A radio version of Red River was aired in the late 40s with three of the original stars (John Wayne, Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru) and Jeff Chandler as Matt.

The story was redone for television in 1988 with James Arness as Dunson, Bruce Boxleitner as Matt, Ray Walston as Groot and Gregory Harrison as Cherry.

In John Wayne's final film, The Shootist (1976), archival footage from his previous movies was cut into the picture to represent the past of his character, J.B. Books. One of the films used was Red River.

The story of Red River draws liberally on the plot and character elements of the book (and 1935 movie version of) Mutiny on the Bounty, transposing the conflict between the stern captain and the rebellious young second-in-command on a British ship in the late 18th century to the American West of the late 1800s. Borden Chase, who wrote the story on which Red River was based, also worked on the screenplay for the 1935 film version of Bounty.

Red River also bears some resemblance to Come and Get It (1936), a film Hawks began that was taken over by William Wyler. In both films, there is a conflict between an older and younger man, father and foster son figures, who end up competing for the same woman; in the case of Come and Get It, the Frances Farmer character is a surrogate for the woman the older man loved and lost years before.

John Wayne's high regard for Red River was evident on screen for years thereafter. Whenever he could in other films, he wore a belt with a buckle that displayed the Dunson brand.

Both the book The Celluloid Closet and the 1995 documentary made from it referenced Red River as one of the classic Hollywood pictures with veiled homoerotic undertones. Joseph McBride and Gerald Peary, in an interview with Howard Hawks for Film Comment, commented on the gay subtexts of several of the director's films, particularly this one. Hawks' reply was that it was "a goddam silly statement to make." The exchanges between Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift) and Cherry Valance (John Ireland) have been especially singled out as coded homosexual dialogue (see Memorable Quotes).

In Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971), the movie shown as the last feature in the doomed movie house in the fading Texas town is Red River.

There is a Red River Computer Co. in New Hampshire whose founders named their business after the 1948 movie.

According to Hawks, Wayne's frequent director John Ford was so knocked out after seeing the actor as Tom Dunson in Red River, he remarked, "I never knew the big son of a bitch could act," and would thereafter come around and watch whenever Wayne worked with Hawks. After Red River, Ford began to cast Wayne in more complex parts. Also, in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wayne was cast as a character who, like Dunson, is older and dealing with the realities of a man past middle age. It is considered one of Wayne's best performances. Many critics have noted a greater continuity of performance and character in Wayne's work after Red River and have commented on how from this point he became much more of a collaborator in the films he made with everyone, even the often dictatorial Ford.

In his movie Rio Bravo (1959), Hawks encouraged 19-year-old Ricky Nelson to copy Montgomery Clift's mannerism from Red River, rubbing his nose with his index finger.

The song Dean Martin sings in the jail in Rio Bravo was originally written by Dimitri Tiomkin for Red River, but it was completed too late for use in the scene where a cowboy song was needed, so they substituted another one. But strains of the song can be heard in Red River's theme music, and the words were changed for use in the later movie.

Borden Chase's original story was published in novel form by Random House in 1948 as Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail to capitalize on the success of the film. A hardcover first edition of the book was being sold on line in late 2006 for $3,800.

A central feature of the Borden Chase work, evident in several other Westerns he wrote, is the relationship between two men, often deeply linked by a common bond, either in deadly conflict or in a father-son mentorship/rivalry.

by Rob Nixon