The 1948 Western directed by Howard Hawks about a cattle drive starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift is Red River.
Wayne plays Thomas Dunson, a determined Texas rancher, and Montgomery Clift plays Matt Garth, the young man Dunson adopts. After years of building a herd, Dunson leads the first fictional cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. The journey becomes increasingly tense when Matt challenges Dunson’s harsh and authoritarian leadership.
The film’s central conflict is therefore both an outdoor adventure and a generational power struggle. Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru, and John Ireland are among the important supporting players. Red River was produced and directed by Hawks, with a screenplay credited to Borden Chase and Charles Schnee.
Although filmed in 1946, the picture was copyrighted in 1947 and widely released in 1948. It was shot in black and white, an aesthetic choice associated with Hawks’s preference for a more realistic Western style. The film later entered the National Film Registry and is frequently ranked among the major American Westerns.
It can be confused with John Ford’s cavalry Westerns, such as Fort Apache, but Red River is centered on ranching, a cattle trail, and the fraught relationship between Dunson and Matt.