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’69: Changing Hybrid : times Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid By Johnny D. Boggs By Thomas D. Clagett left, it turned right.” 1969 was a year of change: Richard In the fall of 1969, Butch Cassidy and One studio wanted to buy the script, Nixon’s inauguration … New York City’s the Sundance Kid opened to mixed re- Goldman recalled, but only if he re- Stonewall riot … Vietnam … desegrega- views. The Hollywood Reporter declared it wrote it and had Butch and Sundance tion … Woodstock … Apollo 11 …. “a great film.” Chicago Sun critic Roger stand and fight the super posse that Movies – Easy Rider and Midnight Cow- Ebert called it “slow and disappoint- was chasing them instead of running to boy – also changed in the year many his- ing,” adding that it “never gets up the South America. “I said, ‘But they did torians argue sent the Western film into a nerve, by God, to admit it’s a Western.” run to South America,’ and the studio permanent decline. After all, what more Ignoring the critics, audiences filled said, ‘I don’t care. All I know is, John could be said about the Old West after theaters where it played. It would be Wayne don’t run away.’” Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The nominated for seven , Though Richard D. Zanuck, head of Wild Bunch and once had including best picture and best director. 20th Century-Fox Studios, believed that finally won an Oscar (for True Grit)? What made Butch Cassidy and the “the traditional Western was some- “In many ways these three Westerns Sundance Kid significant to the West- thing you didn’t play around with,” he seemed like a death rattle to the genre,” ern genre and to 1969, (arguably the says Bob Boze Bell, executive editor at last milestone year for Western films), True West magazine and the artist who did was that it was and wasn’t a traditional the cover illustration, Butch and Sundance Western. The story of two real-life Ride into Hell, for this issue. outlaws, among the last in the Old “It wasn’t the end of Westerns, but it West, looked and felt like a Western, certainly put a period at the end of an with bank holdups, train robberies and era.” chases. But the dialogue possessed a Unless you count 1974’s Blazing Saddles, modern sensibility. And the musical 1969 marked the last time a Western score was anything but Western; more (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) was ’60s pop. The picture seemed like a the year’s top-grossing movie in America. Western hybrid. th Just before their 50 anniversaries, Screenwriter said Roundup examines four monumental he came across the story of Butch and Westerns – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Sundance in the late 1950s. “What Kid, True Grit, and Sergio moved me … was that they ran away. I’d Leone’s Italian-U.S. production Once Upon never seen that before. They ran away a Time in the West, a “spaghetti Western” and became legends bigger the second partially filmed in Utah-’s Monu- time.” ment Valley, which director “That’s what made the movie, its made iconic in Western cinema years complete unconventionality,” Paul earlier. Newman, cast as Butch Cassidy, said. “By the end of the sixties, America was “When you expected something to turn reeling from ubiquitous violence, grow- ing polarization, and countless assaults The fnal showdown for Butch () and Sundance (Robert Redford). on almost every imaginable American institution,” Richard Aquila writes in The Sagebrush Trail: Western Movies and Twentieth-Century America. “… numerous American westerns were questioning the image of the West as a glamorous land of freedom, opportunity, and redemption.”

