MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger

SCREENWRITER: Waldo Salt

FILM STARS: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Bob Balaban

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: James Leo Herlihy

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: panther

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1970

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1965

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: I loved the film as a youth (though, oddly, I don’t feel compelled to watch it over. Well, maybe one more time). It’s an odd “buddy movie” about a hustler and a crippled con man who would be his pimp looking forward to better days. The film has has become iconic and is one of those movies you think about when you think “New York”.

Like his close friend and mentor Tennessee Williams, Herlihy was a gay (though publicly closeted) author whose wrote about taboo subjects and broke new ground for what was acceptable to mainstream publishers (his 1958 play “Blue Denim” was about underage sex and pregnancy). His pushing the boundaries set him up well for the mid to late 1960s where he captured the zeitgeist of the times and it’s free love and expression of all forms. But his world view (at least on paper) was  not with the casual “flower power” optimism of youth (he was born in 1927). He was drawn to characters at the fringes and positioned himself there as well. Though of an “older” generation, in the late 1960s Herlihy became passionately interested in the hippie and anti-war movements. In the late 1960s he formed a artists commune of sorts in key West, and then had the idea for another in rural Pennsylvania. He loved Key West (at the end of Midnight Cowboy, Joe Buck and Ratso are riding a Greyhound to the sunny Florida of Ratso’s dreams when tragedy strikes) but, he ultimately lived in Los Angeles through the 70s and 80s till his death from suicide in 1993). He wrote nothing after 1971.

Sex (or sexuality) is an overcurrent in “Midnight Cowboy” (as it is in many (most) of Herlihy’s works) and despite the passing of time, though not graphic, it still manages to surprise.  The sexuality in homosexuality is more evident in the novel than in the film (call it the naivete of youth but I assumed it was more gay for pay (and then grudgingly) rather than homosexuality when I first saw it. Is it? The film was even a little homophobic (by today’s standards) … and racist … if name calling are indications of hang ’em high homophobia and racism. The novel has a lot more backstory on the title character, Joe Buck, than the film. How Joe goes from Albuquerque to New York is the story. The film tends to canter on his New York experiences and his platonic relationship with Ratso..

The book is a great read and the film, though narrower in narrative, is well done, with many iconic lines (arguing with Ratso, who implies the cowboy look is gay, Joe Buck exclaims in anger … “John Wayne! You wanna tell me he’s a fag?” and of course the “I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” neither of which were in the novel). Englishman John Schlesinger directed, and perhaps his status as an outsider (gay and English) gave him some insight but the film looks as urban 1969 as many other urban films of 1969. It captures the quality of a time and a place well. I suspect that the script by (ex) blacklisted writer, Waldo Salt (who wrote screenplays for “Rachel and the Stranger” (1948), “Serpico” (1973), “The Day of the Locust” (1975), “Coming Home” (1978)), which manages to give back story without showing it has a lot to do with it’s success. Voight and Hoffman are superb (both were nominated for Best Actor but lost to John Wayne in “True Grit” … take that new Hollywood). As good as Voight is it is intriguing what Elvis would have made of the role of Joe Buck. Producers at United Artists wanted Elvis to play Buck but Colonel Tom Parker didn’t like the idea of the film. Actually I think Elvis would have been perfect.

Partly because of its notoriety (sexual frankness) the film became the third highest grossing film in 1969 (in the US) though notably the both old fashioned and modern “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and the old fashioned “The Love Bug” grossed more (take that new Hollywood). Best of all the film features the 1966 Fred Neil song “Everybody’s Talkin'” as sung (recorded in 1967)  by the great Harry Nilsson.

LINKS

TRAILER

The re-issue trailer

Title theme song by Harry Nilsson