MIDNIGHT COWBOY: Blu-ray (United Artists, 1969) Criterion Collection

BEST PICTURE - 1969

Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel, John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) marked a definite turn in the way Academy voters cast their ballots. AMPAS, long admired, berated, applauded or abhorred (depending on who you ask) for its milquetoast sentiments towards art that dared push the time-honored boundaries of ‘moral decency’ in film-making, took an unexpected step away from their usual favoring of big budget epics/musicals and instead went for this hard-hitting, modestly budgeted melodrama about the unlikely bond that develops between aspiring gigolo/greenhorn Texan, Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and street savvy two bit hustler, Enrico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman). Owing to its brief flashes of nudity, its overt references to homosexuality, and its intensely unnerving rape scene, Midnight Cowboy became the first and only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar. The ‘X’ is of specific curiosity, especially in today’s laissez faire looking-glass where four-letter words casually assault the acoustic nerve and occasional full-frontal parades unabashedly before the camera lens. But we must consider 1969 first: the year when big-budgeted Hollywood musicals (Hello Dolly!, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Sweet Charity), westerns (True Grit, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), on the cusp of their last hurrah, and the latest glossy James Bond adventure, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service went toe-to-toe with a startling array of sexually liberated films like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Women in Love, and, Age of Consent. 

Even in direct comparison to these latter three, Midnight Cowboy was a ‘breakthrough’; Schlesinger and his formerly blacklisted screenwriter, Waldo Salt, somehow managing to skirt the button-down anxieties of an executive brain trust at United Artists – thanks in part to a close personal friendship between Schlesinger and UA’s then president, David V. Picker. Indeed, Schlesinger, whose career had begun as an actor in Britain in the mid-fifties, before segueing to directing documentaries and other television programming for the BBC, had scaled even greater renowned for his debut fictional features, A Kind of Loving (1962, winning Berlin’s prestigious ‘Golden Bear’) and Billy Liar (1963). His third outing, Darling (1965) was a cynical take on London’s swingin’ sex life (also to win its star, Julie Christie a Best Actress Academy Award). Darling also brought Schlesinger international acclaim; enough for MGM to hand him the reigns to their costliest and most prestigious ‘landmark’ production of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). In reply, Schlesinger delivered an elegantly tailored epic that, alas, failed to recoup its costs. But not even Schlesinger’s reputation for both diversity and quality could convince the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to grant Midnight Cowboy an ‘R’-rating. Initially, the ‘R’ had been contemplated. But that was before UA’s conference with a psychologist who thought the picture’s ‘homosexual frame of reference’ could possibly ‘influence’ youngsters. Hence, the dreaded ‘X’, ostensibly to part ‘youth’ from Midnight Cowboy’s gay subtext. 

In hindsight, the MPAA had nothing to fear. Even if the subject matter was deemed salacious, Schlesinger’s deft handling was nothing if not a tasteful, if thoroughly sobering illustration - and this, even more miraculously, without ever diluting the potency of James Leo Herlihy’s razor-backed prose. Both Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman relied heavily on Herlihy’s novel to help them ‘find’ their characters. “The book was so detailed,” Voight would later recall, “…everything you needed to know about Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo was there. It told you who these guys were, what they were all about and how they formed their unlikely, but as meaningful friendship.” Nevertheless, Waldo Salt’s screenplay deviates considerably from the novel, concentrating almost exclusively on its last act – the burgeoning buddy/buddy chemistry between Hoffman’s dying con artist and Voight’s desperate and thoroughly lost young buck for hire. In the movie we get only flashbacks of the sordid elements that formed Joe’s convoluted youth; his promiscuous mother, leaving him in the care of a curious succession of blondes who may or may not be his ‘aunts’ (nee, prostitutes); ditched at the impressionable age of nine, in the care of his grandmother, Sally Buck, who dies while Joe is still serving in the army. We get flashes of Joe losing his virginity to Annie, a wayward girl, taking six boys at a time on a filthy mattress behind the local drive-in. Joe and Annie form an impressionable bond when she begins to favor his company over the others. It’s hardly an ‘exclusive’ arrangement. Jealousy rears its ugly head as another boy tattles on Annie to her father. He promptly has the girl institutionalized.

Although these events are depicted in a somewhat psychedelic fashion in the movie, rekindled with unvarnished clarity in Joe’s mind, emerging unwanted and unloved from the dark of night or under the influence of a good joint, for lack of time and concision, Schlesinger and Salt have completely jettisoned a major character in Herlihy’s novel; Perry, the handsome gay hustler who gets Joe stoned to take advantage of him. Joe is taken by Perry to a Tex/Mex whorehouse, only to realize he is being ‘observed’ by its madame, her lumbering gay son and Perry. Horrified, Joe attempts to beat up Perry, only to be held down by both men and raped.  We lose virtually all of this backstory, having evolved well before Midnight Cowboy’s opening credits, set to Harry Nilsson’s rendition of ‘Everybody's Talkin’ – a song actually written and performed by Fred Neil in 1966. Exorbitant ASCAP fees initially discouraged Schlesinger from using this song for the movie. Only after several big artists had been brought in to write alternative themes – each, shot down by Schlesinger as not living up to the invisible standard set in his own mind by Neil’s composition, was Nilsson brought in to re-record the song in his own inimitable style. Nilsson had, in fact, proposed his own ‘I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City’ as a viable substitute - but to no avail. 