The Last Word: Pulitzer Prize winner Glenn Frankel examines another 1969 “Western,” the X-rated, Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy14 ROUNDUP. Page MAGAZINE 43 DECEMBER 2018 still saw the potential and purchased knew he wasn’t a comedy actor. As- Crawford recalled the audience howled. the screenplay for, at that time, the sociate producer Robert Crawford Jr. re- “Everyone was pleased, except George unheard-of price of $400,000. called Hill telling Newman, “This isn’t who said, ‘They laughed at my tragedy; was hired to direct, a comedy, it’s an historical Western. they don’t get the end of my movie.’” though he had never made a West- The comedy will take care of itself. Just “We went back to the editing room,” ern before. However, that seemed to play it real.” Goldman said, “and we set about con- work in his favor. According to Sil- Playing it real also provided an irony sciously taking out laughs.” verado screenwriter/director Lawrence for Butch in the film. After arriving in Shot for an estimated $6 million, the Kasdan, Hill brought “a freshness to Bolivia, Butch and Sundance give up film earned more than $102 million. It the genre. He was not embarrassed to their outlaw ways, taking jobs as payroll went on to win Oscars for original screen- have fun with it, things that would have guards. Bandits rob them of the gold play, cinematography, song and music made a more purist Western director they are carrying to the mine they work score. blanch.” for now, and Butch and Sundance face For all its humor, freshness and being a “The picture was designed for a them in a bloody gunfight. Looking at different kind of Western, it presents one contemporary feel,” Hill said, adding the dead bodies of the bandits, Sundance of the great Western themes. that Goldman’s dialogue, “where it isn’t says, “Well, we’ve gone straight. What’ll About half way through the film, Sher- actually anachronistic, has a very con- we try now?” Butch looks stricken. iff Bledsoe (played by Jeff Corey) tells temporary rhythm and sound to it.” “Killing was something Butch had never Butch and Sundance, “You’re two-bit out- Even so, Robert Redford, who played had to do as an outlaw,” Hill said. laws on the dodge. … Your times is over the Sundance Kid, said, “There was a While many moviegoers enjoyed and you’re going to die bloody.” The grim fear it was maybe a little too clever.” watching this atypical Western, Burt expressions on their faces say they realize Filming began on September 16, Bacharach’s bouncy music score, it, and the film ends with those haunting 1968. To achieve the washed-out look particularly the song, “Raindrops Keep words coming true. he wanted, Hill chose Conrad Hall as Falling on My Head,” baffled, and even After a shoot-out with local police in a his cinematographer. irritated, some. Bolivian village, Butch and Sundance lay Locations included , New Hill said he intended to have a wounded and bleeding inside a cantina, , Utah and Cuernavaca in semi-modern score for the film, and but believe that they can still get away. Get- Mexico. Goldman recalled that the director also ting to their feet, the two friends run out- As Butch and Sundance, New- decided he wanted a musical scene. “I side, unaware that over a hundred Bolivian man and Redford are two of the most wrote one with Butch and Etta Place, soldiers are waiting on the rooftops with charming and amiable outlaws. They [Sundance’s girlfriend, played by Katha- rifles ready. Hill freezes the frame showing play off each other like an old mar- rine Ross,] riding a bicycle. Then he these two friends, their guns drawn and ried couple. “I don’t enjoy jungles and wanted a song.” firing, while the sound of rifle volleys echo I don’t enjoy swamps,” Butch says. “I Hill designed the staging with Butch over and over. A melancholy tune plays don’t like snakes. I don’t much care clowning on a bicycle while Etta as the image dissolves into sepia tone, for night work.” Sundance responds, watches. It was undeniably something like a fading memory, holding Butch and “Bitch, bitch, bitch.” After Butch ex- new and unexpected and perhaps Sundance frozen in time, punctuating the plains his idea about going to Bolivia, intended to show that these “raindrops” bittersweet passing of the Old West. Sundance says, “You just keep thinking were as out of place as Butch and Sun- Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” dance had become. Sources Butch shakes his head and says, “I got “I thought [the film] was doomed The Making of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” vision and the rest of the world wears because they had a dumb song in the Robert Crawford Productions, 1971 All of What Follows is True: The Making of “Butch bifocals.” It’s hard not to like them. middle of it,” Redford said, and later Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Fox Home Video, 2006 In the scene where Butch and his realized how wrong he was. The Writer Speaks: William Goldman. Writers gang blow up a boxcar while robbing A preview was held in San Francisco. Guild Foundation, 2010 a train, the super posse bursts from a pursuing train and gives chase. Butch The bicycle scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was flmed outside this house in the ghost town of Grafton, Utah. Wikimedia Commons asks Sundance how many of the posse are following them. “All of them,” Sundance says. “All of them!” Butch cries, then points at the other members of his gang galloping away in another direction and shouts, “What’s the mat- ter with those guys?” His indignation sells the line. But Newman was concerned about the comedic aspects of the film. He DECEMBER 2018 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 15 15 wanted. He was moving into a kind of spectacle thing, and that’s understand- able after Good, Bad, and Ugly did so well, but I thought he’d gotten more concerned with epic scale than any- thing else.” Leone turned to , whom he had wanted opposite East- wood in For a Few Dollars More, for “Harmonica,” the gunman tracking his father’s assassin, played by . Fonda was Leone’s only choice for the killer, but the actor wasn’t sure of the project and had to be talked into doing it by his friend Eli Wallach. Fonda arrived on the Spanish loca- tion wearing brown contact lenses and an Edwin Booth moustache, masking his familiar image. Leone nixed all of it. He wanted the classic, heroic, screen-Fonda to contrast with his character’s cold manner, a stripe of the actor’s own personality that Ford cap- ‘Strange experience’ tured in Fort Apache, a Leone favorite. Once Upon a Time in a spaghetti opera Leone added Jason Robards, Lionel Stander, Woody Strode and Keenan By C. Courtney Joyner tually be hailed as a masterpiece. Wynn, replacing who “Well, there were the three of us. Once Upon a Time in the West was was called away to do The Wild Bunch. Woody Strode, and me, and the third reluctantly conceived in a projection Despite all of the men and all of the guy who was a very well-known Eng- booth of a Rome theater during a gunplay, it is actually Claudia Cardi- lish heavy. He was the guy who cracked showing of The Good, The Bad, and the nale who is the spiritual heart of Once his knuckles, and I can’t think of his Ugly. Film critics Dario Argento and Upon a Time in the West. name. And we had many strange ex- Bernardo Bertolucci, both of whom Cardinale, as the prostitute who mar- periences shooting the scene, with that would have enormous directing careers, ries a man “because he was kind,” but guy killing himself and all that stuff.” were meeting with Leone to discuss his finds herself a widow before the mar- It was 1979, and Jack Elam had future projects. Devotees of West- riage can even begin, shows the most graciously agreed to discuss his career erns, they had hoped Leone would strength of all the characters, doing with me when he lobbed that bomb- continue in the genre. However, after what she must to survive, then triumph. shell about the suicide of actor Al Mu- his triumphs with The Man with No In glorious irony, the men settle their lock during the filming of the classic Name (played by Clint Eastwood), the differences with pistols, while she uses opening to Sergio Leone’s 1969 C’era filmmaker wanted to move on. But the her brains as the new owner of a patch una volta il West aka Once Upon a Time in studios had other ideas. of land worth millions to the incoming the West. Years later Leone artfully put it, railroad. At the time we spoke, the death of “There is no forgiveness for success. If Leone luxuriates in Cardinale’s Mulock or the fact that he was doubled you do one thing, and it makes money, beauty and grace, her movements the by a crew member for half the scene of then that’s what they want you to do key to some of the film’s most amazing the trio waiting for Charles Bronson, forever.” visual moments. He follows her, then wasn’t common knowledge, although Leone hired Argento and Bertolucci pulls