Actor John Wayne and director Howard Hawks were equally disgusted by the popular 1952 western High Noon. What peeved them most was the premise that the townsfolk of a western community would desert their sheriff at a time when he needed them most-and that said sheriff would be reduced to begging for assistance. In High Noon, only a callow kid, a drunk, and an old man stick by sheriff Gary Cooper when he faces a showdown; this throwaway sequence was supposed to indicate the tremulous Cooper's fall from grace. In response, Wayne, Hawks and screenwriter Leigh Brackett build the whole plot of Rio Bravo around Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne), callow kid Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson), drunken ex-deputy Dude (Dean Martin) and toothless old cripple Stumpy (Walter Brennan)-elevating each of the four principals to superhero status.