THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN: Blu-ray (Columbia/Universal, 1979) Universal Home Video
There is a word for a man who surrenders his personal integrity to
opportunism and blind ambition: sell-out. Director Sydney Pollack’s The
Electric Horseman (1979) tells such a tale – about honor, hard-won, yet
almost sacrificed on the altar of consumerism; gradually, to be reclaimed, then
restored to its rightful place, if only to find no better hearth than a man’s
soul. In diverse careers of much acclaim,
The Electric Horseman finds its two stars, Robert Redford and Jane
Fonda, as well as Pollack, at a crossroads; the seventies’ verve for the bucolic
folk – simple, homespun, and yet strangely doomed to extinction, despite their
resilience in the face of progress, endlessly re-purposed throughout the decade
in movies and on television. For a while, Hollywood found a myriad of ways to
exploit the wheat belt to purposeful effect and good solid box office. And
indeed, our titular hero, 5-time rodeo riding champion, Norman ‘Sonny’ Steele (Redford),
is a man apart from his time; the original ‘Marlboro man’ – remade as an easily
marketable and popularized peddler of breakfast cereal that not even he eats to
keep up his strength. No, Sonny’s milk is whisky – mostly; his success, not gone
to his head so much, as medicated with booze so he can face the fact, the hour of
his legacy as a rodeo legend, is fast fading in the rear view of time and
history. In his own small corner of the world, Sonny was a star for a brief
wrinkle in time. Now, he is merely a ‘brand’ – the purple-satin pitch man for Ampco,
a major corporate sponsor with plans to downgrade his mythology even further as
a gaudy western cliché in their newly inaugurated Vegas show at Caesar’s
Palace.
Redford’s appeal at the movies has always been inextricably linked to
his stunningly handsome good looks. These never seemed to tarnish, even
throughout his middle-age. At age 43 in 1979, Redford was, arguably at the peak
of his powers as Hollywood’s hunk du jour. That he sought to break free from these
imposed limitations on his actor’s range and, even more miraculously, managed
to do some truly important films besides (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
1969, Jeramiah Johnson, 1972, The Sting, and, The Way We Were
– both in 1973, The Natural, 1984, and, Out of Africa, 1985 among
them) is a testament to his business acumen; a real sharp-shooter and tough
cookie, who used his heartthrob status to grow out and/or ‘out-grow’ this reputation,
but also, infuse it with the responsibilities of a little hardcore acting
heartily applied. On the flipside, is Jane Fonda – like Redford, originally built
into a hapless sex symbol (Barbarella, 1968…anyone?). The two had
costarred in 1976’s Barefoot in the Park – a sadly underrated movie
today; Fonda, marketing her own, as well as her long-standing family lineage
into a formidable career, beginning with 1969’s They Shoot Horses Don’t They,
1971’s Klute, and 1978’s Comes A Horseman, all the way up to 1977’s
Julia, and, 1981’s tear-jerker, On Golden Pond, for which she
happily took a backseat to her ailing father, Henry, and Kate-the-great-Hepburn.
The Electric Horseman finds Fonda in ‘reporter mode’ as Halle ‘Alice’
Martin – a role she would later fill-out with more go-getter aplomb in 1979’s The
China Syndrome. In The Electric Horseman, Fonda leans more heavily
toward that soft and friendly ‘gal on the side’ with an ever-so-slight streak
of decidedly feminine determination. It works for her because Fonda is a consummate
professional who can sell an audience just about anything.
The cast is rounded out by Valerie Perrine as Sonny’s soon-to-be
ex-wife, Charlotta, Willie Nelson (in his first movie) as Sonny’s manager,
Wendell Hickson, and Wilford Brimley (in only his second movie) – in a memorable
cameo as the unnamed farmer who helps Sonny and Halle in their cross-country
trek. The other notable here is John Saxon, cast to type, as the arrogant
corporate baddie, Hunt Sears, who has taken Rising Star, $12 million worth
of champion thoroughbred, ramped up the animal on steroids, but heavily sedated
it on tranquilizers too, to mask its injuries and make it docile in front of a crowd:
just the sort of ‘premium ride’ for a has-been rodeo star like Sonny, now
tricked out in purple satin and battery-operated electric lights. Sonny regards
the plight of the stallion, not yet past his stud years, as a parable for his
own sell-out. After refusing to play ball with Sears’ particular brand of
corporate sponsorship, he rides off into the night – rather than the sunset – determined
to liberate Rising Star at an undisclosed canyon where real stallions run wild.
To suggest Redford and Pollack had, by now, established a well-oiled symbiotic
working relationship is an understatement; Pollack having directed his star four-times
prior: This Property Is Condemned (1966), the aforementioned, Jeremiah
Johnson, The Way We Were, and, Three Days of the Condor
(1975). Their alliance would endure for two more pictures thereafter – Out of
Africa, and Havana (1990). Pollack had also previously directed
Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? So, in many ways, The Electric
Horseman served as a reunion for old friends eager, once again, to do their
best work for each other. The working relationship between Pollack and Willie
Nelson also proved successful, with Nelson improvising most of his richly homespun
dialogue. Indeed, Pollack would be asked by Nelson to serve as his executive
producer on 1980’s Honeysuckle Rose.