back, constantly widening his Elam took it for granted. After spend- to work out a story as the three im- shot, to show Cardinale framed by a ing days in blistering heat, his face cov- mersed themselves in John Ford and new and building West that she will be ered in watermelon juice to attract flies Raoul Walsh Westerns. With Leone, a part of. We see it, as she sees it, and so he could trap one in his pistol, and Sergio Donati refined the treatment it’s a cinema-miracle for the eyes, as the problems the film had up to this into a script that went immediately to Leone wants it to be. point, the tragedy was another “strange Eastwood, who passed. Since he would not be using syn- experience” in the making of Leone’s Eastwood said: “I felt Sergio was chronized sound, Leone had composer Western tone-poem, which would even- going in a different direction than I Ennio Morricone record four separate

16 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2018 themes for the characters of Bronson, fashioned an astonishing film that cieties, and critics who reassessed their Fonda, Robards and Cardinale to be swept Europe on its release, but failed judgments, it was finally hailed as a played on-set to help the mood, and in the amid a mountain true masterpiece and among the finest also get the actors to move in time with of poor reviews. Desperate to recoup, movies ever made. the music as they filmed, rather than Paramount sheared the epic to pieces, Reflecting on the film’s immortal sta- have the music simply augment the before dumping it onto double bills and tus, years after the death of its creator, finished visuals. selling it to television. Cardinale said, “Sergio had a dream of Despite initial disinterest, clashes But Once Upon a Time in the West what the Western could be, and that’s with actors and a suicide, Leone refused to die. Resurrected by film so- what cinema is, a dream.” Peckinpah’s masterpiece, The Wild Bunch, bucked the odds

By W.K. Stratton place. It was a cowboy picture that production but had come through the In the spring of 1968, director Sam came out at a time when Hollywood television industry, frowned upon by Peckinpah led a company of actors considered Westerns to be passé. Peck- the movie elite. All things considered, and crew members to Parras de la inpah had been blacklisted in the movie The Wild Bunch should have been a Fuente in southern , Mexico, industry, not for his politics, but for disaster. to begin work on a his alcoholism and his refusal to play Roy Sickner had become a top that would change American movies corporate games with producers and stuntman when he signed on to work forever. It was called The Wild Bunch. film executives. The star of The Wild on Brynner’s Kings of the Sun, which It caused a sensation when it was Bunch, , had stopped was shot in Mazatlán and Yucatán. released in June 1969 and received cru- taking filmmaking seriously and was an While in Mexico, Sickner dreamed up cial acclaim and damnation. It made alcoholic himself. Just months earlier, what he thought would be a sure-fire money, finishing the year solidly in the he had killed a man in a drunken driv- hit movie: Some American Old West black. In subsequent years, The Wild ing accident. The idea for the picture outlaws stage a robbery in the U.S. and Bunch came to be regarded as a classic, wasn’t derived from a bestselling novel flee to Mexico with an American posse receiving accolades from the Ameri- or any factual historic event. It was on their heels. Mexican authorities also can Film Institute and many other dreamed up by a stuntman during pick up the chase, and then there is a organizations. Over time, it came to be down time while working on a Yul huge shootout at the end. From early ranked as one of the most profitable Brynner bomb of a movie. The screen- on, the stuntman had a name for his movies that Warner Bros. ever released. writer was not one of Hollywood’s project, The Wild Bunch. Sickner could But it was a miracle that The Wild gilded scribes, but a guy who had never not turn loose of the concept, crude as Bunch went into production in the first written a movie script. A number of it was, and when he returned to Los the crew members had little to no Angeles, he enlisted some old friends, experience working on a big screen including , to try to draft

Above, William Holden as Pike Bishop in the fnal gunfght. Right, portrait of the posse, led by Robert Ryan (standing rear, center), that pursues Pike Bishop’s gang.

