The Culpepper Cattle Co.

Although a small movie, "The Culpepper Cattle Company" is arguably one of the top ten westerns of all time. It takes a fairly basic but relevant coming of age story and sets it in the American West. But the "been there-done that" stuff gives way to something that has extremely heavy Peckinpah influences. Like "The Wild Bunch" (and Bo Hopkins gets to reprise his Clarence "Crazy" Lee role) this becomes a violent anti-violence film with blurred lines between "good guy" and "bad guy". As with Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs", moral ambiguity is the theme and it is not until near the end that the four drovers, pressed to finally take a moral stand, redeem themselves with a final act of personal responsibility.

In addition to a good characterization from Hopkins, Geoffry Lewis plays the wrapped a little too tight "Russ" with an over-the-top Gary Oldman-like flare, and Luke Askew does a masterful job as the drover who provides early clues that these are four guys who have had to subordinate their basic goodness in order to survive in this environment. Billy Green Bush plays "Frank Culpepper" who remains focused on business to the exclusion of any lost causes. Bush played the likable "Elton" in "Five Easy Pieces" who was responsible for the classic Nicholson line: "don't tell me about the good life Elton, the good life makes me want to puke".

Also exceptional is the cinematography and the production design. Back in the ancient 1970's, only the high budget pictures had production designers. The others had to rely on the cinematographer to make sure the art director, the set designer, and the make-up/costume people were all on the same page; so that the picture had a consistent look. Ralph Woolsey was one of the better cinematographers at keeping all these elements under control.

It became popular after Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (1971) to replace the well-scrubbed Roy Rogers look and portray the west as dirty, dusty, gritty, unshaven, and tattered. Woolsey eagerly embraced this realism in 1972 and gave us two of the grimiest features we are likely to see; the excellent "Culpepper Cattle Company" and the somewhat lame "Dirty Little Billy".

The shootout scene in the saloon (midway into the film) is more climatic than the final scene. Not until "The Unforgiven" has there been so much action-so fast-on such a tiny set; yet Woolsey captured it all and the post-production people assembled it into a neat and logically sequenced package. So you can follow the whole thing with very little confusion.

"The Culpepper Cattle Company" really looks and feels authentic, as if you are actually witnessing a cattle drive in the year 1866 being led by trail boss and cattle owner Frank Culpepper (Billy Green Bush). That's because, for one thing, a lot of dust gets kicked up and nobody is clean. And the cowboys talk as though they are real cowboys. They complain about the dust, and the food, and the work, and the low wages, and just about everything else. At night, they tell tall stories around the campfire, mostly about the women they've been with. Pete (Matt Clark), the best storyteller, spins a yarn about all the naked Parisian women you could see on the second floor through the glass ceiling. Hilarious.

Two other interesting characters in the drive include the trigger-happy, touchy Russ (Geoffrey Lewis) and Dixie Brick (Bo Hopkins), who gets his kicks from seeing guys get shot. Those two engage in this crazy hysterical laugh before the final shootout.

All of this is seen through the eyes of young Ben (Gary Grimes) who hires on as a little Mary (cook's helper). He wants nothing more than to be a cowboy but soon finds out things are not quite as he imagined. When he tells the cook how much he wants to be a cowboy, he gets told that cowboying is something you do when you can't do anything else. After he asks Luke (Luke Askew) what his horse's name is, he gets told that you don't have to name something you might have to eat.

Expect a lot of violence. This was made in 1972, a couple of years after "The Wild Bunch" had set the standard for the wholesale slaughter of men.

Others have summarized this film quite well. I would only add that it's unique in being the only good film I can readily remember that consists of nothing but supporting players. Not a star among 'em. Billy Bush Green, Geoffrey Lewis, Luke Askew, Bo Hopkins and many others are indelibly played, e.g., the stuttering barkeep who keeps a "genuine former virgin" in the back room; the Mexican cantina owner who keeps a rattlesnake in a jar and wins money from customers by betting they can't hold their hand against the glass when the snake strikes; the preacher who declares of the land his followers stop at as the "place God has chosen for us" until the shooting starts and he decides to move because "God was only testing us."

Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette it ain't. Catch it if you can.

"The Culpepper Cattle Co." is a good, solid coming-of-age story set in the Old West, done in the gritty post-Peckinpah style that lets us know that the characters in this tale are leading hard lives. It also becomes a tale of redemption as men neither "good" nor "bad" finally decide to take a stand and do something honourable. Director Dick Richards ("Farewell, My Lovely"), who also gets story credit, gets excellent performances out of a cast that includes many top character actors. Some viewers may not be able to stomach how violent things eventually get, but there are many fine moments along the way. There's no filler here, just simple and effective story telling, enhanced by the work of two credited cinematographers (Ralph Woolsey and Lawrence Edward Williams) and two credited composers (Tom Scott and the legendary Jerry Goldsmith).

Gary Grimes of "Summer of '42" fame stars as Ben Mockridge, who more than anything yearns to be a cowboy and gets the chance to work on a cattle drive supervised by tough, business-oriented Frank Culpepper (Billy Green Bush, "Five Easy Pieces"). As Culpepper and his company press on, they must deal with a cattle rustler (Royal Dano), a horse thief (Gregory Sierra), a trapper (Paul Harper), and personality conflicts, with hot tempered Russ Caldwell (an effectively wired Geoffrey Lewis) making trouble on more than one occasion. The biggest obstacle will turn out to be miserly land owner Thorton Pierce (a memorably hateful John McLiam), who's not inclined to be very understanding.

Ben's journey to becoming a man is a reasonably compelling one, and Grimes is fine in the role, but the show is stolen by his older co-stars. Also among them are Luke Askew ("Cool Hand Luke"), Bo Hopkins ("The Wild Bunch"), Wayne Sutherlin ("The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid"), and Matt Clark and Anthony James from "In the Heat of the Night". Also look for appearances by Charles Martin Smith, Hal Needham, Arthur Malet, and Dennis Fimple.

Well done overall, with some very sobering sequences and the occasional comedic touch; the action is intense and the violence, admittedly, is fairly shocking. It's enjoyable stuff deserving of a rediscovery.

Seven out of 10.

This is an unduly neglected work that sank quickly into audience oblivion - the Vietnam seventies were not a good time for Westerns. True to the iconoclasm of the period, the producers set out to debunk the mystique of the cattle drive, and in the process take a big swipe at that arch-romancer of the Old West, John Ford. They only half-succeed. Put simply, their stab at realism is undone by too much gunplay, too much blood, and way too much conventional violence. Staples of the ordinary Western, their presence here only serves to reinforce the usual clichés. Much better when the story-telling cowboy refuses Geoffrey Lewis's challenge by quitting the drive, saying a gunfight over trifling matters makes no sense. That's certainly no cliché. The role reversal at movie's end is stunning, given what Hollywood has led us to expect. Nevertheless, it works by bringing out a latent code of honor that at times can guide even the most brutal among us. Here Ford is trumped by Kurosawa. There are many fine touches in the movie. Billy "Green" Bush is totally convincing as the ruthless trail boss; Gary Grimes, appropriately callow; and the four gunsels, alternately abusive and sullen, while Geoffrey Lewis's cold-eyed stare bespeaks a lifetime of casual cruelty. Not the best of anti-Westerns, but deserves consideration.