John Wayne, the big guy with the battered hat... and Dean Martin, the ragged woman-wrecked castoff called Dude... and Ricky Nelson, the rockin' babyfaced gunfisted kid... and time was running out through bullet holes at Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo"!

The sheriff of a small town in southwest Texas must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape. After a friend is killed trying to muster support for him, he and his deputies - a disgraced drunk and a cantankerous old cripple - must find a way to hold out against the rancher's hired guns until the marshal arrives. In the meantime, matters are complicated by the presence of a young gunslinger - and a mysterious beauty who just came in on the last stagecoach.