1980 Week: Tom Horn & The Hunter

          Like so many movie stars who epitomize a particular romantic ideal, Steve McQueen’s reign as a box-office champ was surprisingly brief. He found success on television with the 1958-1961 Western series Wanted: Dead or Alive, then became a proper marquee name with his breakout role in the ensemble adventure The Great Escape (1963) before peaking with action/thriller pictures including Bullitt (1968). By the mid-’70s, however, McQueen was basically over. That is, until he mounted a two-film comeback attempt in 1980. Alas, McQueen’s return to glory was not meant to be. The actor died from a heart attack at age 50 while receiving treatment for the cancer that his doctors discovered after McQueen completed production on his last movie, The Hunter. While both of McQueen’s final films are palatable distractions, neither is remarkable, and, quite frankly, neither suggests McQueen had much gas left in the tank. Released in March 1980, Tom Horn is an elegiac Western about a cowboy forced to pay for his violent life. Released in August 1980, The Hunter is the lighthearted story of a modern-day bounty hunter. Both pictures are based upon real people, and both roles suit McQueen well.

          Tom Horn, the better of the two pictures, explores the unique quandary faced by gunslingers during the historical moment when the Wild West gave way to civilization, with all the petty corruptions that word entails. The real Tom Horn was a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt, and he helped capture Geronimo. By 1901, he was a relic—a bit like McQueen circa 1979, when the picture was shot. While drifting through Wyoming, Tom (McQueen) meets gentleman rancher John Coble (Richard Farnsworth), who hires Tom to help roust a troublesome band of rustlers. Working on behalf of John and a consortium of fellow ranchers, Tom dispatches the varmints permanently, killing them one by one. Even though he’s following orders and operating within the law, Tom’s bloody campaign gains unwanted attention, because the ranchers want Wyoming to seem like a peaceful paradise. Therefore, when Tom is arrested for the murder of an innocent man, it sure seems as if some nefarious soul framed Tom in order to make him go away. (The film, with a script credited to Bud Shrake and Thomas McGuane, retains ambiguity about the critical shooting.)

          The second half of Tom Horn comprises a kangaroo-court trial, though the real thrust of the inquiry is exploring the necessity of free-roaming gunmen in the 20th century. Director William Wiard does an okay job of infusing Tom Horn with fatalism (at one point Horn muses, “Do you know how raggedy-ass and terrible the West really was?”), and he tries valiantly to emulate John Ford’s sweeping vistas. However, Wiard isn’t much for generating real dramatic energy, and the casting of vapid Linda Evans in the female lead dooms the film’s romantic subplot. McQueen seems tired throughout the movie, which fits the character, but a distracting sense of listlessness pervades Tom Horn’s 98 pokey minutes.

          Offering a different look at similar subject matter, The Hunter is a more accomplished piece of work, but not in a good way—the movie is so slick and tidy that it feels like the pilot for a TV series instead of a proper feature. McQueen plays Ralph “Papa” Thorson, a gruff but loveable hired gun who chases bail jumpers across the country. Packing a .45 and perpetually griping that he’s too old for this shit, Papa treats bad men without mercy but cuts all kinds of slack for misguided ne’er-do-wells, even providing employment to some of the people he captures. Director Buzz Kulik has fun staging action scenes, including a chase across a farm involving cars and a tractor, as well as the centerpiece sequence revolving around an elevated train in Chicago. Domestic scenes are less impressive, because McQueen and leading lady Kathryn Harrold—as Papa’s pregnant girlfriend—share anemic, sitcom-style banter about commitment and Lamaze classes. Worse, the film’s climax is so trite that it’s nearly comical, and the myriad scenes designed to inform viewers that “Papa” is brave, eccentric, noble, old-fashioned, or just plain wonderful get tiresome after a while.

          Nonetheless, Tom Horn and The Hunter capture something important about McQueen, even if both are disappointing in different ways. In the ’60s, McQueen was the quintessential man of his moment. Just as McQueen did, the moment passed quickly through this world, leaving an indelible impression.

