In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “I’d never say that The Unforgiven is a good movie. But I also can’t say that I wasn’t entertained by it.”
“I’ve left my family. They’ve changed. Turned into Indian lovers; Injun lovers.”
John Ford and John Wayne’sThe Searchers is widely recognised as one of the greatest westerns ever made. In fact, when I wrote about it here on Bored and Dangerous, it was as part of my countdown of the American Film Institute’s Top 100 American movies. While the performance from Wayne is one of his absolute best, and the film making of Ford only gets more impressive with every rewatch, the political and social views haven’t aged so well. So when I read that The Unforgiven (similar to Clint Eastwood’s 1992 masterpiece in name and genre only) was director John Huston’s answer to those troubling political and social views, I was intrigued to see what he had to say. The Unforgiven is a response and polar opposite to The Searches. It just does something I had assumed was impossible, and presents something even more troubling than the movie it’s responding to.
With his father dead, Ben (Burt Lancaster) has become the patriarch of the Zachary family. There’s his old but spry mother Mattilda (Lillian Gish), hot head brother Cash (Audie Murphy) and adopted sister Rachel (Audrey Hepburn). It’s Rachel and her adoption that brings trouble to the Zachary clan and drives the plot of The Unforgiven. (more…)
In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “This is a move that takes some of the broadest and most over used character types, puts them through some of the broadest, most over used character arcs, and comes out the other side with seven truly unique men, each with their own fully formed, fully engaging stories.”
“If you get killed, we take the rifle and avenge you. And we see to it there’s always fresh flowers on your grave.”
It’s rare that movie remakes ever come close to reaching the notoriety of the originals that inspired them. Way more common are remakes being met with cynical distrust or dismissal. So it’s even more rare for a remake to become as well known as its original, especially when that original is widely regarded as one of the absolute greatest movies of all time. That original is Akira Kurosawa’sThe Seven Samurai, a genuine epic masterpiece that deserves every bit of praise it has ever received. It’s remake is an exercise in mainstream genre crowd pleasing that may not have the prestige of its inspiration, but makes up for that by being one of the most purely entertaining movies ever, The Magnificent Seven.
After the Mexican bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach) raids a small village for what is obviously just the latest of many attacks, the villagers decide to fight back. They cross the border into America, looking to buy guns for self defence. They meet Chris Adams (Yul Brynner), who convinces them to hire gunslingers instead. A group of gunslingers he will himself assemble, despite the modest amount the villagers can afford to pay. His recruitment starts with drifter Vin Tanner (Steve McQueen), after the two bond over their inability to cope with the taming of the formerly wild west. (more…)
In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “Stagecoach might not be as visually rich and emotionally complex as the work Ford and Wayne would do together later in movies like The Searchers, but their first collaboration might just be their most purely entertaining.”
“Well, there are some things a man just can’t run away from.”
The Western genre has evolved and changed enormously over its century or so of existence. And even though it has had plenty of peaks and troughs in popularity with audiences, it’s probably still the most immediately recognisable genre in film. A desert vista, a man on a horse, a poncho or hat… You see any combination of these, and within seconds, you can pretty safely assume that you’re watching a western. And even with the massive changes and evolution over the years, I feel like it’s a valid statement that no one did more to define the genre than director John Ford, along his frequent leading man, John Wayne. I’ve seen more than few Ford / Wayne team ups over the years, but now I’ve seen where it all started, Stagecoach.
The titular stagecoach arrives in a small Arizona town where it picks up its load of passengers. There’s disgraced prostitute Dallas (Claire Trevor) who’s being run out of town by some uptight squares. There’s drunk doctor Boone (Thomas Mitchell) who’s being run out of town by some different uptight squares. And there’s Lucie (Louise Platt), a pregnant wife catching to stagecoach to be with her soldier husband at his cavalry outpost before the baby is born. (more…)
“In civilised towns, you look a man direct in the face when you talk to him.”
