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Such a frustrating disappointment

Sick Product of a Sick System

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Released in 1972 and directed by Mark Rydell, "The Cowboys" stars John Wayne as an aging rancher who is forced to hire pubescent drovers for a 400-mile cattle drive from Bozeman, Montana, to Belle Fourche, South Dakota, after his ranch hands abandon him for a gold rush. Roscoe Lee Browne plays the wise black cook while Slim Pickens & Colleen Dewhurst have small roles. This is a realistic, almost epic Wayne Western focusing on the long cattle drive and the amateur boys learning to be men. It lacks the fun brawling and unrealistic elements of John's contemporary Westerns of the 60s-70s (e.g. the quick-draw nonsense in "El Dorado"). A Martinez stands out as the outcast Hispanic amongst the kids while Bruce Dern is notable as a menacing ne'er-do-well. The almost shocking confrontation that opens the final act is a highlight and the boys' just strategy is great: KILL 'EM ALL. The film runs 134 minutes and was shot in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, California. The screenplay was based on William Dale Jennings's novel. GRADE: A-

. . . John Wayne, as Wil Anderson (and without irony), tells one of the impressionable youngsters under his tutelage in THE COWBOYS. These words of wisdom come not long after Wil's shouted at a sobbing 10-year-old, "Listen to me, you whining little whelp, you're going to stop that stutter or get the Hell out of here!" Does anyone else see a disconnect here? Of course, it's easy for a scriptwriter to command a child actor WITHOUT A REAL LIFE STUTTER to be instantly "cured" of that "character defect" by "Il Duce's" verbal abuse. In Real Life, Wayne set himself up as a dictator of "American" Values, thinking that if his Big Mouth simply shouted, "Stop being a stutterer! Stop being Gay! Stop being Jewish! Stop being Black! Stop being Liberal! Stop loving our Constitution! Just stop Thinking!" loud enough, he'd be a Big Man in a country carved in His likeness. Wayne famously bad-mouthed Gary Cooper's heroic HIGH NOON sheriff for asking supposedly "ill-suited" ADULTS to form a posse in the face of an existential threat to the entire town. Wayne and his fellow traveler, director Howard Hawks, made RIO BRAVO as a "rebuttal" to HIGH NOON. Now, a few years after RIO BRAVO, Wayne plays a rancher who Shanghais a group of ILL-SUITED 10-year-old BOYS for life-threatening grown-up work just because this rancher is facing a PERSONAL financial setback. Naturally, given Wayne's Real Life prejudices, it's the ill-suited Jewish 10-year-old who dies because of the rancher's hare-brained scheme. Mr. Wayne, have you no decency?!

**Possible Spoilers** (Come on, it's over 40 years old, what are you waiting for?)I'll start by admitting that I am a John Wayne fan. I'll also say I'm not a fan of his politics. I don't say that to start an argument, I say it so it's clear I like him as an actor, not as a symbol.Now that that's out of the way I have to say that I consider THE COWBOYS to be one of his best performances (it's on a par with THE SEARCHERS & THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE). THE COWBOYS shows Wayne at his most emotionally accessible. He's still playing the stoic westerner, but we see him with his wife (who loves him, but clearly knows he's a pigheaded bastard) & we see him playing his age. Not like in TRUE GRIT where he played "old", but simply playing his actual age (65, which in1876, was pretty damn old). And he clearly had a genuine rapport with young men he was working with.I also have to say that to some degree this film turns the "John Wayne" ethos on it's head. I know a lot of people think this film shows The Duke turning the kids into little versions of himself. But I think the most important moment in the film is when the kids finally bring the cattle into Belle Fourche. They've killed the rustlers who killed their leader (& father figure). And they've accomplished what they promised to do. But none of them look pleased with themselves. They aren't riding tall in the saddle. They are beaten down, worn out, & depressed. They've "done what a mans gotta do", but it hasn't made them happy or proud. Quite the opposite. They have clearly lost something in the acts of violence they have done, no matter how necessary some of them may have been. A lot of people use the cliché "coming of age" when referring to this film. I think the better cliché would be "loss of innocence". I also want to respond to a reviewer (who was writing in 2003, but, what the hell) who said he thought Roscoe Lee Browne was "better" than John Wayne in the film. I am an actor myself & I bow before the altar of Mr. Browne. I would kill (well, let's not get crazy here) a close acquaintance just for his voice. (He did an episode of BARNEY MILLER that I highly recommend to everyone). And he is absolutely wonderful in THE COWBOYS. But I think he & Wayne owe each other a thanks for making each other better. The chemistry between the two of them is unbelievable. If you want to chalk it up to their political differences, feel free. Frankly, to me, it just looks like a couple actors having a great time working with each other. Apparently, the scene where Browne tosses the knife at Wayne's hand when he's reaching for a piece of pie was improvised (Wayne didn't know it was going to happen). But Duke ran with it, & it's a great moment.I've already written too much. To anyone who has not seen this film, watch it. Set all your presumptions aside, & watch it on it's own terms. I think you'll love it

Any western with the legendary John Wayne is worth a glance. "On Golden Pond" director Mark Rydell's cattle drive opera "The Cowboys" is as offbeat an oater as you'll ever see. When a veteran rancher loses his hired hands because they'd rather pan for nuggets than push steers, he takes on school children to serve as his drovers. The premise is fresh and like nothing John Wayne ever tried during his long career in the cinema. Basically, "The Cowboys" is "Red River" with youngsters. This existential tale of initiation about boys becoming men is memorable because the kids are all interesting characters in their own right. Actually, Rydell and two-time Oscar-nominated scenarists Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr have fashioned a western that is politically incorrect as you imagine. After the villainous Bruce Dern shoots John Wayne multiple times in the back, the kids exact vengeance on Dern and his dastards by killing them all in an ambush. The last thing that you'd expect to see in a John Wayne is children brutalized and then brutalizing men twice their age without a qualm. Robert Surtees lensed this sprawling outdoors saga and even the scenes on the Warner Brothers sound stage in Burbank look spectacular. "Star Wars" composer John Williams provides an orchestral score that enhances not only the suspense but also develops the characters, especially the villains. The scribes borrow from other films. For example, the subplot involving Long Hair (Bruce Dern) who threatens one boy, Dan, is reminiscent of Charles Dickens "Great Expectations." The kids are a tyke-sized collection of "The Magnificent Seven," and the subplot about the outcast Mexican who isn't hired immediately but who tags along in their wake is like Horst Buchholz's young gunslinger in the classic Sturges' film. The boys experience just about everything you can imagine. They ride, rope, curse, shoot, and kill. Colleen Dewhurst has a cameo as a madam. Bruce Dern makes a terrific villain and he told Rydell that he believes he ruined his career when he killed Wayne in a particularly bloody scene.