Search - Cowboy on DVD

Okay Movie, Poor DVD

R. Whitney | 02/01/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This is a decent DVD, if you don't mind that 27.9 percent of the original theatrical image has been removed for the DVD exhibition, so that the DVD image fills your entire 4:3 television screen (theatrical aspect ratio - 1.85:1; DVD aspect ratio - 4:3). If you're okay with that, enjoy!"

How could they release this in Pan & Scan????

R. Whitney | 06/25/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a wonderful look at the "real" West for a change; warts and all. BUT, and it is a big BUT, it needs to be seen as originally filmed not cut for television. Neverthless I'll keep this copy and then buy it again when it is released in Widescreen. Why do those who support the rights of directors and complain when someone "messes" with "their" product think nothing of chopping a film to fit a televion screen."

Really the West

Steven Hellerstedt | 10/13/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There are some movies that force you to contemplate issues swimming in the deep end of the pool. The dvd for COWBOY contains a few trailers, one for COWBOY itself. In it star Jack Lemmon proudly boasts that COWBOY is "really the best, really the west." Amen, brother. The cattle drive this movie takes you on is unlike most others, an adult western as they measured such things in the late `50s.

Lemmon plays tinhorn Frank Norris, a hotel clerk who has a romantic notion about the cowboy life, and Glenn Ford plays Tom Reese, cattle boss and ramrod teflon-coated against the romance of the open range, who reluctantly takes Lemmon on.

There's a dispensable romantic subplot to this one, included only to provide Lemmon with a breakable romantic notion and a reason to want to go south (his forbidden love lives with a protective father in Mexico.) COWBOY is about what happens on the trail, and not much of it is good. Ford's trail gang contains an assortment of deviants and sociopaths enough to make a barbarian blush. Among the wranglers is a character who ate the "left haunch" of a Comanche warrior and is ribbed unmercifully for it. A prank turns fatal and rather than meditate on the meaning of life, the instigator attempts to steal the victim's boots. When an amorous wrangler precipitates a brutal fight with a jealous boyfriend and his gang the wrangler's pardners vamoose before the knives are drawn. COWBOY has a strong anti-romantic message; life on the trail is a dehumanizing experience. Lemmon is at first horrified and then embittered, his anger mainly directed at boss Ford for allowing it. An interesting and nice feature of this smart film is watching the Lemmon and Ford characters evolve along the drive. Lemmon turns hard and mean, while Ford softens up a bit.

The intelligent script is the work of Edmund North and an uncredited Dalton Trumbo. It's based on Frank Harris's My Reminiscences As a Cowboy (1930), one of many real-life cowboy stories published in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Texan historian and folklorist J. Frank Dobie called Harris's book "a blatant farrago of lies". Dobie's judgment is what led me to the deep end. COWBOY was obviously marketed as an adult "really" real alternative to the sugar-coated pap westerns of the 50s. I'm not quite sure what a "blatant farrago" is, but I assume Dobie was in a high lather when he wrote that. In any event, one side says realistic and the other blatant lies. I guess I'd call it myth-busting, probably a lot more shocking in 1958 than it is today. We've been bombarded with a series of myth-busting real west Western in the last fifty years.

On the first pass it seems odd to cast Lemmon and Ford in a western. They're more urban characters, and the 50s were saturated with competent Western actors. My guess it was a conscious decision by director Delmer Daves (who directed Ford in the classic 3:10 TO YUMA the previous year) to go against the grain some.

Warning - those offended by scenes of animal cruelty should be aware that in one scene chickens are buried up to their necks and cowboys compete to pull them out while riding galloping horses. Those offended by chintzy props shouldn't play too close attention to the scene with the fierce bull and his a-little-too-obviously red rubber horns.



"

COWBOY-1958

movie man JACK | USA | 03/10/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Here the great GLENN FORD(Who also starred with Jack Lemmon's wife,Felicia Farr.in.."3:10 TO YUMA"..now gets to star with Jack Lemmon...who(A GREENHORN)comes off very good I feel.He has this beleive..living under the stars with cattle is like heaven in the open range.RICHARD JAECKEL..who is so good himself..never seems to age.He has always looked youthful,sorry to say..he's gone now,like JACK LEMMON.When an actor like Mr.Lemmon does a western..he really pulled it off.Here he is city-slicker..wanting to move cattle with Mr.Ford.And good old Glenn takes him up on offer,only because he lost money playing poker.It's a western that moves right along...actor,Dick York is very good in his role also.The only thing that kept me from giving it 5-stars is..the dvd...should have been in widescreen.Westerns are outdoor adventures..it needs the Scope of the west.Columbia is getting very cheap lately.All they had to do is give both versions.I seen his western on Turner classic and taped it.It was presented then..in WIDESCREEN."