This volume is a study of the classic western film 'Rio Bravo', which, according to the author, remains 'beyond politics, as an argument as to why we should all want to go on living'.

Robin Wood is the author of many pioneering books on the cinema, among them Howard Hawks (1968/81) Hitchcock's Films Revisited (1969/2002) and Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond (1998).