Midnight Cowboy (1969)

First half hour/40 min is good then it completely falls apart focusing on Ratso. Love the scene on the bus, the shot of his crotch/balls in the tight pants and the guys looking. And he knows it.

I've seen it and it's a great film!

*girls looking at his crotch. not guys.

John Slesinger is a terrible director. Richard Lester did that faux-New-Wave 1960s camera tricks much better.

The acting saves it, really.

i thought it was a good film. ratso was realistic - there is always a bottom-feeder looking to latch on around every corner of NYC, especially at that time. film got the relationship across fairly well.

My favorite movie of all times OP!!!

Amazing film. Amazing music. One of my top five of all time.

[quote]Amazing film. Amazing music. One of my top five of all time.

I got a "new" restored DVD copy and the idiots had turned the music down. They didn't get it. I was so annoyed. I couldn't believe it.

R8. That sucks. Not to nerd out, but almost every second of that film is cinematographically pure perfection. The opening scene w the mother and child on the bus bench w mother drinking a Coca Cola. The opening bus ride where he plays peek a boo w the young girl on the bus then looks off into the distance. Sure, some scenes were a little much but overall, it is a masterpiece. The music kills me too

OP Why do you care what others think of one of your favorite films?

As if we could change you mind.

attention seeking cunt

[quote]The music kills me too

This is one of the best pop songs I've ever heard.

Actually it's much more than a pop song it's a rock opera.

Top 5! I lived in NYC during that era. Schlesinger's best film. I remember all the movies nobody heard of (nor wanted to hear of) along 42nd St.

R10. Seriously?

R10 just because it is a fav doesn't mean i don't want to hear other poster's opinions on it. the film was also a good representation of a certain time in history - i'm sure there are people who viewed it and noticed different things in it than i myself did.

[quote]OP Why do you care what others think of one of your favorite films?As if we could change you mind. attention seeking cunt

Notice always a "we" from the nastiest posters. That's why they're called "we" trolls

OP - NEVER respond to a "we" troll.

R16 looks like the troll is pissed they never made it to florida!

Back on track..... I never could figure out if, in the flashback scene w his gf, Joe Buck also got raped. I have read many analyses of the film, but no one ever addresses that.

r18 i read the book and from what i remember he got caught during his first time (or it was some sort of set-up by the other people in the town) and couldn't shake the memory/had flashbacks (?) i also feel like i may be remembering it wrong, i read it a long time ago

i know for sure in the book he had a crush on a girl and hung around a little group of mutual friends around the same age - that it what i meant by "people of the town," specifically

[quote][R16] looks like the troll is pissed they never made it to florida!

They DID make it to Florida.

Some people were offended. They thought Schlesinger was knocking America at every turn.

R21 the troll is ratso rizzo dear

Check out Petulia if you love this, OP

I've seen it twice and loved it, especially the time capsule it provides of NYC during that era. That was way before my time, but something about the rawness and sleaziness of early 70s NYC fascinates me. Those of you who got to experience it were so lucky.

I can imagine a young gay man coming to NY during that era and feeling like Alice through the looking glass.

I like how it captured the grittiness of the city back then. It was rough and dark on the street and then you'd go through a door and be transported to a party like the one where Joe Buck gets his first paying customer. The juxtaposition of fun and scary was cool.

[quote]That was way before my time, but something about the rawness and sleaziness of early 70s NYC fascinates me. Those of you who got to experience it were so lucky.

It was cool. I used to come from London, so I could see it quite clearly.

I remember standing by the fountain at Columbus Circle (late 70s) and the misdirected fountain spewing water out onto the street and thinking "this really captures this city - even the fountains are fucked"

R27. Wow. I grew up over on Fifth and as a kid, I used to notice the fountain at Columbus Circle also. A child's vignette of seeing that fountain spray all over the roundabout. Seeing it and not understanding it but simply remarking it. Wow. Blew my mind there.

Nyc used to be a place where you had to "crack the code". Whether it was knowing the quickest route to a destination. Or the potholes of a particular street. Or the doorman at a club. Or when the taxis did changeover time so you had to get a gypsy cab. And how to flag a gypsy can subtly on Park Aavenue at 7:00 pm. Or the best Korean deli delivery people who got to know you and would deliver "the ususal". Or the first time you recognized a taxi driver that drove you a month prior. Or how to get through LaGuardia fast as hell right to your gate.