DECEMBER 2018 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 17 17 happiest when he was in Mexico. He filled by a Puerto Rico native. Prior to enlarged concepts Green had embedded The Wild Bunch, it was unheard of for a in the script: men caught outside their major American movie to cast Latinos time, men who fail to recognize certain in every Latino part. codes of behavior, men who love each Wanting to best director other, men who betray each other, bad at his own game, Peckinpah was intent men who, in the end, stand up to do on taking use of slow-motion violence the right thing. The Wild Bunch script to levels beyond what Penn used in gave Peckinpah the chance to explore Bonnie and Clyde. Peckinpah did just themes important to him. One was the that. Peckinpah also outdid Penn when dehumanizing effect of technology in it came to using stage-blood squibs to Director , left, and William the modern world. The other was the portray gunshot wounds realistically. Holden talk on the set of The Wild Bunch. Wikimedia Commons horror of violent death, which Peckin- Peckinpah employed the absolute best pah believed had never been realistically when it came to his crew, true artists a treatment, but to no avail. He met portrayed on film. like cinematographer Walon Green while working on a Mar- As Peckinpah worked on the screen- and film editors and lon Brando flop and eventually hired play, a revolution was occurring in Robert Wolfe. Working with such talent, Green, untested as a writer, to draft a Hollywood. The old studio system col- Peckinpah was able to elevate The Wild treatment and screenplay. lapsed. Most important for Peckinpah, Bunch beyond the realm of typical West- Sickner couldn’t have made a better some shady money men who had been erns. He created a work of art, worthy choice. Green had spent a significant keeping Warner Bros. afloat decided it of inclusion alongside the best work of portion of his life in Mexico, attend- was time to force Jack Warner to sell his masters like Fellini and Kurosawa. ing college there and then working for controlling interest in the studio he and Though Warner Bros.’ convoluted a Mexican swimming-pool company. his brothers had founded long before bookkeeping made it impossible to His job brought him into contact with World War I. The new head of produc- accurately judge how much money the a number of survivors of the Mexican tion at Warners had been impressed by film made that year, it was clearly a hit. Revolution, including a general who be- Peckinpah’s earlier work and enlisted It is safe to say that while other pictures came the model for Mapache, the villain Sam as a director. No one could have from that year made more money, none of The Wild Bunch. Green created the been more surprised than Peckinpah. generated more controversy. Critics Rex movie’s story, and provided names for His first project foundered in prepro- Reed and Judith Crist hated it because most of the characters. In essence, he duction. But Peckinpah had The Wild of its portrayal of violence and the lack completed the rough carpentry for the Bunch up his sleeve, and, at just the right of an upbeat ending. Others understood picture. Then Green left the project. For moment, he pushed a copy of the script it to be a classic from the beginning. the finish carpentry, Sickner turned to into the hands of an important Warners Young declared it to be a his old friend and drinking buddy Peck- producer, who loved it. In relatively masterpiece – and he was right. inpah, who was down on his luck. After short order, The Wild Bunch went into The Wild Bunch never went away. It a brilliant start to his career as a writer production, with Peckinpah’s name on played revival houses in L.A. with, as and director, first in television and then the back of the director’s chair. observed, audiences with , Peckinpah’s Peckinpah assembled an extraordi- that seemed to be half university profes- career bottomed out. His big-budget nary cast and crew. Stalwarts like Ernest sors and half Hells Angels. Its cult fol- epic, , turned out to be a Borgnine, Robert Ryan, , lowing only grew with the introduction disaster, because of the interference of , Strother Martin, Dub of home video (and the restoration of studio executives and mistakes Peckin- Taylor and L.Q. Jones were well known the release cut of the picture Peckinpah pah made on his own. He subsequently to fans of American Westerns. As was originally OK’d). was fired off and Holden, who played the picture’s lead. Eventually, more than three dozen Villa Rides. He had some success with Holden had been mailing in perfor- books would be written about Peckin- a TV adaptation of Katharine Anne mances after The Bridge on the River pah, with his great Mexican Revolution Porter’s “,” but the odds Kwai, yet Peckinpah managed to draw masterpiece at the center of most of were stacked against him for directing a out the best performance of Holden’s them. I first saw The Wild Bunch when it theatrical release again. career. Peckinpah also cast some of the was new. I was 13, and I left the theater Peckinpah had turned to scriptwrit- best actors from Mexico, including sig- at once in awe and in trauma. Like ing to pay the bills when Sickner asked nificant stars like Sonia Amelio, Alfonso many people, I’ve watched it countless him to do rewrites on The Wild Bunch. Arau and Jorge Russek, many of whom times since, always with a growing sense But Peckinpah found that the yarn had never acted in American films. of appreciation for what Peckinpah Green had concocted was full of artistic Peckinpah broke new ground by casting accomplished. I find myself thinking possibilities. Peckinpah loved Mexico, Mexicans or Mexican-Americans in about The Wild Bunch every day. its history, culture and people. He felt every Mexican role, except one that was 18 18 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2018 True Grit: True triumph for Duke By Andrew Patrick Nelson “When the John Wayne retrospec- When John Wayne read the galley tives are in full swing,” William Wolf proofs for Charles Portis’s 1968 novel wrote in Cue, “this will loom as one True Grit – about an irascible, one-eyed of his finest movie triumphs.” Even lawman named Rooster Cogburn who critics who had berated Wayne the year helps a precocious young girl track before for his pro-Vietnam War movie down her father’s murderer – he saw The Green Berets were won over. “The not only the makings of a great movie, curious thing about True Grit,” opined but a part he was born to play. Fortu- Vincent Canby in the New York Times, nately for Duke, producer Hal Wallis, “is that although he is still playing a Publicity still, above, and book covers from True Grit. who outbid Wayne’s Batjac production variation on the self-assured service- company for the rights to the project, man he has played so many times in history. Take the Academy’s agreed. the past, the character that seemed gro- own practice of awarding Filmed mostly on location in the tesque in Vietnam fits into this frontier trophies as recompense for fall of 1968 in picturesque Ouray landscape, emotionally and perhaps past snubs. Henry Fonda, County, Colorado (standing in, rather politically too.” Al Pacino, Jessica Lang and implausibly, for Arkansas and Indian True Grit went on to earn $14.3 mil- Denzel Washington all should Territory), True Grit teamed Wayne for lion in rentals, making it the eighth- have earned Oscars for ear- the sixth and final time with veteran biggest hit of 1969. Talk quickly lier, better performances than director . Hathaway turned to a possible Academy Award those they ultimately won cut his teeth directing Randolph Scott nomination for Wayne, who had been for, but, hey, better late than in a series of Zane Grey adaptations in nominated only once for the best-actor never. That’s the perception, the 1930s and had helmed a string of prize, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). A at least. popular Westerns in the , includ- win for True Grit might make up for And this perception is ing (1966), three-fifths of what many, including Wayne, saw as a particularly strong in the How the West Was Won (1962) and the career’s worth of slights. case of Wayne’s win for True Wayne vehicles (1960) On April 7, 1970, at the 42nd Acad- Grit, the understanding being and (1965). emy Awards, Wayne finally won his that, arguably, he should have Starring opposite Wayne in True Grit Oscar. Accepting the trophy from pre- won for some earlier movie, was television actress Kim Darby as senter Barbara Streisand, he cracked, like Red River (1948) or The Mattie Ross and country musician “Wow, if I’d known that, I’d have put Searchers (1956). Glen Campbell as the Ranger La on that patch 35 years earlier.” True Grit was released at a turn- Boeuf. Greatness and influence are of course ing point in the history of American All involved in the production felt much easier to judge in retrospect than cinema, when the Hollywood of that True Grit would be a hit. Those forecast in advance, and Oscar wins are old, with its integrated studios and premonitions proved correct when the seldom an accurate predictor of which content-regulating Production Code, film opened in June 1969 to big box movies and performances will stand the was giving way to a “new” Hollywood office and rave reviews. test of time and shape the course of film of film-school-trained talent and adult-oriented fare. Yet this was also a pivotal moment in the Lobby card shows John Wayne and Kim Darby. criticism. A new generation of critics, weaned on ideas originally imported from France, championed filmmakers like and John Ford as “authors” whose films expressed a personal vision of the world. Conse- quently, many movies regarded in their day as solid or even exemplary genre pictures were being re-evaluated and hailed as masterpieces. Wayne had long recognized the significance of some of his roles, as had a few of his contemporaries. After TRUE GRIT (continued on page 39)

