“SKIP
THE JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND GET RIGHT TO THE SEXâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Kino
Lorber and Something Weird Video continue their collaboration to present
“Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture†with Volume 10—Wages
of Sin. Unlike the other exploitation titles that have appeared over the
last two years, Wages is not an American picture; instead, it comes from
Switzerland and was originally released as a serious drama examining the social
problem of illegal abortions and the need to educate the public in birth
control, as well as make a case for the legalization of a woman’s right to
choose. The original German title translates to, roughly, The Doctor Says… or
The Doctor Speaks Out…
However,
American producer/director/actor Donn Davison, who at the time was a
practitioner in the grindhouse and exploitation film circuit, secured the U.S.
rights to the film and released it in 1966 with the salacious title of Wages of Sin.
The movie was dubbed into English—although the dubbing actors speak with German
accents, so go figure. Davison would appear in a “professional†capacity as a
doctor (it is unclear if he really had any medical credentials) to provide a
short lecture to the audience and hawk “how-to†sex manuals during
intermission. Davison filmed his 15-minute presentation to show at drive-in
theaters, where obviously he couldn’t speak in person. (This filmed lecture is
included as a supplement on the new Kino Lorber/Something Weird disk, and it is
hilarious. He tells us that we “may have seen him on Johnny Carson
talking about juvenile delinquency and sexual matters… but tonight he’s going
to skip the juvenile delinquency and get right to the sex.â€)
These
delicious and suitably sleazy pictures in the “Forbidden Fruit†series were
made cheaply and outside the Hollywood system, and certainly in this case
outside of the U.S. They were distributed independently in the manner of a
circus sideshow, often by renting a movie theater for a few nights, advertising
in the local papers, and promoting the scandalous title as “educational.†For
adults only, mind you, but exhibited all in the good name of science or health
or whatever.
Wages
of Sin is
such a serious and sincere take on the subject matter that it is mind-boggling
to think that anyone would be titillated by it. One can imagine trench coat
wearing patrons complaining to the theater management afterwards and asking for
their money back, because there is absolutely no nudity or sex in the film.
Instead, there is real, clinical footage of childbirth, frank talk about birth
control, and dramatized depictions of back-alley abortions.
And
yet, in the U.S., the picture was promoted with sensational taglines such as,
“Shocking! Beyond Description!†and “No one under 16 admitted without parents!â€
Shocking indeed.
The
new Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents both features in high-def restorations and
they both look remarkably good. Wages of Sin comes with an informative
audio commentary by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who brings a
welcome feminine point of view to the proceedings. Supplements include the
previously mentioned Donn Davison “lecture†and two shorts that were sometimes
also exhibited with the two main features—Life and Its Secrecies (with
clinical footage of various types of childbirth), and Triplets by Cesarean
Section (a silent film of the real delivery of triplets). Both the latter
short films suffer from poor visual quality, but it doesn’t make them less
icky. Trailers from other Forbidden Fruit titles round out the package.
For
fans of exploitation pictures, or for those interested in how the subject
matter was handled both in 1966 and 1929, the Wages of Sin disk is for
you!
Mr. Rush was born on Monday, April 15, 1929 in New
York City and broke into the film industry through the UCLA film program and
later worked for producer and director Roger Corman as the co-writer and
director of Too Soon to Love (1960), alternatively titled High School
Honeymoon, about high school sweethearts who go all the way and the girl
ends up pregnant. This was heady subject matter for the time and Jack Nicholson
has a small role in the film. Of Love and Desire (1963), a sexually
charged film, followed. Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) had Jack Nicholson
as part of a motorcycle gang, and Thunder Alley (1967) starred Annette
Funicello and Fabian. Another teen, heartthrob Tab Hunter, starred in The
Cups of San Sebastien (1967) as a religious artifact thief. A Man Called
Dagger (1968) featured Terry Moore in a film about a scientist’s attempts
to revive the Third Reich. Psych-Out (1968) was a far-out psychedelic
trip about a hearing-impaired runaway searching for her brother in San
Francisco, with Jack Nicholson again along for the ride.
