My father took me to see Cowboy in 1959. Afterwards, all I could remember were Ford/Lemmon shooting cockroaches off a hotel wall and Ford holding Lemmon over a scorching campfire. I hated the movie. Forty-nine years later I had the chance to revisit the movie on DVD and discovered nothing to make me revise my sour opinion. If anything, I dislike the movie even morea long time to nurse a grudge.
Nothing about the movie works for me. Although Ford and Lemmon begin as likable enough characters, they actually worsen as the story progresses. Ford, a callous but rigorously fair trail boss, metamorphoses into an aging sentimentalist who has "found a son." Lemmon, a naïve and honest tenderfoot, ends the movie leering at a woman in a hotel lobby.
It may have been the result of having tried to condense too much from the Frank Harris "autobiography"nowhere credited, incidentallybut there are too many loose ends in the movie for a coherent narrative. The genesis of Lemmon's love for Anna Kashfi is never explained, and it does in fact seem like an immature and irresponsible infatuation fully deserving the father's contempt. Although the movie is rich in character actors (some, like Strother Martin, uncredited), they barely register on screen. Lemmon calls the near-murderous Richard Jaeckel a thief and threatens him physically, but the expected showdown never arrives. Late in the movie, Lemmon shoots and kills a Comanche brave without a trace of remorse or introspection-- or explanation how he became such a crack shot. There is also an unsettling and pointless running joke about cannibalism.
I have never cared much for Lemmon as an actor, finding him mincing and prissy. Glenn Ford has always struck me as taciturn and dependable, but here he is guilty of bad acting as he tries to "reach" Lemmon in a halting, unconvincing speech late in the movie. Ford's eyes are dead and he sounds less conflicted with emotion than like he forgot his lines. Also, what Ford finds likable in Lemmon is never made clear. Throughout the cattle drive Lemmon is arrogant, meddling, and judgmental. One indication of the problems with the movie is that the deepening emotional attachment between Ford and Lemmon is announced by the co-stars, not demonstrated in their acting. This is lazy writing, directing, and acting. The abrupt reconciliation between Lemmon and Ford in the cattle car seems forced and arbitrary; and the movie ends with Lemmon and Ford laughing uproariouslyI guess to leave no doubt of a "happy ending." Curiously, the movie trailer included on the DVD makes it clear that the movie is intended as an antidote to the TV westerns popular in the late 1950s. Stealing a cliché from television is not a smart way to reinforce that distinction. The trailer also has Lemmon repeatedly emphasizing the "adult" themes in the movie, which seem quaint now and couldn't have provoked audiences even back then.
Ultimately, the only intriguing character in the movie is the retired town marshal, played by Brian Donlevy. The part is small but tantalizing, and hints at a far more involving story. His character is made so peripheral that his shocking and poignant fate is off-screen and only narrated by Dick York. A movie about Donlevy's dispirited and lonely ex-lawman would have made a truly "adult western."
I don't take particular pleasure in panning Cowboy. Lemmon died in 2001, Ford died in 2006, and so many of the actors in the movie have been dead for years. But the truth is Cowboy is unworthy of any of them.
Nothing about the movie works for me. Although Ford and Lemmon begin as likable enough characters, they actually worsen as the story progresses. Ford, a callous but rigorously fair trail boss, metamorphoses into an aging sentimentalist who has "found a son." Lemmon, a naïve and honest tenderfoot, ends the movie leering at a woman in a hotel lobby.
It may have been the result of having tried to condense too much from the Frank Harris "autobiography"nowhere credited, incidentallybut there are too many loose ends in the movie for a coherent narrative. The genesis of Lemmon's love for Anna Kashfi is never explained, and it does in fact seem like an immature and irresponsible infatuation fully deserving the father's contempt. Although the movie is rich in character actors (some, like Strother Martin, uncredited), they barely register on screen. Lemmon calls the near-murderous Richard Jaeckel a thief and threatens him physically, but the expected showdown never arrives. Late in the movie, Lemmon shoots and kills a Comanche brave without a trace of remorse or introspection-- or explanation how he became such a crack shot. There is also an unsettling and pointless running joke about cannibalism.
I have never cared much for Lemmon as an actor, finding him mincing and prissy. Glenn Ford has always struck me as taciturn and dependable, but here he is guilty of bad acting as he tries to "reach" Lemmon in a halting, unconvincing speech late in the movie. Ford's eyes are dead and he sounds less conflicted with emotion than like he forgot his lines. Also, what Ford finds likable in Lemmon is never made clear. Throughout the cattle drive Lemmon is arrogant, meddling, and judgmental. One indication of the problems with the movie is that the deepening emotional attachment between Ford and Lemmon is announced by the co-stars, not demonstrated in their acting. This is lazy writing, directing, and acting. The abrupt reconciliation between Lemmon and Ford in the cattle car seems forced and arbitrary; and the movie ends with Lemmon and Ford laughing uproariouslyI guess to leave no doubt of a "happy ending." Curiously, the movie trailer included on the DVD makes it clear that the movie is intended as an antidote to the TV westerns popular in the late 1950s. Stealing a cliché from television is not a smart way to reinforce that distinction. The trailer also has Lemmon repeatedly emphasizing the "adult" themes in the movie, which seem quaint now and couldn't have provoked audiences even back then.
Ultimately, the only intriguing character in the movie is the retired town marshal, played by Brian Donlevy. The part is small but tantalizing, and hints at a far more involving story. His character is made so peripheral that his shocking and poignant fate is off-screen and only narrated by Dick York. A movie about Donlevy's dispirited and lonely ex-lawman would have made a truly "adult western."
I don't take particular pleasure in panning Cowboy. Lemmon died in 2001, Ford died in 2006, and so many of the actors in the movie have been dead for years. But the truth is Cowboy is unworthy of any of them.