DECEMBER 2018 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 19 J.R. Hightower (817) 229-0134 (Home, cell) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hightower’s debut novel is Alone on [email protected] True Grit is not generally regarded as a Pasture Ridge (iUniverse, 2018). great film. The Wild Bunch and Butch Cas- Daniel Seligman sidy and the Sundance Kid routinely rank 308 Knotty Pine Lane This retired engineer with a lifelong in polls of “best Westerns,” alongside Coeur d’Alene, ID 83815 interest in the old The Searchers, Red River and Stagecoach (757) 272-6234 (Cell) West has written (1939). True Grit, meanwhile, remains [email protected] articles for Wild “the movie that won Duke the Oscar.” West magazine, Malcolm Hotzman This reputation is unfortunate for a including “Bound This retired registered number of reasons. and Determined” nurse, who also spent eight True Grit might not be a great film, and “This Scout years in the Navy, has writ- but it is certainly a very good one, Lived With the ten his first novel, Bitter bolstered by Lucien Ballard’s hand- Enemy” (both August 2018) and True Vengeance: A Walt Johnson some cinematography, gorgeous autumn West magazine, including “The Flawed Adventure (Outlaws Pub- scenery, witty dialog and an unorthodox Gentleman Bandit” (December 2013) lishing/Amazon Digital, revenge plot. Campbell’s acting is, shall and “Frank Butler, Much Maligned 2018). we say, amiably amateurish, but Darby Husband” (March 2013). 12 China Berry Circle is delightful as the headstrong Mattie. 127 Highgate Street Carriere, MS 39426 Wayne’s turn as Cogburn is not the best Needham, MA 02492 (769) 926-2538 (Home) of his career. It might not even be the (781) 444-4194 (Home, work) (936) 371-9190 (Cell) best of his later years. But it is a fine (617) 515-8810 (Cell) [email protected] performance nonetheless, where the [email protected] Eric Lancaster actor’s now famous bouts of burlesque, Lancaster has written To Tom Tatum like Cogburn falling off his horse, drunk, Hell on a Fast Horse Telluride Top of are balanced by an equal number of (CreateSpace, 2018). the World (Outskirts subtle, sometimes melancholy moments, 1502 Maple Street Press, 2018) is the se- like the marshal shamefully admitting to Everett, WA 98201 quel to Tatum’s first Mattie that he has already spent her $25 (859) 420-0773 (Cell) novel, Fiji 1970. advance. Relative to Butch Cassidy and the [email protected] 87 Vista Del Ocaso Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch, both Ranchos de Taos, of which meditate upon “the end of the NM 87557 Mark Edward Langley West,” it’s hard not to see True Grit as (213) 999-5970 (Cell) Langley’s first novel is a throwback to earlier times. But while [email protected] Path of the Dead, the first academic histories of the Western fawn TomTatumAuthor.com book in the “Arthur Nakai over the “revisions” carried out in the Mystery” series (Blackstone 1960s and ’70s by filmmakers like Sergio Publishing, 2018). Leone, Sam Peckinpah and Robert Alt- TRUE GRIT (from page 19) 607 Sunburst Lane man, the average moviegoer of the time Middlebury, IN 46540 the Duke’s haunting turn as Ethan was far more interested in seeing Duke (708) 917-2375 (Home, Edwards in The Searchers, Gregory saddle up again. Right up to his death work, cell) Peck, Gary Cooper, Kirk Douglas and in 1979, Wayne remained one of Hol- [email protected] others sought out their own psycho- lywood’s most popular stars, and True MarkEdwardLangley.com logically scarred antiheroes in dark Grit and his subsequent Westerns like Big Wayne Ludwig Westerns like The Bravados (1958), Man Jake (1971), The Cowboys (1972) and The Ludwig’s debut nonfic- of the West (1959) and The Last Sunset Shootist (1976) consistently out-earned tion book, The Old Chisholm (1961). By the late 1960s, many more those of Peckinpah, Altman and even Trail: From Cow Path to had come around to the idea that the Clint Eastwood. Tourist Stop, was released in venerable Wayne, though perhaps not In this way, True Grit represented not September by Texas A&M a great actor, had at least given great only what the Western had been, but University Press. A cor- performances in some important films. also what it was, and would continue responding article, “The The perception that Wayne was re- to be over the course of the 1970s, the Truth About the Chisholm warded in 1969 for a performance from Western’s last decade as a part of main- Trail,” is scheduled for the February 1956 or 1948 does little to bolster True stream popular culture. As Cogburn tells issue of Wild West magazine. Grit’s reputation, though. Mattie early in the movie, “Baby sister, 2848 Major Street Unlike two other important West- I was born game, and I intend to go out Fort Worth, TX 76112 erns released in 1969, The Wild Bunch that way.” DECEMBER 2018 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 39 39 THE LAST WORD