Mr. Rush ended the Sixties with crazy bikers in The
Savage Seven (1968) and began the Seventies with the counter-culture film Getting
Straight (1970), a comedy-drama with Elliott Gould and Candice Bergen. 1974’s
Freebie and the Bean pitted Alan Arkin and James Caan against crime as
cops, one of the earliest buddy/cop films, but it was his ambitious film interpretation
of Paul Brodeur’s 1970 novel of the same name that captivated filmgoers. Years
in the making and the victim of a poor advertising campaign and minimal
distribution, The Stunt Man pits an escaped convict named Cameron (Steve
Railsback) into the middle of an action sequence that is actually the set of a
war movie, unexpectedly causing the death of the stunt man of the film within
the film. The director, Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole), then puts Cameron in the
film, specifically in all sorts of dangerous situations, in order to get truth
onscreen. Cross’s manipulation of Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey) is
exceptionally cruel. The film is a litmus test for audiences as we have to keep
track of what is real and what is in the reel – reality as opposed to the
movie-within-the-movie. I see the film as a challenge and it’s a rewarding
experience.
Mr. Rush was a true maverick director and was
nominated for both a co-writing and directing Academy Award, as was Mr. O’Toole
for his performance of the out-of-control director. Despite not getting the
wide audience that it deserved, The Stunt Man lives on in the world of
home video.
Mr. Rush’s last film was Color of Night with
Bruce Willis and Jane March in 1994.
I
love home video. It has introduced me to the films that have been held near and
dear to me in a far more intimate way than broadcast television ever could. The
first home video system that I ever owned was the RCA SelectaVision Capacitance
Electronic Disc system, a $500M failure that nearly bankrupted its creator, RCA,
just five years after its inauspicious introduction in March 1981, Following 17
years of research and development hell, it proved to be a technological also-ran
even before it left the gate. Star Wars (1977) and Poltergeist
(1982) were the first two films that I owned on a caddie-enclosed 12-inch
capacitive disc that were played over and over again during the spring and summer
of 1983. These were not just movies that
I saw, these were movies that I owned. They were mine and
they became a part of my identity.
I
came of age during the video store rental era. I broke my VHS rental cherry by illegally
duplicating the only store copy of Media Home Entertainment’s A Nightmare on
Elm Street (1984) on Independence Day in 1985 from a local drug store’s video
department. I did this even before I owned a VCR and before the anti-copying
encoding scheme called Macrovision infiltrated pre-recorded tapes, forcing me
to finagle work-arounds. Like so many towns in the surrounding areas, video
stores proliferated with their original scent resulting from a mixture of the
new carpet and the video boxes that adorned the aisles and shelves. Despite the
eclectic assortment of titles, each store was severely limited in terms of the
sheer number of VHS titles that they carried. One store actually rented Beta
cassettes!
In
December 1988, a new and exceptionally large video store with blue and yellow
lettering appeared three miles from my house. It was called Blockbuster Video
and it offered movies I never knew even made it to home video. I managed to see
Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), Brian DePalma’s Sisters
(1973), Ulu Grosbard’s Straight Time (1978), and James Toback’s Fingers
(1978) all from this one store. I was in heaven! The glaring absence of adult
titles was curious since all the local stores had them, even the corporate
chains like Palmer Video and later on Easy Video. Porn was most definitely a
lucrative part of a store’s weekend intake, but the religious-owned Blockbuster
spurned such fare in favor of unrated violent gorefests like Dawn of the
Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Bad Taste (1986). Little by little, however, Blockbusters
started to show up in neighboring towns sporting multiple key differentiators: having
upwards of 25 VHS copies of the newest releases on hand whereas local stores
generally only had one copy in stock; allowing renters to keep movies for three
days and two nights as opposed to two days and one night; and allowing renters
to return the tape to a store after hours through a drop box.