Despite its thoroughly seedy subject matter, Midnight Cowboy is dexterously a work of art rather than smut masquerading as such; Schlesinger’s intuition on exactly how far to push the envelope and still draw out our empathy for, essentially, a pair of ne’er-do-wells – the first, an absolute con, the other a naïve – reaches all the way back to the classic buddy/buddy flick. Herein, Schlesinger is greatly aided by his casting of Voight and Hoffman – the latter, always his first choice to play this emotionally wounded grotesque, the former waaaay down on the list of young Hollywood hopefuls testing for the part of this sad-eyed stud with the proverbial heart of gold.  Indeed, Voight had to convince, cajole and then plead for an audition. However, after adlibbing in camera test, Voight – ironically, a native of Yonkers – proved the only real contender for the part – begrudgingly paid ‘scale’ (a.k.a. the Screen Actors Guild minimum wage) rather than a star’s salary for his work.

Despite changing attitudes and tastes Midnight Cowboy has aged remarkably well, thanks primarily to Schlesinger’s focus on friendship. This really is a tale about two unlikely chums – both hopeless wanderers who have either lost or traded in their souls for fool’s gold. Walter Salts’ screenplay begins with Joe quitting his secure job as a dishwasher at a roadside greasy spoon in Big Spring, Texas – a backwater with zero possibilities for a man of his obvious good looks and what he erroneously perceives to be his one true ‘talent’ - hustling. Dressed like a cheap knockoff of the clichéd western rodeo star, Joe aspires to become the kept stallion, catering to the cheaply erotic thrills of Manhattan’s upscale socialites. Tragically, the big city is no place for this countrified stud. Joe quickly realizes he is hopelessly inept at his chosen profession – painfully so, after a brief encounter with Cass (Sylvia Miles); herself, on a very short leash as an over-the-hill sugar mama, decidedly knowing how to con the con. She actually gets Joe to pay her for sex. Joe’s lack of finesse – and experience - continues to override his ambitions. He becomes disillusioned and exploited, even by a penniless gay student (Bob Balaban) for a blowjob inside a seedy theater; later, handed over by Ratso - strictly for laughs - to Mr. O’Daniel (John McGiver), a crazed religious zealot.

Midnight Cowboy was shot in the ‘bad ole days’ of New York, its urban decay plainly on view, whether from the peripheries of all those seedy sex shops and porn theaters littering 42nd Street or the absolute filth inside dilapidated tenements and brownstones slated for the wrecking ball. Joe’s first encounter with Rizzo, a cut-rate con artist, promises him an introduction to the proper ‘management’ (code for a well-known pimp).  It is just a ruse to squeeze Joe for his modest earnings before turning him over to a decidedly deranged religious fanatic. Out of luck and cash, evicted from his hotel for past due bills, and now, more desperate than ever, Joe markets himself for gay sex – a minor deviation from the novel where Joe’s bisexuality only extends to ‘close friends’, not total strangers. With no hope of securing…uh… ‘work’ Joe divides his time between an all-night movie theater where he can acquire some fresh leads and the local bus terminal, since become his new home. When next his path crosses Rizzo, Joe threatens the cripple with bodily harm – a move that leads to an even more profound and unlikely truce. Rizzo trains Joe in the art of pick-pocketing and makes several serious attempts to market him as a heterosexual stud for hire.

Unlike the handling of Rizzo’s past, revealed mostly in quiet conversations with Joe, Schlesinger’s hallucinogenic trips into Buck’s former life fast become Midnight Cowboy’s psychedelic raison d'être. Swirls of color, wed to hand-held inserts shot under low-light conditions in stark B&W, combine to create a thoroughly fractured past – Joe’s grandmother, Sally (Ruth White) taken from him while serving his country in Viet Nam, his ‘girlfriend’ - Annie (Jennifer Salt) hunted down and ravished by the ‘good ole boys’ she willingly serviced behind the local drive-in. In the film, this rabble take its turns raping Annie and Joe, the girl carted off by ambulance to an asylum after suffering a breakdown.  As Joe’s career as a stud is a dud, now Rizzo schools his naïve charge on how to pull off petty heists. Joe catches the eye of kinky model, Gretel McAlbertson (Viva), who invites him to a truly bizarre loft party where the city’s artistic elite mingle with the weird and socially outcast. Joe mistakes marijuana for a cigarette. Higher than a kite, he leaves the party with Shirley (Brenda Vaccaro) – a slinky sex kitten. Too bad for Joe, their brief sexual encounter is thwarted by the residual after-effects of the drug, rendering Joe temporarily impotent.

