This is by far the best the film has ever looked on home video.
The film was re-released in 2015 on Blu-ray with a new audio track (which I didn’t review), but that track is included here. It’s a lossless mono track that’s presented with DTS-MA 2.0 encoding, which splits the mono track and sends it to the left and right speakers. Overall, it’s a good mix with intelligible dialog, although the dynamics won’t blow your socks off. I personally found the musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin a cheesy, but a lot of movies from this era used similar techniques to ratchet-up the tension.
Video 9/10
Audio 9/10 (DTS-HD MA Mono 2.0)
Special Features: - Audio Commentary
- Digital Code
Conclusion My only gripe about the release is the lack of a Blu-ray that had all of the legacy supplements. While I’m not a big supplement fan myself, I know there are many people out there who live for these. Regardless, the 4K presentation is outstanding and fans of westerns should love the presentation. For that reason, this one is easy to recommend.
Reference Review System: JVC DLA-RS3100 4K Ultra High-Definition Front Projector
(Calibrated with Portrait Displays CalMAN color calibration software & C6-HDR Meter from Portrait Displays)
Stewart Filmscreen - Firehawk 110” 2.35:1 Screen
Trinnov Altitude 16 Audio/Video Processor
ATI AT527NC Powering Bed Channels
ATI AT524NC Powering Atmos Speakers
Kaleidescape Strato + Server
Panasonic DP-UB820 Ultra HD Blu-ray Player
System Controller: URC MX-990
M&K S-150 THX Ultra (R-C-L Speakers)
M&K SS-150 x4 (Surround Speakers)
Atlantic Technology IC6-OBA x 4 Overhead Speakers
SVS PC-Ultra Cylinder Subwoofer
SVS SB3000
HSU VTF-15H MK2 Subwoofer
M&K Sound X15+ Subwoofer
Mini DSP HD controlling all subwoofers
Audioquest and Monoprice - Audio/Video/Speaker Cabling
PureAV PF60 Power Conditioner
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