Actor Cliff Robertson’s clout after his Oscar win in CHARLY (1968) allowed this personal venture which he wrote, produced and directed as well as starred in; the film, though much admired in some circles and certainly well-made, is essentially dreary and somewhat overlong for its purpose. Incidentally, rodeo is not a subject which has been treated often by Hollywood: a couple more notable efforts were Nicholas Ray’s rare but highly regarded THE LUSTY MEN (1952) – which I recently acquired but have yet to watch – and Sam Peckinpah’s contemporaneous and better-known JUNIOR BONNER (1972).
Anyway, the titular figure is an enthusiast of the sport who wants to pick up where he left off following a 10-year stint in jail for fraud; after a pathetic reunion with his senile mother (a cameo, despite her second billing, by a disheveled Geraldine Page), he sets off to seek a prominent spot in the National Finals. This entails a series of contests across the country – he starts off by hitching rides to each destination, then borrows a van (through a friend) from a military base but, after scoring a number of successes and winning a pile of money, he can afford to fly the rest of the way.
Robertson meets spirited young hippie Cristina Ferrare; following the initial distrust (being a middle-aged uneducated cowboy himself, they have virtually nothing in common), he comes to appreciate her devoted presence by his side – however, when he finally proposes marriage, she quits him. Coop’s biggest rival is a brash stud half his age whose wealth is able to keep him well ahead of the game (getting to the various rodeo venues by way of a private plane). Still, our hero perseveres – but his dream seems to come to an end when he breaks a leg; undaunted, he decides to mount a particularly wild bull…but his triumph this time around is short-lived and he’s gored by the testy animal!
Robertson elicits fine performances all around and shows great feeling for small-town America – as well as passion for his central theme (which isn’t so much about achieving one’s goals no matter what, as how this often rings hollow when all one has to show for it is loneliness). A nice folksy score supplies the perfect accompaniment to the film’s attractive photography – offsetting the generally downbeat tone and the occasional instance of self-conscious direction (such as the use of abrupt zooms or Coop’s slow-motion last ride). Equally agreeable are its sparse moments of humor – namely the cowboy’s ironic home address, 1313 Luck Road, requested by an apologetic cop when he’s forced to give him a ticket (Coop’s driving his late father’s ‘smoking’ broken-down car) and the incident in the diner’s lavatory where rednecks attack the hero’s black pal but, even outnumbered, they beat up their assailants and, when the cops arrive, Robertson justifies the mess by claiming the locals had been making “weird advances”!