Once
VHS was supplanted by DVD as the primary method of home video viewing,
Blockbuster was forced to change as well and after having pushed out many of
the local rental shops into bankruptcy, Blockbuster found itself up against
Netflix, a company that Blockbuster was offered to purchase for $50M - but simply
did not have the capital to do so. It is this event (misunderstood by lay
people as Blockbuster simply not wanting to buy Netflix), coupled with poor
management and the elimination of late fees, that sounded the death knell for
the ubiquitous company that at one time had over 9,000 locations. The Last
Blockbuster, a 2020 documentary produced by Netflix ironically enough (ouch!),
directed by Taylor Morden and narrated by Lauren Lapkus, attempts to both chronicle
the rise and fall of one of the most well-known companies in the United States
and answer the questions as to why the company ultimately failed. The film
succeeds for the most part, but my favorite sections of the film are people
reminiscing about renting tangible cassettes and DVDs.
The
title itself refers to the last single remaining Blockbuster Video located at 211
NE Revere Avenue in the town of Bend, Oregon, about three-and-a-half hours
southeast of Portland. It is still a functioning video rental store, run by the
Harding Family. It began life in 1992 by Ken and Debbie Tisher who opened it as
Pacific Video until it was franchised and rebranded Blockbuster Video in eight
years later. Today, the store finds itself in the same dilemma that it put so
many local stores into decades ago – either soldier on or fold. Sandi Harding
has worked for the company for over 15 years and pretty much takes care of the
entire store. The film depicts her coming in early, checking back in the titles
left in the drop box, and disclosing what it takes to keep a store like this in
business. She keeps a collection of old computers salvaged from long shuttered
Blockbusters in an attempt to keep the database and methods of renting titles
up-to-date and running.
The
film is not focused on just this last remaining store but rather bemoans the
lost art of getting in one’s car and going to the video store to peruse the
aisles and pick out something to watch on the weekend. Hanging out with the
person behind the checkout counter on slow evenings to talk about movies is
another casualty in the time of the Internet and movies at our fingertips. Among
the other personalities interviewed in the film are Kevin Smith, Ione Skye,
Brian Posehn, Doug Benson, Paul Scheer, and Samm Levine.
As
with any disruptive technology, the previous methods of watching movies are
invariably swept away and forgotten by the masses. However there is always a
small and significant percentage of people who recall with fondness the halcyon
days of renting movies from a store. Watching The Last Blockbuster, it
becomes clear that video stores were my generation’s equivalent of a drive-in.
Passion River's DVD/Blu-ray package of the film contains an assortment of extras:
The
film’s original trailer.
Eddie
Brandt’s Saturday Matinee
– This is a four-and-a-half-minute piece about a video store that opened in Los
Angeles in December 1968 as a thrift store and over the next few decades
amassed an enormous collection of tapes and discs. COVID-19 forced this store
to temporarily close in May 2020 as they were looking for a new venue.
More
with Kevin Smith – Director
Kevin Smith is the most fun to listen to, as he really has a true love of
movies. His explanation of working as a video store clerk and wanting to do
that for the rest of his life is heartfelt and honest. He talks about renting Bloodsucking
Freaks, a movie that I have heard of but still have not seen despite
growing up with sick friends who loved the 1980 film Mother’s Day. This
bit runs six minutes.
Talkin’
Movies with David McAbee
– Just over two minutes, this is another movie fan who explains the joys of
buying tangible product. I completely agree!
JC
from Scum and Villainy
– This bit is about two-and-a-half-minutes and echoes similar cineaste
sentiments.
Andres
The Last Blockbuster Music Video
– Under three minutes, this is a clever song about renting movies.
Our
Chat with Coach Pete – This
piece runs under one minute and discusses the love of renting. I wish that
these pieces were longer!
MTV’s
Matt Pinfield –
This runs about three-and-a-half minutes – I share Matt’s love of going to the record
stores and video stores, talking with fellow music lovers and movie lovers, and
having other people recommend titles I would not have normally gone for.
Wordburglar
“Rental Patient†Music Video
– At four minutes, this is a clever song about renting movies.
Ska-Punk
show at Costa Mesa, CA Blockbuster Video
– This is something that I think you had to be there in order to appreciate it.
The
Last Blockbuster is a
loving tribute to the extraordinary experience of renting and watching movies.
It will not win the Academy Award for Best Documentary, but it belongs in every
movie lover’s collection.
