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Post by wmcclain on Jun 4, 2019 10:47:46 GMT
Cowboy (1958), directed by Delmer Daves. Hotel clerk Jack Lemmon invests in a cattle drive, becoming partner to desperate trail boss Glenn Ford, who immediately regrets it. The boys work him hard, but dude though he is, he works and takes it seriously. After his Mexican girlfriend breaks his heart he becomes as tough as any of them. The studio promoted this as "the West as it really was", as if no one had made a realistic western before. Still, it illustrates truths sometimes forgotten: that the cowboys did the work because it was a job, not because they loved it. That the West was where they worked, but they would rather be back in Chicago with plenty of hot water, fine dining and yes, even opera. Jack Lemmon is an "indoor" sort of guy, but that makes him good as an outsider. You don't know what sort of grit a man will show until he is stressed. Same with Dick York and King Donovan: believably grubby on the trail, unusual roles for them. We're more used to seeing Brian Donlevy, Richard Jaeckel and uncredited Strother Martin in the saddle and they fit right in. What I remembered of this one from years ago: everyone kidding Donovan about having eaten an Indian once. "I only ate a haunch" he protests. And the tragic incident where Jaeckel throws a rattlesnake as a joke and kills Martin with it. And then wants his boots. Delmer Daves is hard to pin down as a director. He presents a sort of relaxed realism. Others would heighten dramatic tension with imagery, but he tends to let it go. Available on Blu-ray from Twilight Time with a commentary track by Julie Kirgo, Nick Redman and Paul Seydor. They say My Reminiscences as a Cowboy by Frank Harris, adapted for the film, is not exactly reliable history.
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Post by mattgarth on Jun 4, 2019 11:01:58 GMT
Third time around for Director Daves and Performer Ford, following JUBAL and 3:10 TO YUMA in the previous two years.
Thanks for the thread and your usual multiple images, Wm.
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Post by teleadm on Jun 4, 2019 17:45:11 GMT
I wrote this in an earlier review:
"I liked this movie and how it played out it's storyline, straight and to the point, and not much dillydally. Ford plays out his no-nonsense persona, charming when he needs to be and tough when he needs to be and he does it well. Lemmon is also good as the naive and opportunistic tenderfoot who follows his blind heart and a girl he has fallen in love with, only to get snubbed. Kashfi as the girl that Lemmon fell in love with has a rather thankless role of just looking pretty, and she is very pretty. Donlevy has a small but interesting role as a fastest gun and later sheriff who has growned tired of all the shooting and killing and young drunk punks who must test his fastest gun abilities all the time, I couldn't help but thinking that his role here was a sort of a continuation of his many bad men roles, if his characters had survived and had become older and wiser. The only things that I didn't like was the games they played for fun in the Mexican scenes, burying live hens that is to be picked up by the throat from horsebacks, and a bullring scene where it looks like a bull actually hurts a horse badly with his horns, but that might only be an observation with my modern eyes, but I don't think it should be edited out. I liked that the actual cowpunching was kept to only a necessary minimum".
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Post by mattgarth on Jun 5, 2019 12:24:55 GMT
Since your youth, Spider? So you saw it last year, then?
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jun 6, 2019 10:46:21 GMT
No, it ain't that. A man has to have something besides a gun and a saddle. You just can't make it all by yourself.
Cowboy is directed by Delmer Daves and adapted to screenplay by Edmund H. North and Dalton Trumbo from Frank Harris' book My Reminiscences as a Cowboy. It stars Glenn Ford, Jack Lemmon, Víctor Manuel Mendoza, Anna Kashfi, Dick York, King Donovan, Brian Donlevy and Richard Jaeckel. Music is by George Duning and cinematography by Charles Lawton Junior.
Based on Frank Harris' memoir, the story finds Lemmon as Harris, a Chicago hotel clerk who in an attempt to prove he is a man and impress the girl he loves, wrangles his way onto a cattle drive being led by rough and tough cowpoke Tom Reece (Ford). He soon finds that out there on the range, in amongst the dust, beef and perils of the west, that life is far from glamorous.
Once you buy into Lemmon as a Western character, accepting his transference from utter greenhorn into a man of the drive, it really becomes a very good film. It's a sort of debunking of the cowpoke myths whilst playing out as a character study of two men, who are polar opposites, as they build an understanding and ultimately help each other to grow and learn. Along the way, from Chicago to the Rio Grande, there is fights, death, stampedes and tests of loyalties and manhood. The great Delmer Daves directs it without fuss or filler (how nice that the romantic arc is rightly a side issue and doesn't get in the way) and Lawton's photography brings the sprawling landscapes to life.
Lead cast members are excellent, with Ford once again providing rich characterisation by way of layered acting, and Lemmon rises up to the challenge of genre work outside of what he would be known for. In support Donlevy is his usual excellent self, making what could have been a clichéd character (aging gunfighter wants to leave his past behind) interesting with emotional depth, and Mendoza as the Ramrod is good foil for Ford. There's some quibbles, such as Dick York hard to take seriously, Jaeckel and Strother Martin (uncredited) wasted and some of the humour doesn't come off. But this is a very enjoyable film, one that thrives on having some character depth and actually something worthy to say. 7.5/10
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