Eine Farm in Montana

Comes a Horseman is directed by Alan J. Pakula and written by Dennis Lynton Clark. It stars Jane Fonda, James Caan, Jason Robards and Richard Farnsworth. Music is by Michael Small and cinematography by Gordon Willis.

It seems the ideas and willing behind Comes a Horseman are made of sturdy stuff, you sense that the makers wanted to make a reflective post-modern Western set in post World War II times. Tonally they get it mostly right, it is very sombre, both in characterisations and the changing of the times thematic beat. Plot is hardly thrilling as Robards' land baron plots to oust Fonda and Caan out of their respective homesteads in readiness for the oil company to come destroy the magnificent landscape.

Ella Connors (Fonda) is a feisty but vulnerable woman, Frank Athearn (Caan) is fresh out of service in the war and carries the emotional scars of said battles. They form an unsteady alliance to ward off Jacob Ewing (Robards), but as past turmoil's come to the surface it's touch and go as to who, if anyone, will win out.

With the Colorado landscape beautifully captured by Willis, and the performances (including an Academy Award Nomination for Farnsworth as Ella's sage old ranch hand) solid as a rock, the pic retains interest if you can tolerate the laborious pace favoured by Pakula. There's a couple of action sequences within, but they feel like afterthoughts, so we are left to buy into the rueful characterisations and their respective attempts at post war living out there on the ranges. 6.5/10

I only downrated this movie from 10 out of 10 for the predictable script. I was amused by the comment that Richard Farnsworth seemed out of breath. I am not even Farnsworth's age at filming yet, live in the sticks and I am similarly out of breath when doing heavy work. I have had to quit roping at age 60 due to back pain from previous ski racing injuries and occasional horse falls. In any case this is a very accurate description of cattle ranching anywhere. I have visited places in our Big Smoky Valley where real cattle ranches lived, raised kids and worked in mud, snow, very little for conveniences and without the power grid. We will go to a real cattle roundup near McDermitt, NV next fall of 4000 cattle. This is done by a pioneer family with four brothers, and offspring and is a prized invitation.

Watching home movies from real ranchers might convince some city people who don't notice things like such rudimentary sparse conditions. One example of a goof in the movie was Fonda putting on a watch which would have been an extreme extravagance in 1945. Had this movie had writing as realistic as the filming, it would have been much better. Robards was just to vicious to be real. This was 1945, not 1875, and he couldn't have gotten away with all the murders. The automobiles used, Fonda's 1928 or 29 Model A pickup, and Robard's 41 convertible, the Sheriff's 37 Dodge, and the Banker's 42 Plymouth were all very typical. In 1945, people didn't have the kind of money that they do now, and drove a lot older cars and there were no new cars between 1943 and 1946, and very few 1942 models due to the war.

The simple conversations are typical of cowboys and rural people who work hard and don't play boom boxes and don't say much. They are not driven like city people and work much more quietly. The courting buildup between Caan and Fonda had to do with each adapting to the other gradually and trust forming. It wasn't that Caan was laid back as much as he distrusted Fonda's impetuous reactions at first. The writers really got dialog and realistic conditions right.

I am from a rural background, went to college, drafted into the Army, then finished college and lived and worked in bigger and bigger places and did travel to a lot of places including Europe and Asia. I finally got tired of it, knowing I could create my own job in a small place. This is why a lot of people live in simple places and why so many retire in simple places. They don't care that there are no cable systems, malls, stores, or hospitals. That last long ride to a hospital hopefully will finish you off in the time it takes to get there. Simple places with low housing prices, and a simpler more outdoor life allow retirement poor couples to survive with a decent lifestyle which is far divorced from city/suburban pressured lifestyles. When people wonder why anyone would choose such a life, particularly after "seeing the world" some of it is the above. Handshake business, people who care about each other but still fight and argue, and leaving your doors unlocked is real rural culture, particularly in the west, but you always distrust government and you keep your guns ready.

I highly recommend this movie, I would have given it 8.5 out of 10, but the software is whole numbers, so it is rounded upward.

Jason Robards plays such a slimeball character in this that you know the ending from about the fourth minute. Nevertheless, it's a good story, with lots of hidden secrets to reveal. Caan plays a believable laid-back love interest for tough, gutsy Jane Fonda. The best thing is the photography, however-- in particular the dance scene, in which the camera follows Fonda and Caan as they move through a crowded outdoor dance floor without every losing either focus or the stars. Breathtaking. Some great mountains somewhere in Wyoming come close to stealing the show.

Really shouldn't be allowed to review film.

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Although at times the pace of Comes A Horseman is maddeningly slow, the players acquit themselves well in this old western type plot from the 19th century updated to 1945 and the end of World War II.

Stars Jane Fonda and Jason Robards, Jr. have history together, were even married at one time. He's the local Ponderosa owner, she's barely getting by on the small spread her dad left her.

Robards is in a cash flow situation though for the life of me he should be prospering during World War II and army beef contracts. The demand will slacken some due to war's end. There's possible oil on the property that oilman George Grizzard would like to exploit. Possible oil on both properties. Also on neighbor James Caan's small spread. He joins forces with Fonda against Robards.

Jane might have gotten a few pointers from her dad who was never a western star as such, but Henry Fonda did a few classic westerns in his time. She comes across as a real western woman. Director Alan J. Pakula did some real good photography in those wide open spaces. That frontier square dance could have come from a John Ford western.

Richard Farnsworth established a career as a player with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. That drawl at times is slow, but he's also unbelievably realistic as a veteran cowboy who has lost a step or two and realizes he can't quite the help to Fonda he'd like to be. That fall from his horse after those explosions is agonizingly real for a man getting on.

Slow paced, but well done, Comes A Horseman is a fine modern western if indeed a western of times of the last century can be classified as modern. You might want to watch this back to back with Giant, another modern western about cattlemen and how they adapt to the coming of oil.