Kino
Lorber and Something Weird Video continue their collaboration to present “Forbidden
Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture†with Volume 9—The Lash of
the Penitentes. Like the other exploitation titles that have appeared over
the last two years, Lash is another piece of American celluloid that
will surely elicit jaw-dropping, eye-rolling, and headshaking. How did these
things ever get made and distributed? Who went to see them? How corrupted was
one after a viewing?
These
delicious and suitably sleazy pictures in the “Forbidden Fruit†series were
made cheaply and outside the Hollywood system. They were distributed
independently in the manner of a circus sideshow, often by renting a movie
theater for a few nights, advertising in the local papers, and promoting the
salacious title as “educational.†For adults only, mind you, but exhibited all
in the good name of science or health or whatever. Reefer Madness. Narcotic.
Ingagi. Test Tube Babies. She Should’a Said No!. Mom
and Dad. That sort of fare.
The
Lash of the Penitentes, from 1936, is sort of a documentary with re-staged and
fictionalized elements. Los Hermanos Penitentes, the “Penitentes†of the
title, (were? are?) a real religious sect in New Mexico and Colorado that
practices extreme rituals on Good Friday of every year. The main course is a re-enactment
of Christ’s passion by having “penitents†carry crosses up a mountain while
being flagellated by the religious leaders, and then ending with the “chosen
penitent†being crucified on a cross (not with nails). The film implies that
the man dies, but that is unlikely. Apparently, for decades, these activities
were public until more recent years in which the whole gruesome spectacle is
performed in private and probably with more care not to really hurt anyone.
However,
back when the picture was made, this was some seriously twisted stuff. And much
of the real thing is caught on camera.
It
has an interesting history, too. A cameraman named Roland Price (we think) went
to New Mexico and surreptitiously filmed some of the ritual for the purposes of
a future documentary. However, nothing was done with the approximately 18,000
feet of footage. Then, in early 1936, a journalist by the name of Carl Taylor
went to write about the Penitentes. He was caught spying on the ceremony, which
is forbidden to outside parties. He was murdered. The crime made headlines.
Enter
exploitation moviemaker Harry Revier (also responsible for another “Forbidden
Fruit†entry, Child Bride). He somehow acquired the rights to the
documentary footage, fashioned a fictional murder mystery plot to wrap around
it, and shot new material with actors. Of course, the mystery is based on—or at
least inspired by—the true killing of Taylor.
The
approximately 48-minute movie was titled The Penitente Murder Case.
Besides the (for the time) violent depiction of the flagellation and the creepy
religious sect stuff that would assuredly freak out “normal†American
Christians of 1936, the motion picture also contained footage of actress Marie
DeForrest also being stripped and flagellated on the mountainside, and
then “crucified†naked. Why this was included is unclear plot-wise, but it has
something to do with her helping Mack in his mission.
The
censors (the Hays Office) understandably would have nothing to do with the
movie, so Revier edited his masterwork down to 35 minutes—deleting DeForrest’s
footage and making other trims. This version was then released to the public as
The Lash of the Penitentes and this is what grindhouse cinemas on the
exploitation circuit have shown since. It was even released on VHS and DVD in
this version by fly-by-night companies in the past.
Now,
Kino Lorber has issued a high-def Blu-ray of the full-length 48-minute version
that looks about as best as it can get. It comes with a highly informative
audio commentary by Bret Wood, co-author of the book Forbidden Fruit: The
Golden Age of the Exploitation Film and curator of the “Forbidden Fruitâ€
series for Kino.
Also
included is the 35-minutecensored version. What makes the entire thing
even more mysterious is the inclusion of the theatrical trailer, which contains
scandalous footage that does not appear in either edit of the film. The trailer
has scenes of a woman being assaulted by her boyfriend, saved by a young boy,
but then flagellated while hanging from her arms. Full nudity. In a trailer.
None of it is in The Penitente Murder Case or The Lash of the
Penitentes. One supposes that this was the only way the distributors could lure
an audience—mostly male, it is assumed—to come see the picture when it opened.
