Of course, the Duke delivers, albeit as a caricature of, himself, but the rest of the cast, except Jack Elam and David Huddleston, is a pain to watch. I believe the piece of trivia that said Wayne felt Elam was a scene-stealer. He chewed up the scenery and spit it out. Jennifer O'Neill got a lot better between this film and 'Summer of '42.' I think Howard Hawks was wise to write her out of the last part of this film.

For some reason, most of the acting in "Rio Lobo" is not very good. John Wayne, Jack Elam, Chris Mitchum, and, in a difficult role, Victor French carry off the acting honors, with Bill Williams shining in his brief role.The story is involved, even complicated, not to say convoluted, ranging from the War Against Southern Independence to Wild West land shenanigans.There are three very attractive women, who have much more to do than just look pretty, but, sorry to say, only one gave much of a performance.Jerry Goldsmith wrote, as usual, an impressive score, and it amplified the action fittingly.The action and story were attributed to Burton Wohl, and he co-wrote the screenplay with prolific Leigh Brackett. Since I haven't read the original, I can't know how much was changed for the screenplay, but, as others have noted, much of the denouement was used in other films.But I give "Rio Lobo" high marks for John Wayne, the story, and Jerry Goldsmith's score. I urge you to watch it BUT, the print I saw at YouTube, supposedly "High Definition," is warped, and there are disconcerting jumps as scenes or camera angles change, and sometimes the background wobbles.Maybe there is a better print and I hope you find it. But do watch "Rio Lobo." It's not the greatest John Wayne movie, but it's a darn good John Wayne movie. And that puts it ahead of most other movies.

This movie starts in the Civil War and progresses from there. I don't know if the Rebs ever had an with a Latin accent but it is okay. The bee hive trick is a nice switch from blocking and blowing up the train. Wayne plays what appears to be his favorite rank, a Union colonel. He catches the two Rebs who engineered the robbery, jails them and meets them when the war is over to try and find out who the Union traitor was. Now civilians they proceed the town of Rio Lobo Here they run into Jennifer O'Neill who does a poor acting job in my opinion. They meet Jack Elam in town and he joins the team. I think Elam is fantastic in this role, funny as all get out. Of course they eventually find the bad guy and his crew, fight it out and win.

After so many years I finally sat and watched "Rio Lobo", and to my surprise it was an enjoyable western. Somehow this is the last installment of an unofficial "Rio trilogy" by Howard Hawks (it makes a little more sense to a Spanish speaking person), started with "Red River" (in Spanish, "Río Rojo"), and followed by "Rio Bravo". "Rio Lobo" is the weakest of the trio, both director and star (John Wayne) were past their primes, so it is not a surprise that they took it lightly and delivered an action comedy, in which a knock on the head is enough to put the enemy to sleep. By this time Italian westerns were preferred, and the best American genre examples were of the revisionist type, like "Ride the High Country", "The Wild Bunch", "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", or "Solder Blue", so I guess this one was received back then as old fashioned. But everybody seems to be enjoying the action; all the guys –in the best Hawksian tradition– do a good job, the women are active and aggressive, the romance between Jorge Rivero and Jennifer O'Neill is played for fun, and the music by Jerry Goldsmith is very good. Two examples of how times have changed: although both actors' names appear above the title in the opening credits, the size of Mexican actor Rivero's name is a third of Wayne's, while today credits are done in an almost equal fashion; and a key Mexican woman called Amelita is played by an actress that would seem more appropriate as an European member of emperor Maximilian I's court in Mexico (Sherry Lansing, who would become chief executive officer at Paramount and president of 20th Century-Fox).