Tom Horn: FUNKY

The Hunter: FUNKY

Rancho Deluxe (1975)

          Because novelist/screenwriter Thomas McGuane’s literary voice was such an enjoyably eccentric component of ’70s cinema (his big-screen work tapered off in subsequent decades), it doesn’t really matter that ’70s films bearing his name have weak stories. What the pictures lack in narrative momentum, they make up for in personality. Rancho Deluxe, written by McGuane and directed by the adventurous Frank Perry, is an offbeat modern Western that’s a comedy by default—which is to say that while the movie has amusing elements, it’s primarily a character study. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston play Jack and Cecil, low-rent cattle rustlers plaguing a ranch owned by the vituperative John Brown (Clifton James). Eventually, John gets fed up with losing livestock and hires thugs to apprehend the rustlers. First come inept ranch hands Burt (Richard Bright) and Curt (Harry Dean Stanton), both of whom are too horny and lackadaisical to devote much energy toward criminal investigation. Then John brings in a thief-turned-detective, Henry (Slim Pickens), whose idiosyncratic approach mostly involves setting traps and waiting for the rustlers to stumble across his path. Also thrown into the mix are John’s short-tempered wife, Cora (Elizabeth Ashley), and Henry’s hot-to-trot daughter, Laura (Charlene Dallas).

          McGuane mostly eschews dramatic tension, opting instead for closely observed scenes of quirky characters behaving in ways that reveal their nature. There’s a great bit, for instance, when Jack and Cecil kidnap a car and shoot it full of holes, partially to make a point and partially to pass the time. In moments like this, McGuane’s script captures the slow rhythms of rural life, as well as the bedrock Western virtue of rugged individualism. In scene after scene, McGuane ensures that his characters evince surprising dimensions. Consider party girl Mary (Maggie Wellman), who reveals unexpected cultural sophistication with her comment about a dinner spread: “This is a weird mixture of yin and yang—so many animal karmas have bit the dust here.” Elsewhere, Stanton’s character tries to look macho while standing outside John’s mansion and running a vacuum over an Indian rug per instructions from the lady of the house. Virtually every minute of Rancho Deluxe is interesting in some way or another, but that’s not quite enough to compensate for the generally aimless feel of the piece. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to enjoy thanks to McGuane’s quirky writing and the generally lively performances. Pickens and Stanton are the standouts, with Pickens’ down-home bluster and Stanton’s laconic vibe suiting the material especially well, though Bridges, James, and Waterston each provide likeable characterizations.

Rancho Deluxe: FUNKY

The Missouri Breaks (1976)

          When it’s referred to at all, The Missouri Breaks is generally cited as the movie that derailed Marlon Brando’s ’70s comeback, because after reclaiming prominence with the 1972 double-whammy of The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, Brando confounded supporters by delivering such a campy performance in The Missouri Breaks that he entered the realm of self-parody. Ironically, however, Brando isn’t even the star of this offbeat Western, despite his top billing. The Missouri Breaks is a Jack Nicholson vehicle. But such is the power of Brando’s myth that he dominates the picture—and the picture’s reputation. On one level, it’s a shame the good things in The Missouri Breaks were overshadowed by Brando’s self-indulgence, since the movie’s dialogue has loads of frontier-varmint flavor and the location photography is elegant. Plus, writer Thomas McGuane’s characteristically eccentric storyline takes a fresh approach to ancient themes of revenge and vigilantism. But on another level, Brando’s silly performance is exactly what The Missouri Breaks deserves, since the film is unnecessarily languid and turgid; perhaps a stronger storyline might have motivated Brando to furnish a more streamlined characterization.