Meanwhile, Rizzo, having fallen down a flight of stairs, stumbles home with a hacking cough soon to overtake him. When Joe returns from his romp with Shirley, he discovers Rizzo gravely ill. Rizzo confides he is genuinely scared and makes Joe promise to take him to Florida – the only place he has ever longed to see. Stealing money to make their trip a reality, Joe loses his cowboy duds for just a plain cotton shirt and pants, buying Rizzo a sporty Hawaiian shirt and new pair of trousers just for the occasion. The two get aboard a bus bound for Miami; Joe, suggesting the warmer climate will do Rizzo good. For the first time in a very long while, Joe is reinvigorated with optimism. He sheepishly admits ‘hustling’ is no life for him. Once they arrive in Florida his first order of business will be to find a job that can support them both. Too late, Joe discovers Rizzo has quietly expired in the seat next to his from pneumonia. Joe informs the bus driver of this loss; the driver, awkwardly admitting nothing is to be done except continue to Miami as originally planned. Reluctantly, Joe concurs, once again overwhelmed with anxieties about his even more uncertain future.

Midnight Cowboy is unrepentant, very dark and quite often, disturbing. The inherent violence and ugliness of humanity is kept mostly at bay in Waldo Salt’s masterful screenplay and by Schlesinger, who manages to document and convey the novel’s corrosive vignettes without any blatant illustration of as much for the camera. Startling for its frankness in 1969, Schlesinger’s ginger light touch today translates as more artistically ambitious; a master storyteller who can make us care about even the most disreputable outcasts. Both Hoffman and Voight turn in devastating performances that, despite their appalling pragmatism, continue to speak to our collective sense of wretched isolationism. Midnight Cowboy teeters on the verge of some grand Shakespearean tragedy, full of muffled sounds and occasional fury, interpolated with the archetypal film noir lesson to be learned the hard way – that in a big city, not even the most stout-hearted dreamer of dreams can survive. 

Midnight Cowboy receives all the bells and whistles in a breathtaking new 1080p transfer derived from a 4K scan of original elements performed by MGM/Fox Home Video and released to Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection. Minor clean-up and color correction have been performed in 16-bit 4K resolution from a 35mm original camera negative and interpositive (only utilized when the negative was too damaged).  The biggest improvement is in color density and overall image clarity. As Midnight Cowboy’s hallucinations and flashbacks were intentionally stylized by cinematographer, Adam Holender to achieve a visualized texture quiet apart from the main body of the piece, grain structure veers wildly between these segments and the rest of the film, amplified with a distinct distortion also in shadow detail. The primaries in the color palette really pop; Joe’s red and blue Texas shirts, the yellows in a New York taxi or the greens in foliage.  Large scratches, dark spots, and other age-related anomalies have been lovingly repaired and/or removed for a gorgeous presentation.  Criterion gives us two audio tracks: an LPCM 1.0 and DTS 5.1. As Midnight Cowboy was only released in mono theatrically, somehow the mono shines through, despite the vastly improved layering and separation in the 5.1 that allows for John Barry’s music cues and, of course, the iconic title song to truly excel.

Extras this time around are plentiful, but mostly ported over from former Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray releases. These include John Schlesinger’s audio commentary from 1991 and two, 35th anniversary documentaries created by MGM/Fox Home Video in 2004: After Midnight: Reflecting On a Classic 35 Years Later, a compendium of thoughts from Dustin Hoffman, Sylvia Miles, producer Jerome Hellman, Jennifer Salt, and cinematographer Adam Holender, among others, and, Controversy and Acclaim, a less comprehensive focus on the aftermath and firestorm from the picture’s release. New to Blu: impressions from Schlesinger’s life partner, Michael Childers and cinematographer, Adam Holender; the former talking about his dearly departed friend, the latter, breaking down the picture’s visual style, almost scene by scene. We also get The Crowd Around the Cowboy – a vintage doc by Finnish cinematographer, Jeri Sopanen; plus, archival interviews from Schlesinger and BAFTA’s Tribute to the director. Jon Voight weighs in from an interview conducted in 1970 for The David Frost Show. There are also screen tests. But perhaps the best of the extras is Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey: the Oscar-nominated (and at 58 min., utterly comprehensive) look back at the writer’s amazing career, produced in 1990 by Eugene Corr and Robert Hillmann. Bottom line: Midnight Cowboy is a seminal work from the sixties. This newly minted Criterion Blu-ray re-issue puts the tired old MGM/Fox offering to shame. It belongs on everyone’s top shelf. A must have!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

5+