Since
both versions of the feature are short, Kino Lorber and Something Weird
probably could have added another “Forbidden Fruit†title to the disk; after
all, several other Volumes in the series contain double features. Why not this
one? With that the only quibble, The Lash of the Penitentes should
appeal to those fans of film history, exploitation films, and just plain kooky,
weird stuff.
SOLD OUT ON AMAZON. CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM KINO LORBER.
Mike
Henry, the rugged former football player-turned-actor, passed away on January
8, 2021 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease and Chronic traumatic
encephalopathy, likely from his heavy physical contact during his years in the
NFL playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and LA Rams.Although not a household name, Henry carved
out an impressive career playing heroic roles, most notably Tarzan in three
films from 1966 – 68.I remember
stumbling across Tarzan And the Valley of Gold on network TV as a kid
and being enthralled by this hulking, well-spoken Tarzan who wore a suit in one
scene and the traditional loincloth in the next. (The series’ producer, Sy
Weintraub, cannily tried to jump on the then-raging Bondmania in 1966 by
offering up a suave Tarzan equally at home in a city as in the jungle.The fact that Henry bore a passing
resemblance to Sean Connery didn’t hurt.)Henry took over the role of Tarzan from Jock Mahoney (who suffered
dysentery making Tarzan’s Three Challenges that was so severe, he
emerged emaciated from the shoot in Thailand.) Blessed with a chiseled physique
that Weintraub crowed looked like it was “sculpted by Michelangeloâ€, Henry
could easily handle the athletic demands of the coveted part.
What
Henry endured making the Tarzan films was even more heroic than the role itself.
While filming Tarzan and the Great River, the script called for Tarzan
to pick up Cheeta (a chimpanzee) and run with him.The film was shot in the jungles of Brazil,
so all the onscreen animals had to be flown in – one imagines they were under
severe stress in a totally unfamiliar environment.The chimp reacted by biting Henry in the face,
requiring 20 stitches in his jaw and a stay in the local hospital for bouts of
“monkey feverâ€.
Mike Henry in a Brazilian hospital after being treated from wounds inflicted by a chimpanzee.
In
the course of making his three Tarzan epics, Henry suffered a severe ear
infection, food poisoning, fatigue, liver ailments, almost got clawed by an
enraged leopard and was so exhausted by the back-to-back film shoots that when
his contract required him to jump right into a Tarzan television series, the
actor wanted out. Who who could have blamed him?Ron Ely took over as Tarzan on TV and racked
up an equally impressive number of injuries including numerous broken bones and
several lion bites during its 2-year run.Henry, reportedly one of the most humble and affable people in the biz, was
so traumatized that he sued producer Weintraub for almost $1 million for
“maltreatment, abuse and working conditions detrimental to my health…†(Both
this and a related lawsuit were unsuccessful in court.)
Although
he had a successful career behind the camera, producing TV commercials and
documentaries, Henry continued to act – in films like The Green Berets, The
Longest Yard, Soylent Green and on episodes of M*A*S*H, The Six Million
Dollar Man, Scrubs, Fantasy Island and others.His role as Jackie Gleason’s dimwitted son in
three Smokey and the Bandit movies introduced this versatile performer
to a new generation of fans. Sadly, due to his illnesses, he had to retire from
the industry in 1988.
I
made several attempts to interview Mr. Henry, especially when I discovered he
lived near me in Los Angeles, but Covid and not wanting to intrude kept me from
pushing too hard.Still, he is one of
the actors I most remember from my movie-going youth and his dashing
appearances at Tarzan, in spite of all the trauma he personally endured, makes
him a true hero in my book.Thanks for
the magic, Mike.
In
January 1998 I attended a book signing in New York City emceed by author
Russell Banks and film director Atom Egoyan. They were on hand to autograph
copies of Mr. Banks’s 1991 novel, The Sweet Hereafter, which had been
made into a 1997 film of the same name by Mr. Egoyan. Despite varying greatly,
the novel and the film both concern the aftereffects of life in a small town in
the Adirondacks when fourteen children die following an accident involving
their school bus when it careens off a slippery, snow-covered road and sinks
into the frozen waters of a nearby body of water. Mr. Egoyan claimed that he
was inspired to make the film because, he felt, something terrible will happen
to everyone at some point in his or her life, and they will need to find a way
to move on.