Based on a story by Shelly Burton, screenwriters, Paul Gaer and Robert
Garland were quick to discover Pollack had ideas of his own, indulging each
night in a litany of collaborative rewrites that would constitute major
revisions to the scenes to be shot early the next day. Pollack would later joke
that his locations were selected by their relative distance from the hotel,
affording him enough time to pull out yet another yellow pad of revisions
incorporated into the script at the crack of dawn. Dividing its shoot between
Utah and Nevada, The Electric Horseman would take full advantage of the dazzle
of Caesar’s casino and the neon-lit Vegas strip, as well as the stark, snow-capped
and surreal natural wonders of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, with
additional sequences shot in Grafton, St. George, and Zion National Park. While
most of the shoot was without incident, Pollack’s daily revisions weighed heavily
on the cast, and, due to inclement weather, caused a simple ‘kiss’ to endure 48
takes just to get the lighting and angles right. The movie eventually wound up
costing $12.5 million – a million-three more than initially budgeted. While
Dave Grusin was hired to write the score, Pollack also took advantage of Willie
Nelson’s reputation as a country/western singing star; Nelson, recording 5 new
songs, to include the sad-eyed ballad, ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys’,
the doleful, ‘Midnight Rider,’ playful ‘Mammas Don't Let Your Babies
Grow Up to Be Cowboys,’ rambunctious, ‘So You Think You're a Cowboy’,
and, ‘Hands on the Wheel.’
The Electric Horseman begins with a few choice moments of stallions racing
free, and then, a montage under the main titles depicting the rise and decline
of Sonny Steele’s meteoric rodeo career, hard-won with many broken bones, but
more recently, a lot of wounded pride for having fallen on rather hard times –
if not financially – then, certainly, socially; reduced to making guest appearances
at local college football games, bedecked in electric lights and parading a
stallion, clutching a box of the breakfast cereal to which his likeness has
since become anonymous. The humiliation is more than he can bear; Sonny,
frequently getting stone-drunk before an engagement, and much to the chagrin of
manager, Bud Broderick (Quinn K. Redeker) who, after a particularly
embarrassing display by Sonny (he falls off his horse in mid-stride), elects to
replace him with a nondescript rider for the next show, informing Sonny that
his audience, “doesn’t even know the difference.” Sonny still has his corporate
sponsorship as a peddler of breakfast cereal with Ampco – a company on the verge
of a huge corporate merger. At present, Ampco is gearing up for a huge display
of corporate salesmanship at Vegas’ Caesar’s Palace to show off their latest foray
into horse-racing – the stallion, Rising Star, with company President, Hunt
Sears, surrounded by his sycophantic entourage of ‘yes-men’; Fitzgerald (Nicholas
Coster), Leroy (Timothy Scott), Dietrich (James B. Sikking) and Tolland (Basil
Hoffman). One problem: Sonny has had quite enough of being just another cog in
their wheel. Arriving late to a press conference – and publicly grilled for his
tardiness by reporter, Halle Martin – who senses ‘a story’ there – Sonny later confronts
the show’s director, Danny (Allan Arbus), and then, challenges Sears with his
litany of concerns about the horse – severely drugged merely to make it complicit
on the stage.
Determined neither should ever have to lower their standards again, Sonny
arrives late to the debut of his own show; then, without provocation, casually
rides Rising Star onto the stage in the middle of another production number neither
was anticipated to appear. Despite Danny’s consternation, the crowd loves it
and goes wild as Sonny parades Rising Star from the extended catwalk, down the
center isle of the theater and right out the front door into Caesar’s gaming promenade,
and finally, beyond its front doors. As no one yet suspects his latest stunt is
a horse-napping in progress, it takes several hours for Hunt and his cronies to
assemble a game plan to get the horse back. In the meantime, Sonny manages to
make his way across the open plains to the ramshackle outpost of his old pal,
Gus (Will Hare); something of a wily codger who has seemingly lost his marbles.
Meanwhile, Halle elects to take matters into her own hands. Fascinated by Sonny’s
motivations, she taps Wendell and Charlotta for a little intel that leads her
to Gus’ place. But by then, Sonny is already on the next length of his journey,
having tucked Rising Star in the back on Gus’ Winnebago and driving, undetected,
through several towns on route to his planned destination to set the horse
free.
As night falls, Halle manages to briefly catch up with Sonny in a
canyon. She questions his motives and incurs his wrath. However, as Halle
proves just as stubborn in her dogged pursuit of him, Sonny decides to use her
journalistic prowess to leak his side of the story to the press. In the
meantime, Hunt has put out a cover story about an alcohol, drug-addicted and
verbally abusive Sonny plotting to do harm to their prized asset. But when
Sonny’s exposure of Ampco’s corporate greed garners the ear of animal abuse activists,
the national tide begins to turn in his favor; with phone-ins to various radio
programs suggesting no one is eager to have Rising Star brought back to Ampco’s
stables. On route to her latest rendezvous with Sonny, Halle detects a police blockade
in the nearby town, intent on preventing his cross-country journey from going
any further. Hurrying to the outskirts to forewarn Sonny, Halle becomes
complicit in his getaway after she hides in the Winnebago while he climbs
aboard Rising Star and leads police on a Smokey and the Bandit-styled chase
across the open plains, happily – if harrowingly – to end with his escape to
safety. Sometime later, Halle, driving the Winnebago, meets up with Sonny and
Rising Star. Only now, she is informed the rest of their trip will have to take
place on foot as police will be searching for the vehicle by its license plates.