There’s nothing wrong with B grade, exploitation cinema when it’s done right and it’s genuine. I have a problem with B grade, exploitation cinema done ironically. I like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rogriguez, but I think their Grindhouse project is nothing more than a self indulgent wank. If you have the talent and resources to make something well and high end, intentionally making it look shitty is kind of pissing in the faces of legit B grade film makers who are simply making the most of what they’ve got. The upside to things like Grindhouse is, I’m more aware of the concept of B grade, exploitation cinema than I once was. Which means I’m more aware of movies like Bone Tomahawk.
In post Civil War old west, bandit Purvis (David Arquett) and his partner rob and murder someone in the desert. When their getaway takes them through an Indian burial ground, it leads to spooky shit and the partner being killed. Cut to the peaceful frontier town that Sherriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) is determined to keep peaceful. Purvis arrives and starts a ruckus at the local saloon. A ruckus that Hunt supresses with a bullet to Purvis’ leg and a night in a jail cell. Calling local doctor Samantha O’Dwyer (Lili Simmons) to heal the gunshot wound, Hunt leaves her and the convalescing Purvis under the watch of Deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit). (more…)
“In civilised towns, you look a man direct in the face when you talk to him.”
There’s nothing wrong with B grade, exploitation cinema when it’s done right and it’s genuine. I have a problem with B grade, exploitation cinema done ironically. I like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rogriguez, but I think their Grindhouse project is nothing more than a self indulgent wank. If you have the talent and resources to make something well and high end, intentionally making it look shitty is kind of pissing in the faces of legit B grade film makers who are simply making the most of what they’ve got. The upside to things like Grindhouse is, I’m more aware of the concept of B grade, exploitation cinema than I once was. Which means I’m more aware of movies like Bone Tomahawk.
In post Civil War old west, bandit Purvis (David Arquett) and his partner rob and murder someone in the desert. When their getaway takes them through an Indian burial ground, it leads to spooky shit and the partner being killed. Cut to the peaceful frontier town that Sherriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) is determined to keep peaceful. Purvis arrives and starts a ruckus at the local saloon. A ruckus that Hunt supresses with a bullet to Purvis’ leg and a night in a jail cell. Calling local doctor Samantha O’Dwyer (Lili Simmons) to heal the gunshot wound, Hunt leaves her and the convalescing Purvis under the watch of Deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit). (more…)
“The American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies was selected by AFI’s blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community to commemorate 100 Years of Movies”. Every weekend(ish) during 2015, I’ll review two(ish), counting them down from 100 to 1.
“A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.”
When I wrote about The Unforgiven, I called it the last great Western. And everything that makes me think that about that movie is its realism. It’s dirty, it’s dangerous, and there’s no such thing as a hero. Now while that might be what’s so great about that particular movie, there’s still something more than appealing about classic Westerns. Movies from the technicolor days, when good guys were pure, bad guys were evil and there was an artificial hokiness to everything. Somewhere in between the gritty realism and the colourful artificialness, is Shane.
Riding from nowhere in particular, to somewhere even more vague, Shane (Alan Ladd) comes across the farm of Joe Starrett (Van Helfin), his wife Marian (Jean Arthur) and young son Joey (Brandon deWilde). When Shane witnesses local cattle baron Ryker (Emile Meyer) try to strong arm Joe and his family off their struggling farm, he steps in and uses his intimidating look and the six shooter on his belt to help scare Ryker away. Joe invites Shane in for dinner as a thank you, and soon, Shane is living with the Starrett family, helping tend their farm, and inspiring more than a little hero worship from Joey. (more…)
“The American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest Movies was selected by AFI’s blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community to commemorate 100 Years of Movies”. Every weekend(ish) during 2015, I’ll review two(ish), counting them down from 100 to 1.
“All right, I’m coming out. Any man I see out there, I’m gonna shoot him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I’m not only gonna kill him, but I’m gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his damn house down.”
The Western might just be the most American of all movie genres. It might be decades since its heyday, but we still get westerns every few years, and every few years, we get pretty good ones. There are arguments to be made for things like The Searchers or The Wild Bunch to take the title of greatest western of all time, and they’re good arguments. While I’d never say The Unforgiven is the greatest of all time, I can’t think of a single western that’s come since that would rival it. So having said that, what makes The Unforgiven the last great American Western?
