People have been warring over land for as long as there hasbeen land: wasn't that basically what Cain and Abel argued about? (Okay, it's a bit of a stretch, but work with me.) So here, in a Howard Hawks motion picture, John Wayne's Cole Thornton comes riding into El Dorado to take a side, but the side that hires him isn't the side he ends up taking. It's pretty standard stuff, especially in your typical 20th Century Western, but that doesn't mean it's not entertaining when Wayne and Robert Mitchum are involved.

First, there's the Jason clan (led by Ed Asner) who try first to hire Thornton and then later a wild gunslinger, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George). If it's not funny enough to see Asner forty-odd years ago with hair, there's the added bonus of James Caan as Mississippi, a new cowboy-gunslinger who has a personal beef with McLeod and allies himself with Thornton and the deputy, Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt). On the other side is the McDonald clan and their attempt to make an honest living for themselves while battling the wicked Jason and McLeod tandem. Mitchum plays El Dorado's sheriff, J.P. Harrah, who ends up being an alcoholic that Thornton first rescues, restores to authority and establishes again as the town law. (If anything is unredeemable about the movie, it's Caan's turn as a Chinese laundryman!)

Throughout the film, the themes of family, loyalty, bravery, honor, and justice weave their way throughout the storyline. Thornton accidentally mortally wounds one of the McDonald boys and feels obligated to take up their cause against Jason. The villains aren't above double-crossing, backstabbing, and lying in wait, but Thornton has more to overcome: he's dealing with the on-and-off again paralysis brought on by a bullet lodged near his spine. Actually, by the end of the movie, Mitchum and Wayne have hobbled around one way or another, like the Freeman-Hackman combination in Unforgiven!

Still, regardless of their injuries or the crowd stacked against them, these two hero gunslingers battle to the bitter end against these forces of evil and corruption. Thankfully though, they're part of a community that works together, with the help of Mississippi, Bull, and the women who stand with them. This is a town's success story: the evil is driven back by the love of community and the justice of the people.

This edition also comes with interviews by filmmakers, historians, and Asner himself, as well as "Ride, Boldly Ride: The Journey to El Dorado," "The Artist and the American West," and "Behind the Gates: A.C. Lyles Remembers John Wayne."