Midnight Cowboy

TAHT WAS HIM !

Glad to find it has its own thread, albeit one that died a quick death. I saw it tonight for, I don't know, the 31st time at a books-into-movies series. Not to take anything away from Bonnie and Clyde, 2001, or The Wild Bunch (after many years, I've developed an affinity for the first two), but I wish Schlesinger's film was as highly regarded as those three--it sort of fell out of fashion somewhere along the way. If you're able to see it anew, and allow for a tiny bit of all-is-ugliness period overkill (primarily the frenetic television montage), it's such a beautifully sad film.

it's a wonderful film -- i haven't seen it since college but recalling it still makes me a tad melancholy. schlesinger's earlier films ('billy liar,' 'darling' espec) are well worth checking out as well.

I've been intending to go back for a second look at Darling for a long time. I found it very striking the first time--really seemed to capture a moment.

schlesinger can't direct his way out of a paper bag but this movie's story has an undeniable pathos

and its ambivalence about homosexuality is kind of fascinating

10 years pass...

I don't think I've seen this before.

10 years pass...

wow.

This is the thread where we anticipate downloading the next Letters to Cleo album from Napster!

17 years pass...

Bump.

I watched this movie SO many times in college, haven't seen it in years. I really should revisit.

beautifully sad is the otm-est way to describe it, clemenza otm

It's part of the ILX Canon:

REVEALED: THE ILX TOP 100 FILMS OF THE 1960s IN CINERAMA!

(actually came in @ 9th after the points adjustment)

"AHM WAHKIN HEAH" is still my favorite thing to say as a pedestrian. It was especially fun to say to myself when I visited Manhattan for the first time :D (I didn't dare say it out loud, lol)

schlesinger can't direct his way out of a paper bag

no idea what this means

so did Sally Buck molest him? That was always kind of implied.

I think it's there, yeah.

The "I'm walkin' here!" scene came up in the after-film Q&A last night (Geoff Pevere, a local guy). Pevere said there's a long-standing dispute over whether the line was improvised or not; Hoffman says yes, Voight backs him up, others say it was scripted. I've been imitating it for years too!

I have a hard time parcelling out my feelings about direction/performance/music/cinematography sometimes--how much each deserves credit for what I'm feeling--but I think there are just so many scenes in Midnight Cowboy that are perfect, visually and every other way, that I give major credit to Schlesinger. The moody stuff on 42nd street (with Toots Thielemans' theme playing overtop); the timing of Joe whirling around as Harry Nilsson starts up ("I really would..."), followed by the cut to his boots as he walks out the door; the party sequence, etc. I don't even mind the television montage, which I know some critics complained about--enjoyed spotting Sandy Dennis.

Oh--glad to see it did so well in the ILX poll. I know 2001 would have finished higher; how did it do in relation to Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch?

Got the Glenn Frankel book in the mail today; really looking forward to it.

https://images.macmillan.com/folio-assets/macmillan_us_frontbookcovers_1000H/9780374209018.jpg

From the Glenn Frankel book--this goes above and beyond the SCTV parody with Dr. Tongue and Woody Tobias Jr.

Hellman and Schlesinger shopped around Midnight Cowboy to various studios, starting with MGM, which contractually had the right of first refusal for John's next film. Someone there suggested that Joe Buck might be a great role for Elvis Presley, provided they could come up with some songs for him to perform and, of course, eliminate the gay overtones. Someone else suggested the gifted entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. for Ratso. John just shook his head in amazement: only in America.

Elvis and Sammy dueting on "Everybody's Talkin'" in the back seat of the bus to Florida.

"Hey, look--you're a groovy cat, man, but I am walking here. Can you dig that?"

Wasn't Robert Redford also lobbying for Joe Buck?

Didn’t Leiber and Stoller get into hot water with the Colonel for proposing that Elvis appear in the film of A Walk on the Wild Side?

(xpost) I'm 120 pages into the book, so it's been alternating backstory on Schlesinger, James Leo Herlihy, and Waldo Salt so far; they haven't really gotten into casting yet. This is probably the sixth or seventh making-of book I've read. It's a genre I really like.

Wait is Hellman that is referred to Monte Hellman?

Oh, it isn’t

Have they started discussing the music yet? Walter Sear and John Barry!

There's a chapter on Jerome Hellman, too.

And I think the music gets a chapter.

According to the book, Viva was on the phone with Warhol, talking about being in a salon and getting her hair done for the party scene, when she heard Valerie Solanas's shots at the other end of the line.

The theme music--that great Toots Thielemans bit--supposedly based on "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"; when Schlesinger originally ran those scenes, he had them play out against Dylan's song. (I already knew "Lay Lady Lay" was one of the songs considered before "Everybody's Talkin'.")

Any mention of Nilsson's "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City"?

Yes, in passing (can't really remember how it goes)--also the Warren Zevon song (ditto), and the two by Elephant's Memory.

Second half of the Graduate Zoomcast I posted the other day:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=olNXOvb7Ygc&t