In the slightly more than one horse town of Big Whiskey, a drunken cowboy doesn’t just get too handsy with a local whore, he gets too knifey. With the girl scarred for life, the local sheriff (Gene Hackman as Little Bill) demands the cowboy and his mate deliver a few horses to the whorehouse owner as reparations. When they decide that a few ponies don’t quite cut the mustard as far as punishments, the whores pool their money and put the word out, they’ll pay $1,000 to anyone who kills the blade happy cowboys. (more…)
“Never liked seeing strangers. Maybe it’s because no stranger ever good newsed me.”
How many times can you watch John Wayne fight Indians and tame the old west, while also resisting progress as he tries to stick to his ways, surrounded by younger generations intent on change? Well, it turns you can watch that a lot. Because I’ve seen it Rio Grande, I’ve seen it in True Grit, I’ve seen it in The Searchers, I’ve seen it in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, I’ve seen it in Rio Bravo and now, I‘ve seen it in Red River. And it’s still, pretty entertaining.
On a wagon train trail from St Louis headed for California, Thomas Dunson (John Wayne) decides to break off from the group and stay in Texas, where he likes the look of the grasslands for raising cattle. A few hours later, along with trail hand Nadine Groot (Walter Brannan), they see dark smoke in the distance and know that the rest of the wagon train has fallen victim to marauding Indians. They dig in on a river bank and wait to be attacked that night. The attack comes, they win and the next morning a teenage boy wanders into their camp, distraught after seeing the Indian attack while going unnoticed himself. The two men, one boy, one cow and one bull claim some land in Texas, kill a few Mexicans to keep it, and begin building the enormous cattle ranch Dunson always dreamed of. (more…)
There are classic actors who’s names you know, regardless of whether or not you’ve ever actually seen a single one of their movies. They could be long dead, but their legacy means their names are inescapable. Until a few years ago, Henry Fonda was one of those dudes for me. Then I saw 12 Angry Men and The Grapes of Wrath, and started to understand why his name was so iconic. But now, I realise that as great as those movies are, I still hadn’t really appreciated Henry Fonda, because I hadn’t seen a Henry Fonda western. He helped define the genre, and with My Darling Clementine, you can see how important and how influential his contributions were.
Even if you’ve never seen My Darling Clementine, you’re probably familiar with the story. It’s the tale of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, the lawless town of Tombstone and the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral. This time around, Henry Fonda takes up the role of the most famous Earp, with Victor Mature as Doc Holiday.
Driving cattle through the wild west, Wyatt Earp and his brothers leave their camp and head into Tombstone. When they arrive, the brothers Earp find a town so resigned to its violent nature, bullets randomly flying through windows cause more frustration than fear. When the town’s lawmen refuse to apprehend a drunken gunman, Earp takes matters into his own hands.
With a reputation as a solid peacemaker from Dodge City, the people of Tombstone beg him to take the local gig. Begs Earp ignores until he gets back to camp to find his cattle rustled and his youngest brother dead. So it’s back to Tombstone with his surviving brothers, Virgil and Morgan, to pin on Marshall’s badges and take care of business.
On the job, they meet the town’s unofficial leader, Doc Holiday, a dentist and gunfighter with tuberculosis out the wazoo. Along for the ride are Holiday’s current mistress Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) and his newly arrived to town ex, Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs).
The Earps and Holiday become friends and allies just in time to unite against a gang of outlaw cowboys and for Holiday to sort his women shit out. That’s a lot of balls in the air and also the biggest downside of My Darling Clementine. It half tells several stories instead of completely telling one.
In real life, the Earps and Holiday were already friends before their time in Tombstone. Because Clementine decides it needs to tell the origins of their friendship, it’s one more hurdle to contend with before getting to any sort of real conflict. It also means the titular Clementine doesn’t even appear until almost half way through the movie. So then we have to get her exposition out of the way before it leads to a hinted love triangle between her, Wyatt and Doc.
