The Cowboys **** (1972, John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern) – Classic Movie Review 6833

‘The youngest was nine. There wasn’t one of them over fifteen. At first, he couldn’t stand the sight of them. At last, he couldn’t take his eyes away.’ Producer-director Mark Rydell’s 1972 movie The Cowboys is an unusual and mostly very successful Seventies Western with John Wayne giving one of his most impressive late performances as Will Andersen, a tough cattleman who has to accept the help of 11 schoolkids on a 400-mile cattle-run after he has been abandoned by his greedy ranch-hands who set out after some gold instead.

While trying to get his herd to market on time, Andersen turns the cowboys into real men, teaching them all he knows, but there is life-threatening danger afoot.

[Spoiler alert] Bruce Dern plays Long Hair, whose nasty gang of cattle thief villains catch up with Big John, and his under-age posse has to grow up quick and put his tough teachings into practice.

The Cowboys occasionally wanders from the trail, at an extended running time of 134 minutes, but gets back on track with effective acting (especially by Bruce Dern, Colleen Dewhurst, Slim Pickens, Sarah Cunningham, Robert Carradine, A Martinez and Roscoe Lee Browne), fine Technicolor photography by Robert Surtees and a rousing score by John Williams.

The screenplay by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr and William Dale Jennings is based on William Dale Jennings’s novel.

Also in the cast are Lonny Chapman, Charles Tyner, Alfred Baker Jr, Nicolas Beauvy, Steve Benedict, Norman Howell Jr, Stephen Hudis, Sean Kelly, Clay O’Brien, Sam O’Brien, Mike Pyeatt, Allyn Ann McLerie, Matt Clark and Richard Farnsworth.

With its dark story and downbeat theme, it was not especially well liked. Costing $6,000,000, it grossed $7,500,000 in the US.

The Cowboys is directed by Mark Rydell, runs 134 minutes, is made by Sanford Productions, released by Warner Bros, written by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr and William Dale Jennings, shot by Robert Surtees, produced by Mark Rydell, scored by John Williams, and designed by Philip Jeffries.

Half of the boy actors already had experience on the junior rodeo circuit.

It was shot in Durango, Colorado.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6833

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