Do Oeste para a Fama

This film is pure and timeless gold, as out of character with its time as it is with present times. Jeff Bridges, Alan Arkin, Blythe Danner and Andy Griffith are perfectly cast in a comedy that spoofs both American innocence and American cynicism about that innocence. If "The Great Gatsby" is a classic story of the American Dream gone wrong, "Hearts of the West" is a classic rendering of the American Dream gone right in spite of itself.

This film is deceptively artful (e.g., the coherence provided by the leitmotif of the bad guys' increasingly dusty and dented automobile). Its "simplicity" is the "simplicity" of all great comedy, which deals with the essences as well as the particular manifestations of situations. (Moliere would have liked this one!) It's a film that makes you want to rewind it immediately and watch it again.

Five minutes into "Hearts of the West," I decided I had to own a copy. Funny, redemptive, and to be watched again and again. The laughs will not stale.

What I wonder is this: did Howard Zieff also intend it as a critique of the mindset and films of the mid-seventies? Because it is that.

Don't miss this one. It will brighten even the dreariest day!

"Hearts of the West" is not a great film...but it is interesting and fun. And it looks nothing like any other film I've seen!

The story begins in the Midwest in the early 1930s. Lewis Tater (Jeff Bridges) is an incredibly naive and dim young man who wants to write western novels. So he does what any naive person would do in this situation...he enrolls in a correspondence school for western fiction writers! It is hard to imagine such a specific program could exist...and it's not surprising that it's all a scam. But as I said, he is naive and dim and decides to travel to Nevada to see the school in person...and it turns out to be just a mailbox. But he does end up meeting with the two scumbags behind the scam...and they turn out to be very violent jerks who chase him into the desert. In the process, Tater wanders onto a movie shoot...with cowboys! Where does it go from there? See the film and find out for yourself.

The film is light and enjoyable...and not especially believable. But as I said, it's enjoyable and a nice homage to the B-westerns of the era.

The mid-70's saw a misguided false nostalgia for early Hollywood. I'd like to think it was on account of the last few octogenarian (and up) moguls dying off (Samuel Goldwyn died at 94 in '74, Jack L. Warner passed in the fall of '78 at 86, Darryl F. Zanuck, ill with Alzheimer's, dying in '79) and that the younger turks sensed something. Unfortunately what spewed forth was mostly crap: Gable and Lombard, W.C. Fields and Me, the dull interpretations of The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon, and the cinematic nadir: Won Ton Ton the Dog that Saved Hollywood... a film so utterly awful that they must've thought Rin Tin Tin would sue. Nickelodeon belongs in there somewhere too. But along the way there were a few minor gems, namely, underrated The Day of the Locust (particularly for Burgess Meredith's performance) and Hearts of the West, which I saw in a theater in Portland it's brief release. I don't think it rated a week's screen time. Inarguably, the plot's thin stuff, but Jeff Bridges' Lewis Tater ranks as his best pre-Starman turn as an actor. He took naiveté to an entirely new plateau. Andy Griffith delivers a nice performance as an amiable, if duplicitous character actor who's descended into a life in poverty row oaters. The then-50-year old Griffith had just recovered from a serious medical condition and hadn't been seen in a feature film since a 1969 flop, Angel in My Pocket. Griffith here is far, far removed from anyone's image of Sheriff Andy Taylor. The supporting cast is superb, especially Alan Arkin who captures the essential cheapness of a Gower Gulch producer/director... he seems to be based on Mascot's Nat Levine. Don't look for the picture to go much of anywhere, just enjoy the ride. I liken the experience very similar to 1982's Cannery Row; you know you've seen better pictures, but you never somehow enjoyed one more and you don't exactly know why.

This is one of the best of 1975 without a lot of heavy issues. It's about innocence and the American Dream with the perfect guy in the lead - a young Jeff Bridges. Alan Arkin is the perfect uptight East Coast director in Hollywood and the lovely Blythe Danner shows qualities that her daughter became famous for. Zieff's film Slither with James Caan is also very much underrated. Andy Griffith is well-cast for only the second time (A Face in the Crowd being the other) and Donald Pleasance is an added treasure, all too briefly.

If you're in a normal mood this is the movie for you. A definite 8 out of 10 and nobody's seen it.

At some stage in 1976 there was a misguided attempt to release this charming feature under the name "Hollywood Cowboy". Post THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT 1974 most studios seemed to flood the market with 30s movie biographies since moviegoers apparently were fascinated with Hollywood's history courtesy of the MGM doco successes.. HEARTS OF THE WEST fits into the release pattern of GABLE AND LOMBARD, W C FIELDS AND ME, DAY OF THE LOCUST, NICKELODEON, and ultimately the horribly unfunny WON TON TON THE DOG THAT SAVED Hollywood and UNDER THE RAINBOW...each and every one about Hollywood in the 1930s. I think they all lost money. However except the last two, all are very good and HEARTS is possibly the most endearing but sadly unseen. The always affable Jeff Bridges proves he was hilarious and watchable even at 25. The Bruce Willis film of the 80s called SUNSET owes a lot to HEARTS. Young guy Jeff in this one, gets to Hollywood attempting to write westerns and ends up in stunt roles in what look like Republic or Monogram oaters. Beautifully made at MGM and well worth finding and delighting friends and family.