Once this is all spelled out for the audience, we finally get some sort of conflict between the Earps and the outlaw cowboys. But by this stage, we’re more than half way through the movie and it’s time to get to the gunfight at the OK Corral. Which means the feud between the two factions has barley been established and is kind of hard to accept.
The story is clunky and obvious, the direction is a little awkward compared to what John Ford would do in years to come and the plot is overstuffed. But none of that really matters. This is a John Ford western, starring Henry Fonda. The black and white cinematography looks great when given room to breathe and Fonda’s charisma sells even the most hackneyed cliché. Plenty of westerns after this might have been better in a lot of ways, but they all learned from, and built on, movies like My Darling Clementine.
Some things just make sense when they’re put together. And while John Wayne might be the poster boy for westerns, the more I see, the more I think Gary Cooper was the best there ever was for this sort of thing. And since my whole reason for watching this movie was for Burt Lancaster, Cooper’s involvement was a great surprise that only made me more interested in watching Vera Cruz.
Handily set up in the opening titles, “As the American Civil War ended, another war was just beginning. The Mexican people were struggling to rid themselves of their foreign Emperor, Maximilian. Into the fight rode a handful of Americans, ex-soldiers, adventurers, criminals, all bent on gain.” Two of those Americans are Copper as ex-confederate soldier Ben Trane, who lost his plantation in the war, and all around scum bag, Joe Erin (Lancaster).
As mercenaries in Mexico, they’re employed by Maquis Henri de Labordere (Cesar Romero, AKA, the Joker from the old Batman TV show) to escort the French Countess Cuvarre (Denise Darcai) to the port of Vera Cruz. Along the way, they realise they’re helping ship $3million in gold for the Emperor Maximilian to supply more French troops to make his oppression of Mexico even more absolute. Once the fortune is discovered, it’s a showdown between the honest and good Trane, and the ruthless, untrustworthy Erin.
There’s the Countess and a lazy love interest shoe horned in for Cooper. Plus, their gang of mercenaries includes Ernest Borgnine and Charles Bronson. But all of them are overshadowed by Cooper and Lancaster. The cool, calmness of Cooper is the perfect match for the rough, primal masculinity of Lancaster. For most of Vera Cruz, I kept bouncing back and forth on whether these two characters were reluctant allies with a cold respect for each other, two poker faced schemers waiting for their chance to betray the other, or just outright enemies. They made me fully believe these different attitudes at different times, and that constant changing of dynamic kept the movie moving at cracking pace.
Vera Cruz is kind of a by the numbers western with a by the numbers plot. It even goes for that old cornball chestnut of having the good guy shoot a gun out of a bad guy’s hand at one stage. But it’s a by the numbers western that really, really works. Cooper perfected the strong, silent type who’s honour is unfaltering. Lancaster’s Jack Erin is a total prick, but you can’t help being in awe of him at times.
But I think the best thing about Vera Cruz has to be this little gem that I found in the IMDB trivia section for the movie, “Gary Cooper was taking so much medication that he was impotent for the duration of filming. He also hated working with Sara Montiel, whom he claimed smelled bad and never washed her hair.” If Gary Cooper’s droopy doodle doesn’t make you want to watch this movie, I don’t know what will.
This is what you want from a western. Old school, no bull shit ass kickers, kicking ass in no bull shit, old school fashion. After westerns evolved from the cheese of cowboys and Indians, before they became a post modern comment on stuff and junk, they were dirty, sweaty, smelly grime fests of man on man action that were only slightly as gay as that sentence sounds. They were movies like The Professionals.
The titular professionals are weapons expert Rico (Lee Marvin), explosives expert Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), horse wrangler Ehrengard (Robert Ryan), and expert tracker Jake (Woody Strode). Assembled by Rico, they’re hired by ranch baron Grant (Ralph Belamy), to save his young trophy wife Maria (Claudia Cardinale). She’s been kidnapped by Mexican revolutionary Raza (Jack Palance) and Rico’s ragtag group are in for a sweet 10 grand each if they can bring her back safely.
