Sorry for the long delay in reviews, i've been incredibly busy with my real job and i've not had the time to review anything. I managed to watch this film the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope My review of The Cowboys encourages you to check it out...
It's been a while since the last review was posted, this is due to me not having much time to watch films because of my actual daytime job, but I did manage to check a couple of films out within the last few days and one of them was a classic western starring John Wayne. The Film in question is director Mark Rydell's 1971 feel good film about boys becoming men in the old west called, The Cowboys. Im not really that well versed in the films of John Wayne, sure I know about them and have seen a few but not his most well known flicks. I'd seen stuff like the Hell Fighters, The Quiet Man and Donovan's Reef but never really got into his westerns, but as I get older I find I have a more open approach to films that I never had as a youngster. This is one of the best things about collecting DVDs, your world is open to all kinds of films at reasonable prices which is how I came into Waynes' The Cowboys. I was going to review The Searchers, but that is such a well known film and one that is highly regarded that I feel I have no need to reiterate the fact that it is brilliant, but instead i've decided on this one instead.
The Cowboys follows the story of rancher Will Anderson whose cattle drivers have left him to search for gold. Leaving him short of staff and with a mass of cattle to herd 400 miles, the only option for Anderson is to hire a load of kids from the near by school to work as his drivers. Along with their chaperone and cook, a black man by the name of Nightlinger, Anderson and his boys get to training to see them ready for the drive. A man and his two sidekicks approach Anderson and ask for work but slip up when they're questioned and they end up revealing they've just got out of prison, Anderson refuses their help, not because of prison but because they lied. The leader, Long Hair, played by Bruce Dern, in a way threatens Anderson who casually just dismisses the threat.
The Boys, Nightlinger and Anderson Start out on their 400 mile journey. Along the way the boys learn new lessons, they discover alcohol, women and how harsh the west can be and Anderson learns lessons too, he was a hard man but the kids give him back some humanity. Then they discover that the threat made by Long hair was real and that they have been tracking the drive and want the cattle for them selves. It's a film about growing up and above all else it has heart.
Now like I said, I'd never really gotten into the whole Duke Wayne appreciation society due to my plain ignorance of his films being 'old', but that was when I was much younger and of recent I have found a deep appreciation for the Western. Not just the stories or the fact the they have cowboys but more from a directors point of view. Look at all the great directors of the first half of the 20th century, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Don Siegel, Henry Hathaway and Sam Peckinpah, these men all made westerns, Ford being the number one, but it's the way these films were shot and how each director made the west a character it's self. Take The Searchers for instance, John Ford shot in Monument valley and the way he captured it gave the film more power and a look not achieved by anyone till Sergio Leone made the west look dirty and mean. So it's this technical standpoint that really got me into the idea of the west. Coming from Wales, a small country that's attached to the side of England here in the U.K, it is a more rural part of the british isles, we have farmers and vast country sides that wouldn't be out of place in the west but we don't have that history. We don't have the gunslingers, the outlaws and the bandits. So I can't really identify with the western as much as I would like to. But it's the films that allow me to peer into a part of American History, and while im interested in all forms of history, U.S history seems to be the most interesting, and it's because John Wayne is the man who gave so many people a glimpse into the hero's and anti-heroes of the west in his films that I find myself seeking out more and more of his film and im very glad I saw The Cowboys.
John Wayne plays the the tough rancher named Will Anderson and he's a tough man, experienced in what he does and lives for the drive. Wayne gives a great solid performance and it's easy to see why so many people adored the man. He really does have the huge screen presence and I don't think any actor has ever come close to holding the screen as much as the duke did. But with Anderson, the same as The Searcher's Ethan Edwards, He finds a humanity with in himself and in The Cowboys it's due to the kids that he has hired that shows him in a new light.
Bruce Dern plays the evil 'Long Hair,' and Dern went method and deep into the character to pull off this really intense evil son of a bitch. His interaction with the kids and with Wayne is chilling. One scene in which he threatens a kid by slamming his head underwater was improvised and you can clearly see the kid wasn't expecting it and this adds more tension and fear to the film. Dern was always a great actor and he kind of brings the same intensity he shows as Long Hair to the good side of the law as the detective in Walter Hill's The Driver. A very underrated actor.
Roscoe Lee Brown plays the Chaperone and Cook who is the most eloquent of speakers, his voice almost sounds as if he was raised in England, he's well spoke, well educated and cooks up a storm.
The rest of the cast including the kids are made up of unknowns and some future names such as A Martinez and Robert Carradine.
Mark Rydell's direction is top notch, he, like the visionaries before him, turns the west into a character, the dust, the water, the trees all have a part to play. The was shot on 35mm and blown upto 70mm and this really gives the film more scope. Fair do's Rydell for making a great looking western.
From the opening I was trying to work out who the composer was, the music sound so familiar in it's arrangement but I couldn't pin point who it was. The Music composed by John Williams appeared on screen and instantly I connected with it, this is due to being brought up on films that were scored by Williams, so this made the film even better.
So I have to finish this review and I really did enjoy the film, it had everything, gunfights, fist fights , a really creepy villain and a great story. This is really worth a watch if you enjoy westerns. I can imagine the kids who were chosen for the film being really excited because they got to act out every boy's fantasy, riding horses and shooting guns and I wish that if I was around then I would have loved to have joined them. The Cowboys is a great film about boys becoming men and even though Wayne was getting old he could still hold his own in a fist fight and also hold the screen like he did for so many years....
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