Search - The Cowboys (1972) (Ws Ac3) on DVD

Thinking outside of the Duke's

Me | Salem, OR United States | 09/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First of all, An Overture, Intermission, Entr'Acte, and Exit music. Rare indeed for a picture released in the 70's not to mention indicative of an epic (And in this case, also intimate) tale.

The basic story about a rancher resorting to driving his herd to market helped only by schoolboys is already a twist on familiar territory but that's just the beginning. From Bruce Derns nuanced performance (Many years before other well written Villians such as Die Hard's Alan Rickman) to Wil Andersen and the Cowboys watching a fight between the old bull's "Experience" vs. the younger one's "Muscle" as a metaphor for the entire picture, (As well as John Wayne's place in movies in 1972 among newish names like Hoffman, Voight [Both of whom Wayne beat out at the Oscars for 1969], and Deniro) to Robert Carradines Slim serenading the cattle by playing Vivaldi on his guitar, Director Mark Rydell set out to (And succeeded in) not making another "John Wayne movie."

Nowhere do we see Harry Carey Jr. or Hank Worden, or Ben Johnson, or even Edward Faulkner (How did this guy end up in so many of the Duke's pictures anyway?).

In 1948's Red River, Wayne's Tom Dunson couldn't imagine being even just a little bit wrong. By the time of The Cowboys Wayne had aged and seasoned like a fine old Oak tree and could now play the subtle shades of a man that was at times deeply stubborn ("Well Mr. Nightlinger, In my (Civil war) regiment, I was known as...Old Iron pants...you might wanna' keep that in mind".) but also, haunted by self doubt regarding his Two sons that had both died in their early Twenties ("They went bad on me...or I went bad on them"). It wasn't a cattle drive so much as it was a second chance for Andersen to be a Father ( as pointed out in one of many wonderful scenes between a rancher and his trail cook).

It's really quite amazing how different The Cowboys was from the Duke's previous pictures. From a Director he had never worked with before (who created not quite a Western revision, but with fresh, new ideas from screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. and respect for the star and his fans, more of an homage), to the graphic, bloody special effects make-up that Wayne was not too keen on but endured anyway, to the rare fate that befell Wil Andersen, making this, I think John Waynes best picture of the 70's.

The Cowboys is for anyone who thinks they don't like any John Wayne pictures. It may not change their minds but it might open them.


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Consider the movie within the time period it portrays

Middle-Aged Professor | 09/25/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"No, this movie does not contain the distilled wisdom of the ages, but those who compare the movie against the accepted child-rearing practices of the present day are letting their post-modern self-righteousness flare to the point where they may need to take a "time out." It is unlikely that 12-year-olds would participate in a cattle drive, granted, but it was entirely acceptable for 16- or 17-year-olds to "do a man's work and make a man's wage" in those days. It was also a time when John Wayne's widow could not have filed an insurance claim for the stolen herd, or applied for Federal disaster relief, and the movie makes it clear that this herd represented the difference between a reasonable retirement and "working out her days as someone's fry cook." Justice was often swift and harsh in the Old West because real people suffered real consequences from the effects of crime. Therefore it was NOT a sense of vengence, as one reviewer asserts, that drove the later scenes, it was a sense of justice. And while the ages of the "cowboys" in the film are a little too young, the film accurately reflects what used to be "coming of age" in frontier America: A boy became a man when he accepted a man's responsibilities and did a man's work."