From a really fun intro of each of the four professionals, to getting their rescue assignment, to beginning the search for Maria, The Professionals gets all the setup out of the way super quick, so it can get to more of what the movie is really about, what makes a man good or bad. In this world good men are forced to do terrible things and bad men aren’t always who they appear to be. This isn’t just about cheap twists and character reveals, it’s pretty raw, heavy stuff, disguised as a by the numbers western.
Lancaster’s character might be the womanising cad with a heart of gold, but The Professionals makes sure we know he’s done some bad things in is past. They may have been done out of necessity, but Lancaster makes sure we know he’ll always carry some serious guilt with him. Marvin plays Rico as a cold, worn down shell who’s seen some terrible shit, more than likely committed some terrible shit, and now he’s convinced not caring about anyone is the only way to make it through the day. But he also brings enough heart to the role that it’s believable when his inevitable grand moment of redemption comes.
What I loved most about The Professionals is its reliance on leading performances by the kinds of leading men who just don’t exist anymore. Tough guys today always have to have some sort tragic back story or vulnerability that explains their cold exterior. Tough guys in the 80s were all about muscles and implausible acts of physical strength and prowess. But in the 50s and 60s, tough guys were played by dudes who seemed like legit, no bull shit tough guys in real life. Men like Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and yes, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin and Jack Palance.
When Grant calls Rico a bastard, Rico replies, “Yes, Sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, Sir, you’re a self-made man”. That’s a simple, to the point fuck you that no one in Hollywood could deliver today. A leading man like George Clooney or Brad Pitt would make it too self aware and charming, and no action meat head could ever deliver it convincingly. With Marvin, you feel like he earned the right to say that through real life ass kickings off camera, as much as he did through building a reputation as an on screen hard ass.
In 2005, director James Mangold made Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic. Before that he’d had a little success with Cop Land (a movie that is largely and unfairly forgotten now), plus pretty decent critical success and award recognition with Girl Interrupted. But Walk the Line was the one that really made me take notice and learn his name so I could keep an eye on what he did next. Then, what he did next seemed to be a bit of a flop and he slid off my radar of people to keep an eye on. But with the death of Elmore Leonard, author of the source material, the title 3:10 to Yuma kept popping up. So I finally got around to James Mangold’s supposedly disappointing follow up to Walk to Line.
Christian Bale is Dan Evans, a struggling rancher in in 1884 Arizona. He’s being run off his land by a rival rancher who controls the water supply. Russell Crowe is Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw who’s finally captured after robbing one stage coach too many. In order to make desperately needed money, Evans signs on to escort Wade to Yuma, where he’ll be put on a train to face trial.
Along the way, the lawmen are more and more revealed to be the not so good guys. And because Russell Crowe is the kind of actor who’s ego keeps him from ever playing an actual baddie, 3:10 to Yuma not only has to give him a redemption arc, it also has to give us, the audience, other legit villains we can all hate. Such as the rancher running Bale off his land, who has the thankless job of delivering the line, “Sometimes a man has to be big enough to see how small he is”. It’s the verbal equivalent of twirling a moustache.
But the dead horse flogging obviousness doesn’t stop there. Limping on a Civil War injury, Evans is constantly questioned by his eldest son who thinks he’s a coward, and even though his wife (Gretchen Mol) is always completely supportive, we know Evans is trying to prove his manhood to her, his son and most importantly, to himself. And just in case that still isn‘t obvious, Bale is given clunky dialogue to really hammer it home. Clunky dialogue like “I’ve been standing on one leg for three goddam years, waiting for God to do me a favour”.
It’s easy to crap on Russell Crowe as a bit of a dick. He constantly gives us all so much ammunition in his real life. But when I see him in a movie, I’m, always reminded that he is a good, naturally charismatic actor. He has a certain charm and cheeky glint in his eye that makes him really watchable. Combine that with the intensity of Christian Bale, and you’ve got a more than serviceable modern Western. It’s also pretty great to see an Aussie and a Pom in the lead roles of the most American of genres, and both nail it.
