Red River: Bogdanovich Cut

According to Peter Bogdanovich, “Red River” director Howard Hawks conveyed in an interview that he preferred the 127-minute theatrical cut/voice version (VV), citing the additional editing refinements made over the earlier 133-minute pre-release cut/book version (BV) and favouring Walter Brennan’s narration over pages of onscreen text.

It is widely known though that a climactic sequence during the final five minutes was compromised in the VV due to the interference of Howard Hughes, who cried plagiarism because of the similarities between it and his earlier film “The Outlaw” (which Hawks also worked on) and demanded changes. Many iterations were made in a back-and-forth between Hughes and the film's editor Christian Nyby until both were satisfied, but in the latter's words it "...still isn't right...", feeling disjointed when viewed on its own and a right let-down if one is familiar with the smoother way the same sequence plays out in BV.

Bogdanovich believed that “…the absolutely perfect version that Howard Hawks would have approved…” would play the like VV until these last five minutes, when Wayne “…starts walking through the cows…”, at which point it changes to the BV with the original intact ending. That has now more-or-less been done, in a small sense finally finishing off the film about a decade since those comments were made and nearly 75 years after it was first released.