That other 1969 Western … It’s the only X-rated film ever to win Alamo is the last film advertised on the Oscar for best picture. It also won the rusting marquee of the shuttered best director for John Schlesinger, one Rio movie theater. Early in the film, of the most underrated filmmakers a housewife asked on the radio who of the era, and best would be her ideal lover answers Gary adapted screenplay for , a Cooper, “but he’s dead.” When Joe’s brilliant writer who overcame being antagonistic new pal Ratso Rizzo blacklisted for his derides Joe’s cowboy outfit of black Communist Party hat, suede jacket and cowboy boots membership and a as “strictly for fags,” Joe invokes the crushing depen- greatest Western hero of all in his own dency on alcohol defense: “John Wayne, you wanna tell to write some of me he’s a fag?” the best scripts of But it’s the underlying themes of the 1970s. It also Midnight Cowboy that are its true links GLENN FRANKEL features some of to the Western. The movie is about the most compel- friendship, loyalty, masculinity, loneli- ling performances in movie history, ness and seeking to make a fresh start starting with its two male leads, Jon and try to prove yourself as a stranger Voight and . in a strange land. In the end, Joe Buck OK, great, but who’d be crazy establishes his self-worth by trying, enough to argue that Midnight Cowboy, albeit unsuccessfully, to save the life a movie about a male hustler and his of his sick friend. Wyatt Earp did the tubercular con-man sidekick in Times same for the ailing . Square in the raucous, rancid 1960s, is Novelist James Leo Herlihy told truly a Western? friends he was writing an anti-hero Me for one. At the least, it’s a Western. Just as Marshal Will Kane Western in reverse. Time was when in High Noon faces down the bad guys young men went West, as per Horace in the noon-day sun, Joe Buck faces Greeley’s unsolicited advice. But Joe his own demons at midnight. “It was Above, Joe () confronts Ratso Buck, the tall, handsome young Army the dark side of the American hero,” (Dustin Hoffman) in Midnight Cowboy. veteran from Texas with limited brain Herlihy’s friend Dick Duane told me. power but plenty of ambition, is mov- “Jamie was fascinated by the dualism.” ing in the opposite direction, hopping a Even Wayne had to admit that 42nd Street searching for customers. bus from his hometown of Big Spring Midnight Cowboy was onto something. He passes a half dozen other young to New York seeking fortune and fame. Wayne beat out both Voight and Hoff- hustlers, each dressed in Western garb, The weapon he wields to conquer the man for best male actor at the 1970 striking poses and waiting. All of them Big Apple isn’t a six-shooter but his Oscars for his performance in True are in hostile territory trying to survive, own sexuality. Joe Buck is catnip to Grit. Still, the torch was being passed hoping to save up enough cash to pay lonely, affluent, older women, or at that evening. Although he hated the the rent and get off the mean streets least he thinks so. It turns out his busi- gay context of Midnight Cowboy, call- before winter comes. Then the majestic ness model is fatally flawed – the kind ing it “perverted,” Wayne expressed harmonica player Toots Thielemans of female clientele he hopes to service a grudging respect for his two young launches into the Midnight Cowboy doesn’t go to Times Square to pick up competitors. “Damn, Hoffman and theme song, a plaintive instrumental rough trade. The only customers Joe Voight were good,” he reportedly told that beautifully captures Joe’s longing manages to attract are a few lonely gay a group of friends after watching the and loneliness. All that’s lacking is a men. film. “Both of them. More than good – howling coyote and some sagebrush Joe knows his cinematic roots and great. That is acting.” tumbling down the bleak urban canyon feels a certain kinship. There’s a poster There’s a revealing scene toward known as Times Square. of Paul Newman in Hud on his motel the middle of the film when Joe Buck, Hell yes it’s a Western. room wall, and John Wayne’s The desperate for money, sets out down

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