          In any event, Nicholson stars as Tom Logan, leader of a grubby band of cattle rustlers operating in Montana. When one of Tom’s accomplices is killed by order of a rural judge named David Braxton (John McLian), Tom purchases a ranch near David’s property with the intention of tormenting his enemy. Meanwhile, David hires a mercenary named Robert E. Lee Clayton (Brando) to smoke out local rustlers. (David is, of course, unaware of Tom’s true identity.) Further complicating matters, Tom courts David’s lonely, willful daughter, Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). The story has a few layers too many, its sprawling flow more suited to a novel than a movie, and McGuane’s script often gets lost in thickets of flavorful chitty-chat; to use a musical analogy, The Missouri Breaks is like a jam in search of a melody.

          Director Arthur Penn, whose previous films Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Little Big Man (1970) so cleverly undercut genre expectations, veers too far (and too inconsistently) away from the mainstream with The Missouri Breaks—the movie toggles between insouciant tomfoolery and numbingly serious drama. In fact, the film is at its best when nothing much is happening onscreen, because simple scenes allow McGuane and Penn to focus on believably mundane rhythms of behavior and characterization. Supporting player Harry Dean Stanton shines in many of these throwaway scenes with his innately laconic vibe. Nicholson’s at a bit of a loss from start to finish, grasping for a central theme around which to build his sloppily rendered character, and Brando—well, it says everything that the actor performs one of his climactic scenes in drag, for no apparent reason. Whether he’s chirping a comical Irish accent, peering around his horse from odd angles, or sulking in a bubble bath, Brando presents a series of goofy sketches in lieu of a proper characterization.

The Missouri Breaks: FUNKY

92 in the Shade (1975)

          Eccentric and flavorful, the sole directorial effort by novelist/screenwriter Thomas McGuane is slight on story but long an atmosphere. The sweaty tale of a conflict between two guide-boat captains in Key West, 92 in the Shade has a quintessentially ’70s cast filled with actors who nail McGuane’s weird dialogue, plus realistic locations that lend credibility. Peter Fonda stars as Tom Skelton, an easygoing young man who decides to become a guide-boat captain squiring tourists around the Everglades. This antagonizes Nichol Dance (Warren Oates), a hair-triggered boat captain working the same area. Undaunted, Tom opens for business. However, because McGuane is more interested in the subtle nuances of offbeat behavior than the predictable rhythms of macho brutality, 92 in the Shade depicts adversaries who don’t really want to hurt each other. As a result, many scenes feature the funny/sad subtext of Nichol begging Tom to back off so things won’t spiral into violence.

          McGuane also devotes lots of screen time to tasty subplots, like the domestic travails of another boat captain, Carter (Harry Dean Stanton), and his frustrated wife, Jeannie (Elizabeth Ashley); Carter’s a working slob trying to pay the bills, but Jeannie’s a former majorette eager to enjoy the lifestyle to which she anticipates becoming accustomed. Another thread involves Tom’s ailing father (William Hickey), who sits outdoors in a mosquito net while he bickers with Tom’s grandfather (Burgess Meredith), a lawyer who relishes his small amount of regional influence. As Hickey whines in a typically ornate McGuane turn of phrase, “Your grandfather’s Huey Long complex has finally put him beyond communication.”

          In fact, McGuane’s dialogue is the best reason to watch the movie. Oates gets to spew some of the most peculiar lines, whether explaining his fantasy of becoming Arnold Palmer’s caddy or issuing confounding declarations like, “I’m the kinda guy who’d fuck a brush pile if I thought there was a snake in there.” Whether the line actually means anything is beside the point, because Oates is so good at incarnating rural misfits that the medium becomes the message. The only cast member who isn’t given interesting material is leading lady Margot Kidder, but one suspects she wasn’t hired for her acting chops, since she spends the movie strutting around in miniscule tops that—well, let’s just say Kidder had ample ventilation while shooting in humid locations. 92 in the Shade has more texture than substance, but for those who dig this particular period in character-driven cinema, it’s an enjoyable lark filled with enthusiastic performances.

92 in the Shade: GROOVY