A
terrible fate befell nineteen-year-old Jacquelyn M. “Lyn” Helton in 1969 when, just
after giving birth to her daughter, she suffered from terrible leg pain that
was misdiagnosed as bursitis; it turned out to be osteosarcoma (bone cancer). She
sought medical treatment and was dealt grim news: either have her leg amputated
and hope that the cancer did not spread or take a chance on chemotherapy and
radiation. The former was not an option for her, and so in earnest she began
recording her thoughts and feelings about her life with her
photographer/musician husband Tom so that her daughter would hear the tapes and
know her after she died. This tragic and heartbreaking story inspired the
made-for-television film Sunshine which premiered on CBS-TV on Friday,
November 9, 1973 (Mrs. Helton passed before the film was made). Reportedly the
most viewed TV-movie up to that point in time, Sunshine stars former
model turned actress Cristina Raines as Kate, a pregnant divorcee who meets Sam
(Cliff De Young), a photographer/musician who has no real means of supporting her
but manages to assuage her tantrums by singing John Denver songs to her. The
film begins with her death and her ashes scattered, so we know the outcome from
the start.
Sam
agrees to raise her child, Jill, as his own in the midst of their carefree
lifestyle, leftover from the Flower Children of the Sixties, driving around in
a small van painted in carefree love motifs. The film deals sensitively with
the issues that no adult wants to face in their lifetime: adultery, premature
death, and the fear of the unknown. Ms. Raines gives a heartfelt performance as
a woman who is both positive and life-affirming but one who also is angry at
the fate dealt her. Ms. Raines gave up acting nearly two decades after Sunshine
to become a registered nurse, a career path change also shared by former
actress Tisa Farrow. Cliff De Young is also a singer and musician and turns in
a likeable performance as Sam. Meg Foster is also excellent as Nora, the woman
next door who begins an affair with Sam and is ultimately enlisted to help
raise Jill. Brenda Vaccaro is also terrific as the doctor who wants desperately
to help Kate and tries to convince her to stay the course, to no avail.
Director
Joseph Sargent, who honed his craft in directing television series in the 1960’s
and helmed 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project, would follow up Sunshine
with the last project one would expect from him: 1974’s brilliant, hilarious
and completely politically incorrect New York City film The Taking of Pelham
123. Bill Butler, who turns 100 this year and photographed The People
vs. Paul Crump (1962) for William Friedkin, Something Evil (1972), Savage
(1973), and Jaws (1975) for Steven Spielberg, and replaced Haskell
Wexler on both The Conversation (1974) for Francis Coppola and One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) for Milos Forman, does his best to make
Vancouver, BC a suitable stand-in for Spokane, WA. Credit should also be given
to twins Rachel Lindsay Greenbush and Sidney Greenbush who both played Jill. The
film was produced by George Eckstein, who also produced Steven Spielberg’s Duel
(1971).
If
the premise of the film seems a bit familiar, a similar story was written by
author Nancy Kincaid as Pretending the Bed is a Raft (1997) and was
filmed by director Sarah Polley as My Life Without Me (2003), in which
Ms. Polley also starred. Whether or not author Kincaid based this short story
on Mrs. Helton’s story, I do not know. Ms. Polley, incidentally, also starred
in the aforementioned The Sweet Hereafter.
Sunshine has been released on Blu-ray from the Twilight
Time sister label, Redwind Productions, however I cannot verify if they
released any other titles. There was talk of releasing Loving You
(1957), the Elvis Presley movie.
The
transfer was made from either the original camera negative, the interpositive
or internegative and was scanned in 4K. It looks like the movie was just made.
The
Blu-ray comes with a booklet discussing the film’s impact on the world and how
it was released theatrically world-wide.