Miss those days.

Fun fact - the song Mony Mony was inspired when Tommy Shondell had a view of that building when he was visiting NYC.

The great songs were the influence of John Schlesinger's hip new boyfriend who he met when he was in the USA preparing to make Midnight Cowboy. They were together for the rest of John's life.

So many great NY character actors of the 1960s: Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Bob Balaban, Barnard Hughes and, of course, Sylvia Miles!

[quote]Fun fact - the song Mony Mony was inspired when Tommy Shondell had a view of that building when he was visiting NYC.

Oh, dear.

Masterpiece.

Heartbreaking, every minute of it, every minute of the characters' lives, all, is heartbreaking -

This film was made at a rich time in Hollywood history. The mid 60s to mid 70s was a creative and experimental time for movies. That creativity is dead now. Hollywood is so corporate nowadays that everything is samey, and no risks are taken. Midnight cowboy would not be made today.

I was just coming to terms with my sexuality when this came out and solidified it. The first scene with a naked Joe Buck did it for me. Great score as well. I don't watch it anymore because Voight is an asshole now.

The scene with Sylvia Miles, where she doesn't understand why she would ever pay for sex because she's such a groovy chick, reminds me of Mrs Patrack Campbell.

I just watched it again last week, OP. I was feeling homesick and it's my mother's all-time favorite film.

As far as 70s NYC time capsules go, I prefer Taxi Driver.

MC is 60s -filmed in '68

Yes, but it has the same grittiness as Taxi Driver--it's the same basic time period for NYC, culturewise.

When did NYC start to go downhill after the golden days of the 50s? Because clearly by 68 it was a shithole.

Sylvia Miles' apartment in the film

The opening theater scene was hot. Unfortunately Jon turned out to be a Repug and fathered that weirdo Angelina Jolie.

It would've been much better had they followed the book and had Ratso give the Cowboy AIDS.

So was Ratso gay? Did he want to sleep with Cowboy? Was a scene cut where they had sex?

Nobody wanted to do it with Ratso and Ratso didn't want to do it with anybody either. He was a small-time hustler, dumb as a stump, and just trying to get through his shitty life. They see each other's frailties and respond to them in comforting ways. Excellent film.

It's one of my favorite films and I had seen it maybe 3 or 4 times in the 70s and 80s, but not again for many years. I watched it about 3 years ago, and this time, there was something about the young Jon Voight that was nagging at me. Something familiar I couldn't put my finger on, sort of deja vu -ish. His facial expressions, has mannerisms. Then I finally figured it out. Angelina! The resemblance was remarkable. I had never really noticed before, but she is the spitting image of her dad.

But Jon was a natural beauty.

On some site it said this is the 50th anniversary and it is streaming free somewhere this weekend.

^^ with the songs turned down I'll bet.

I'll stick with my VHS copy.

[quote]Back on track..... I never could figure out if, in the flashback scene w his gf, Joe Buck also got raped. I have read many analyses of the film, but no one ever addresses that.

Really? I thought is obvious. Scroll down for a pic of the scene.

Tomorrow May 25th marks the 50th Anniversary of the premiere at the Coronet Theatre in NYC and it would play all year in theaters and win the Academy Award for Best Picture the following April 7, 1970.

[quote]When did NYC start to go downhill after the golden days of the 50s? Because clearly by 68 it was a shithole.

Excerpt from the link:

During the '60s, a gradual economic and social decay set in.

The postwar population shift to the suburbs resulted in the decline of textile manufacturing and other traditional industries in New York, most of which also operated in extremely outdated facilities. With the arrival of container shipping, that industry shifted to New Jersey where there was more room for it. Blue-collar neighborhoods began to deteriorate and become centers of drugs and crime. Strip clubs and other adult businesses started filling Times Square in the late '60s.

I had not seen the film but knew the John Barry music from a radio show I heard on the composer. Then when I finally watched the film I was so disappointed that Schlesinger repeated the harmonica theme endlessly. It made me hate it!

