Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Daffy Duck Merrie Melodies cartoon, the 1942 Daffy's Southern Exposure , directed by Norman McCabe.
This is the first Daffy Duck short to be directed by Norman McCabe and the first short Norman McCabe directed to not feature Porky Pig.
Before the start of our feature presentation, ACME would like to take a moment to remember Nichelle Nickols:
Discovered by Duke Ellington in her mid-teens, she toured with both Ellington and Lionel Hampton as a lead singer and dancer. Decades later, in 1992, she went back to her singing roots, starring in a dramatic one-woman musical show called Reflections, in which she became 12 separate song legends. She was also able to use her singing skills several times on Star Trek.
We've picked another entry from the excellent reference book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider. Today's film is the Howard Hawks directed and produced 1959 western, Rio Bravo, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond. It’s Howard Hawks' plan that Rio Bravo as an answer to High Noon, a film he admired for its craft but despised for its story. John Wayne was openly critical of High Noon, going so far as to call it “Un-American.” More than a half-century later, both productions are generally regarded as classics. In 2014, Rio Bravo was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like you to join us in watching this classic western, Rio Bravo. So push away from the table, get comfortable and enjoy the film.
Howard Hawks always wanted someone who would connect with teenagers to play Colorado. Reportedly, his first choice was Elvis Presley, who was enthusiastic about the opportunity. Unfortunately, Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, wanted too much money and top billing. Neither Hawks nor John Wayne would have any of it, so the search continued. Hawks did not want to cast Ricky Nelson, whom he considered to be both too young and too lightweight, and deliberately gave him the fewest possible number of lines for a third-billed star. However, he later admitted that having Nelson's name on the poster had probably added $2 million to the film's box office performance.
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