Lately
there has been a new trend in film books that are more like biographies than
simply non-fiction treatises on the making of a movie. A “biography of a film,â€
as critic Molly Haskell calls it, treats a particular motion picture in the
same way a researcher would examine a person’s life—from the inception to its
lasting influence and impact today, meticulously illustrating each step and examining
the personnel involved along the way. The recent Space Odyssey by
Michael Benson (a “biography†of 2001: A Space Odyssey) is a fine
example.
Glenn
Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy—Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the
Making of a Dark Classic is one such biography of a film, and it is a
magnificent tome. Besides dissecting the all-important sociological milieu that
was in the background while Cowboy was being made, the book is an
excellent lesson in the filmmaking process.
Frankel’s
book begins, as it should, with novelist James Leo Herlihy. Tall and handsome,
Herlihy in many ways was a more intelligent and sophisticated version of his
character, Joe Buck, although Herlihy was not from Texas. Novelist, playwright,
and actor, Herlihy was also a gay man in a time and place in which one must
remain closeted—although he was anything but. His early work, which included
more plays for the stage than novels, had subtle homosexual themes and characters.
His novel Midnight Cowboy was published in 1965. It did fairly well, but
it didn’t take the literary world by storm. Luckily, the book landed in the
hands of British filmmaker John Schlesinger, another gay man who struggled with
his sexual identity in public.
John
Schlesinger was coming off the success of his 1965 “swinging Londonâ€
eye-opener, Darling, which had garnered Oscar nominations of Picture and
Director, and had awarded Julie Christie with Best Actress. As he embarked on
making his period adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd,
he teamed up with producer Jerome Hellman to make Cowboy after that.
It
was a rough road for both the producer and director, especially when Madding
Crowd (1967) bombed at the box office. Luckily, the duo found an ally in
David Picker, an executive at United Artists. UA was known for its liberal
policies of allowing filmmakers to do their thing without interference, as long
as they stuck to an agreed upon budget. Picker’s instincts were canny—he knew
that Schlesinger would deliver a work of art, so he convinced his colleagues to
go with Midnight Cowboy.
Casting
the film was a challenge. Dustin Hoffman was an early contender for the role of
Rico “Ratso†Rizzo, even before the release of his star-making vehicle, The
Graduate (1967). Hoffman had to convince Schlesinger he could do the part
after The Graduate came out by improvising a costume and showing up in
character for a meeting on the streets of New York for a “meeting.†The pivotal
protagonist role of Joe Buck was more problematic. Schlesinger had his eye on
Michael Sarrazin, but newcomer Jon Voight was also in the wings hoping for a
chance. The casting director, Marion Dougherty (whose contribution to the film
is duly emphasized in Frankel’s book), fought for Voight. When Sarrazin’s agent
asked for more money than what was originally agreed upon, both Hellman and
Schlesinger decided to go with Voight. While Sarrazin might have performed in
the role quite well, the choice of Voight was a significant move.
And
then there is screenwriter Waldo Salt, formerly blacklisted during the HUAC
witch hunts, who brought another set of baggage to the production.
The
book also provides the reader with a history of the Times Square area of New
York City, and how it changed in the 1950s and 60s to the sleazy hunting
grounds for hustlers that we see in the film (and it would get worse in the
70s—witness Taxi Driver!). All of this is vitally important to how Midnight
Cowboy was conceived and shot, and the background is fascinating.
One
of the most surprising revelations about Shooting Midnight Cowboy is the
story of its X-rating. The book tells us that the movie ratings board initially
rated the movie R for Restricted Audiences! It was Arthur Krim, the head of
United Artists, who on the advice of a psychiatrist friend, insisted that the
picture be rated X because of its depiction of homosexuality. Later, after the
film won the Best Picture Oscar, UA went back to the ratings board and asked
that the movie be re-rated to R. The board, befuddled by the request (“hey,
that’s what we originally rated it!â€), did so… and to this day, Midnight
Cowboy is still rated R without any cuts.
Glenn
Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboy delivers a filmmaking lesson, a history
lesson, a candid portrait of all the personages involved (complete with
interviews with Hoffman, Voight, and others who are still alive to talk about
it), and a snapshot of one of the greatest American films—seen through the eyes
of a British director—ever made.