The Cowboys
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| The Cowboys | |
|---|---|
 1972 movie poster |
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| Directed by | Mark Rydell |
| Produced by | Mark Rydell |
| Written by | Irving Ravetch Harriet Frank, Jr. based on the novel by William Dale Jennings |
| Starring | John Wayne Roscoe Lee Browne Bruce Dern Colleen Dewhurst Slim Pickens |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Robert Surtees |
| Editing by | Robert Swink Neil Travis |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | January 13, 1972 |
| Running time | 131 min |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6,000,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Cowboys is a 1972 western motion picture starring John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Slim Pickens, A Martinez and Bruce Dern. Robert Carradine makes his film debut. The film was directed by Mark Rydell.
[edit] Plot
When his hired men abandon him for the lure of a gold rush, Cattle Rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take collection of young school boys on a cattle drive in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. Under Andersen's tutelage the boys learn to do a man's job, however, neither Andersen nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves led by Long Hair Asa Watts (Bruce Dern) are in hot pursuit.
The film is known for depicting Wayne being cold-bloodedly shot in the back by Dern's character. This resulted in co-star Dern earning a bad reputation in Hollywood that made it difficult for him to get roles. During filming of this scene, Wayne warned Dern, "They'll hate you for this."
Another well known scene was that of a minor using profanity. One of the boys was a stutterer and was unable to alert them to danger. When When Wayne chews the child out, the boy stutters "Y-y-you S-s-son of a B-b-bitch!", only to be coaxed by Wayne to say it repeatedly to the point where the boy no longers stutters. Wayne simply responds "Don't get into a habit of calling me that!"
Fatherhood, and more specifically, the father-son relationship is a recurring theme throughout the movie. We learn at the beginning of the movie, that Wayne has lost two of his own sons. He becomes a surrogate father to his "cowboys" during their cattle drive and eventually risks his own life to save them from a deranged killer. This father-son dynamic takes on a somewhat Christian metaphor later in the movie when his cowboys, baptized by violence in their quest to revenge his death, return to the scene of Wayne's murder with a tombstone and are mysteriously unable to locate his body. The inscription on the tombstone reads: "Wil Andersen: Beloved Husband and Father".
In 1974, it was turned into a television series for ABC starring Jim Davis, Diana Douglas, and Moses Gunn. Only A Martinez, Robert Carradine, and Clay O'Brien were in both the movie and the television series.
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