Urban Cowboy ***½ (1980, John Travolta, Debra Winger, Scott Glenn) – Classic Movie Review 4675

Co-writer/ director James Bridges’s unfairly neglected 1980 drama ends up as a country music companion piece to Saturday Night Fever, made for discerning adults.

It is a thoughtful, intelligent and entertaining vehicle for John Travolta as Bud Davis, a Texan country boy hardhat, who finds love in a tough Houston country and western bar with sexy cowgirl Sissy (Debra Winger), and ends up knocking heads with Wes Hightower (Scott Glenn).

The film is distinguished by strong, in-depth performances from the two actors and a tremendous, powerful one from Winger, who proves her star quality. Director Bridges conjures up the murky atmosphere and harsh emotional temperature, and keeps a long, 135-minute film on a dynamic course.

Travolta is at his most charismatic, but it was a risky move for him to desert his teen-base fans, though it was popular in America, taking $28 million. The sequence on the bar’s mechanical bull is rightly famous.

Bridges’s and Aaron Latham’s screenplay is adapted from Latham’s magazine story The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy. Winger said: ‘I loved the movie . . . it was a slice of life’.

Also in the cast are Madolyn Smith [Madolyn Smith Osborne] as Pam, Barry Corbin as Uncle Bob , Bonnie Raitt, Brooke Alderson, Mickey Gilley, Charlie Daniels Band, Cooper Huckabee, James Gammon, Betty Murphy, Ed Geldart, Leah Geldart, Keith Clemons, Howard Norman, Sheryl Briedel, Sean Lawler, Gator Conley, Minnie Elerick and Ann Travolta.

Running 135, this Paramount release is shot in widescreen by Reynaldo Villalobos, produced by C O Erickson, Robert Evans and Irving Azoff, scored by Ralph Burns and designed by Stephen B Grimes.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4675

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