Halle refuses to abandoned her photographic equipment. So, Sonny makes her
carry it on her own while he walks Rising Star across the craggy terrain. Eventually,
this weighs heavily on Halle’s high-heeled boots – hardly the preferred footwear
for such a trek.
Sonny and Halle meet up with a farmer who, believing in Sonny’s cause,
dutifully carries them in his poultry semi across state lines undetected. By night,
Sonny takes pity on Halle and the two become intimate. At the crack of dawn, he
suggests they lighten their load. Agreeing to this, before realizing what he
actually means, Halle is marginally horrified when Sonny takes all of her
photographic gear and tosses it into the nearby stream – declaring their load
officially lightened. Now, he offers Halle, Rising Star as her mount while he
walks ahead. Each night, Sonny nurses the horse’s wounded tendon slowly back to
health. As the climate dips into cooler temperatures, Halle has had a change of
heart. Before she left Vegas, she learned from Charlotta of Sonny’s destination
and has previously instructed her boss to have a camera crew waiting to capture
their arrival on film for the eleven o’clock news. Only Sonny, instinctively knowing
Halle would tap Charlotta for intel, and furthermore, recognizing what a
blabbermouth his ex is, gave Charlotta a false destination to remember and
divulge. Actually, he and Halle are about ninety-miles south in the remote canyons
of Silver Creek where the wild stallions run. As Hunt and his cronies have
followed their scent up the wrong trail, and are suddenly realizing they too
have been had, Hunt withdraws his plans to have Sonny arrested and loses all
hope of ever reclaiming Rising Star. Witnessing the power of Sonny’s
convictions first hand, Halle and Sonny part company the next morning as
friends. She takes a bus back to Vegas to resume her work, while he departs on
foot, hitchhiking to parts unknown – a true cowboy to the very end.
The Electric Horseman is a sentimentally pitched, and, thoroughly satisfying
melodrama about real people striving to better their lives in the shadow of
consumerism’s superficial construct for what then passed as ‘modern society.’
Redford and Fonda have wonderful chemistry – perhaps, seasoned and carried over
from their previous movie. Evidently, audiences wholeheartedly agreed; the picture
going on to become the 11th highest-grossing movie of the year. Jointly
produced by Columbia and Universal Pictures – with the rights eventually
reverting to Universal exclusively – The Electric Horseman received
generally mixed reviews upon its theatrical release. Viewed today, the picture
holds up beautifully as a superbly acted, if somewhat idyllic tall tale about
one man ‘actually’ making a difference. The movie remains believable,
largely because the cast is invested in the material, and Pollack spends his
run time deftly balancing the lighter moments of homespun charm with the
decidedly bigger and more meaningfully aimed plot, dedicated to altruism,
flying in the face of, and thumbing its proverbial nose at corporate greed. While Willie Nelson’s hit single playfully
encouraged mothers everywhere to dissuade their daydreaming prepubescent boys from
growing up to become cowboys, the ‘take-away’ message of The Electric
Horseman is boys could do a lot worse in their aspirations once the short
pants have come off and the pall of puberty kicks into high gear.
We could do a lot better than Universal Home Video’s Blu-ray transfer
too. As with most every hi-def offering the studio makes these days, we are
cribbing from digital files that are at least a decade behind the times and shamefully
look it too. The Electric Horseman’s 2.35:1 Panavision image toggles between
some impressive moments that almost manage to show off Owen Roizman’s cinematography
to its best advantage, and a lot of sequences in which colors appear thick, wan
and ever so slightly faded, with weaker than anticipated contrast levels,
yielding no true black levels. Several of the night scenes suffer from a sudden
and inexplicable exaggeration of film grain looking highly digitized and
inconsistent. There are also age-related artifacts scattered throughout this
presentation, although many scenes are free from these anomalies. Flesh tones
frequently look pasty and pale. Nothing about this palette pops as it should.
Roizman’s cinematography was never about achieving a visual pizzazz. But even
the glossy Vegas’ neon looks dim. Fine detail occasionally reveals itself in
close-up, but in long shot, tends to blur and become unrefined. Again, Uni has
not given us a new scan here, and really, that’s about all The Electric
Horseman needed to make it look stellar on Blu-ray. The 2.0 DTS audio is
adequate for this presentation without ever distinguishing itself. There are NO
extras – not even chapter stops! Dumb! Bottom line: The Electric Horseman
is a worthwhile movie. It warms the heart and has a message about animal rights
that never gets in the way of its entertainment value. Redford and Fonda are
sublime. The Blu-ray is far less appealing and does them and the picture a
disservice. Not awful. But hardly in a class apart. Judge and buy accordingly!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
2.5
EXTRAS
0
Comments