It does nothing to advance or add anything to the genre, and there are dozens better. And sure, compared to Walk the Line, it’s kind of disappointing, but it’s a totally fine way to spend a couple of hours. 3:10 to Yuma just had the misfortune of coming so soon after its director’s break through and still current high water mark.
Westerns have a few standout names that I always associate with the genre. John Wayne, John Ford, Sam Pekinpah, James Stewart. I’d say every one I’ve seen that was made before the 80s has at least one of those names attached to it. Which makes it even better when I find a great one that I’ve never heard of, and one that doesn’t include any of those usual suspects. Which is what made Jubal such a good surprise.
Jubal Troop (Glenn Ford) is found half dead on the side of the road and taken to a nearby ranch where he’s fed, sheltered and given work by the owner, Earnest Borgnine’s Shep Horgan. Shep thinks Jube is great, Shep’s trophy wife Mae, played by Valerie French, likes him even more. And jealous farmhand Pinky (Rod Steiger), injects himself as Jubal’s antagonist from the get go. Also, Charles Bronson shows up about halfway through to play Reb, the coolest cowboy you ever did see.
Jubal is running from something, but it’s immediately clear to Shep (and the audience) that whatever he’s running from wasn’t his fault and that he’s a genuine, good guy. Which is why it’s also immediately clear that happy endings will be very few and far between when the credits roll.
There’s something about Westerns that makes me feel like I missed out by being born in the late 20th century. I know it’s all Hollywood fiction, but all that horse breakin’, gun slinging’ and real man bein’ makes the world today seem so soft and boring and easy. I know I wouldn’t last five minutes in that world, but Hollywood sure knew how to romanticise with the Westerns of the 40s and 50s.
Like Sean Connery and Robert Duvall, Earnest Borgnine is one of those dudes who must have born middle aged. No matter how old a movie is, if one of those three is in it, they’re already old enough to have kids in college from their first marriage, while trying to avoid having a baby with their new, young, trophy wife. I’m sure Borgnine came out of the womb with a five o’clock shadow and a cigar in his mouth, while placing a drink order with the midwife.
Jubal is a great example of the Western genre of that time. The strong, silent type hero, up against the insecure, loud braggart bad guy. A romantic angle shoehorned in there to keep the studio happy, while never getting in the way. The gun shots are kept to a minimum, so when the bullets do fly, it actually means something. And a simple story about simple people living and dying by a simple code. I haven’t seen enough classic Westerns, but I feel like Jubal fills a substantial hole in that movie watching weak spot.
The Duke’s been dead for almost 36 years, but I’d argue he’s still probably the most recognisable face and name in Westerns. John Ford’s been dead almost a decade longer, and even though I’ve seen very few of his movies, I know he’s responsible for establishing and shaping the Western genre. And their contribution to the Western is pretty well summed up in Rio Grande.
As Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke, Wayne commands a cavalry unit near the Rio Grande River, the border between America and Mexico. When some new recruits arrive, one is revealed to be his son, Jeff (Claude Jarman Jr.). Jeff recently flunked out of officer’s school and has enlisted as a bottom level trooper. Father and son haven’t seen each other in 15 years and things starts out a little frosty.
Constantly fighting the Apache, Kirby and his men are in a precarious position when the enemy keeps retreating across the Mexican border after their guerrilla assaults, making them off limits in between sneak attacks. Add to this Kirby’s estranged wife (Maureen O‘Hara) who shows up trying to save their son, and he’s copping it from all directions.
In the Coen Brothers awesome movie Barton Fink, studio head Jack Lipknick (Michael Lerner) is talking to his newly signed screenwriter, Barton Fink (John Turtorro), who he wants to write a wrestling picture. While espousing the creative freedom he’ll give Fink and the originality he wants in return, he without irony gives Fink the rundown on what’s expected from the screenplay…
“Wallace Beery is a wrestler. I wanna know his hopes, his dreams. Naturally, he’ll have to get mixed up with a bad element. And a romantic interest. You know the drill. Romantic interest, or else a young kid. An orphan”.