My favorite movie!

Can't remember the movie but always thought the song was depressing.

I'm obsessed with movies about NYC during that time. I guess I'm weird because I like the grittiness and danger. I also love the movie Cruising which showed NYC in 1980--still gritty and still sexy.

I'm probably the only person in the world who saw The Out-of-Towners with Sandy Dennis and thought the city looked exciting. I couldn't wait to get to New York.

When I was growing up in the 70s I was fascinated by gritty movies like Midnight Cowboy and Across 110th St., and used to have the most vivid, exciting, scary recurring dreams about moving from G=rated flyover suburbia to R-rated New York. I remember being so depressed when I woke up. I finally moved there in the 90s, when it wasn't scary at all.

[quote]It would've been much better had they followed the book and had Ratso give the Cowboy AIDS.

No one knew what AIDS was in 1969.

[quote]Can't remember the movie but always thought the song was depressing.

It was supposed to be sad and wistful. It was a sad film. Boo hoo.

Watched it again last night based on this thread. Why didn’t Joe Buck just get a job? Even an “in the meantime” one; it would beat living in filth and he is not that bright but is able bodied. There is a scene that shows laborers at a construction site shown from the window of their squat and that made me wonder.

R58 & r59 Same here!

I read the author of the book was gay and killed himself later in life; very talented guy!

Hey! I'm walking here!!

a young Bob Balaban

Can't remember all of it but the ending was touching when they were in the bus and the other one was dead.

Playing Ratso directly after his sensational film debut in The Graduate was an incredibly bold move on Dustin Hoffman's part and easily could have resulted in career suicide.

He clearly did not want to be typed as a handsome young leading man, which perhaps now doesn't seem so unconventional but certainly was back then. I wonder if John Schlesinger cast him before The Graduate opened?

Why I won't watch his movies.

We saw John Voigt in a coffee shop in North Hollywood about 20 or so years ago, was sitting across the room and had to be pointed out to us by a friend otherwise we would never have noticed the unpleasant looking old man.

Did Voight ever get to meet his grandchildren? She must have kept them from him for a reason.

"You were going to ask ME for money," is the greatest scene in the movies.

I saw Jon Voight at a McGovern rally in 1972 in Hollywood. He got so emotional he started crying. Big leftie then.

Bob Balaban would never have made it into the movies if his family hadn't controlled Paramount.

LOL R70.

Forgot about Balaban and Paramount. I wonder what they thought of their son's debut performance. I'm picturing them sitting together with their knuckles in their mouths.

"The Deuce" inspired me to watch this movie again, have it on now. A lot of movies don't necessarily hold up well for the modern day, but this one really does. It is definitely an iconic piece of cinema.

[quote]Back on track..... I never could figure out if, in the flashback scene w his gf, Joe Buck also got raped. I have read many analyses of the film, but no one ever addresses that.

In the book Joe Buck does get raped by these two men, that is what pushes him to leave and start over in New York.

[quote] Why didn’t Joe Buck just get a job? Even an “in the meantime” one; it would beat living in filth and he is not that bright but is able bodied.

Joe Buck had delusions of grandeur. He was good-looking in his home town, so he was going to take it to New York. Women would pay him to have sex. He planned to live off his earnings as a prostitute. Hayseed comes to New York. Like "Welcome to the Jungle."

Trying to keep things light these days, so I’ll not be rewatching anytime soon.

However, I remember my eldergays in the 90s telling me that they thought a “flexible” male character in a studio film was groundbreaking at the time, and they embraced it.

I was like 12 when I first saw this and I remember being confused and laughing with my best friend. Joe Buck seemed like such a freak and Ratso was so random guy with tuberculosis who died on a greyhound. I watched it as an adult and appreciated it on a whole new level.

By the end of the film when they arrive in Florida, Joe Buck has decided he is a terrible hustler and that he should try to get a normal job.

While he is in New York he is still following his dream that he can be a successful prostitute.

This movie was rated "X" when released, which made it a must-see in my book. Loved it.

I watched the clips of the ending, when my Dad was dying. Because I needed to cry, but couldn't, and I was finally able to do that.