Watching Rio Grande and thinking back on the only other Ford / Wayne joint I’ve seen, Fort Apache, I feel like they may have had similar notes from the studio…
“The Duke plays a cavalryman. I wanna know his hopes, his dreams. Naturally, he’ll have to fight the heathen red man (‘coz this is the 50s, so it’s not yet racially insensitive for us to say things like that). And a romantic interest. Probably an estranged wife or long lost love. You know the drill. And don’t forget, his second in charge needs to be a drunk Irishman. Nothing makes more effective comic relief than a tippled mick (did I mention it’s the 50s ?)”.
But all the box ticking and by the numbers plotting of Rio Grande never really bothered me. There’s a let’s-put-on-a-show vibe about movies from that era that is infectiously charming. It’s like studios and film makers felt obliged to give their audience a cabaret show amidst their gritty Western. Saddle worn, hard as nails cavalrymen? Better make sure they get to sing a few songs. What about horse stunts that have nothing to do with reality? No worries, we’ll shoehorn in a reason for a few dudes to ride two horses at once, while standing up!
It’s clichéd, it’s hammy, it’s predictable and it’s on the nose. But I’ll be buggered if I wasn’t entertained but Rio Grande. Westerns might have become grittier since, but 60 or 70 years ago, no acting and directing pair did it better than John Wayne and John Ford.
It’s one thing for a movie to bomb so bad it ruins a director’s career. It’s another thing for a movie to bomb so bad, it almost ruins the studio that made it. Heaven’s Gate was director Michael Cimino’s follow up to The Deer Hunter, which had won him a Best Director Oscar. It’s also seen today as one of the movies that killed the American auteur system of the 70s. People like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bogdonavich and Warren Beatty had all had a great run making personal films that created critical buzz and decent box office returns. Then Cimino crapped all over it with this shit bomb that went way over schedule and way over budget.
Actually, that’s harsh. Before watching it, Heaven’s Gate had a mythical status for me as that shit bomb, so I had some pretty strong preconceived notions. Preconceived notions only made stronger when I saw it came with an almost four hour running time. Seriously, four hours? If you can’t tell your story in two and half, three at the absolute most (and your movie had better be a ball tarer if you’re gonna take three hours of my life), maybe you should look at making a TV series, not one of film.
And that’s the thing, while I was watching, I checked the clock a few times, but not constantly, so the running time wasn’t a huge issue. But when I think back, I can’t recall four hours worth of story. It opens with main character James Averill, played by Kris Kristofferson, graduating from Harvard in 1870, in a sequence that could have been done in ten minutes, but goes for closer to thirty. It then jumps twenty years ahead to the midst of land disputes between American land barons and European immigrants. Kristofferson is on the side of the immigrants because he’s banging an immigrant whore… Oh, that and because he’s a top bloke with principals and stuff. About an hour in (just over a quarter, if you’re doing the maths), we meet Nate Champion, played by Christopher Walken, Kristofferson’s rival for the whore’s golden heart. It’s great to see Walken before he became “Walken”. No weird line deliveries, no creepiness, no “quirk”. Just a solid, subtle performance. That really is the broad strokes of what fills the four hours, it’s not a complicated story, though the characters are.
Watching Heaven’s Gate, it’s easy to see where all the money and time went in its making. It looks absolutely amazing. Shot on location in a Montana national park, every exterior shot has the most amazing, natural backdrop of deep valleys, snow capped peaks and wild frontier. In a modern world of movies full of slapped together CGI, this really is one of the most impressive looking movies I’ve ever seen. And more than just the natural wonders, Cimino adds an almost gold filter to the majority of the film. Some scenes are somehow monochrome, but full of deep, rich colour at the same time.
On one hand, I can understand why it wasn’t a huge success on release, but on the other, I think it is a legitimately awesome piece of film making. And the best part, the title comes from a roller skating rink seen several times throughout the story. Yep, this epic tragedy is named after rolling skating rink. I can only hope if a movie is ever made about some terrible time in my hometown’s past, they have the forethought to call it Skate Haven.
Bored and Dangerous 