Reaction & Review | The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a Western film from 1970. That movie is "The Ballad of Cable Hogue".

Now, when I originally bought this movie some time ago, I really didn't know very much about it. The only thing I knew about it was that it was a Western, and I haven't covered a traditional Western movie for this series in a long time. There were couple of movies I covered that had Western elements to it, but they weren't exactly a Western in of itself. So I bought this movie on a whim, and I wasn't totally sure whether or not I wanted to cover this movie for Reaction & Review or if it was something that I was gonna watch on my own time. But eventually, I did find an opening for it in the schedule, so I decided to finally put it on there and here we are.

So, as I stated, I didn't know anything about this movie outside of what genre it was. And so when it came to finally cover this movie, I did a little bit of research on it, and I found out something...rather interesting about it. You see, this movie had a REALLY troubled production. Now I'm not gonna go into detail on every little thing that happened, because I'd be here all day if I did that. So instead, I'm just gonna go over a few certain things about the movie itself. For starters, the film had stopped being produced for a time due to bad weather, which caused the filmmakers to be behind schedule and the film's budget, somehow, went from about $712,000 to $3,000,000 more added to that amount. I'm not entirely certain WHY exactly it jumped that high. Maybe it was because of the production being held back due to how long the bad weather was going on at the time, or maybe it was because of a payment issue in order to keep the actors and film crew together in order for the film to get made, I'm not totally sure. But regardless, the budget went up quite a bit since the film's inception.

Now I also read from an interview with some author that there was supposedly a rough cut of this movie that ran for about 2 and a half hours. However, Warner Bros., the company that released this movie, did not like what was in the rough cut of the film, so the director, Sam Peckinpah, pleaded with them to hold off on their judgement so that he could cut a half an hour of the film to around 2 hours. Now I have no idea if this rough cut of the movie actually exists somewhere online, or if that half hour cut of the film no longer exists. The only thing I have to work with is the original 2 hour cut of the film that has been released on DVD and Blu-ray. And on another note, I should mention that when this movie was finally released, Warner Bros. basically just let this thing out to die because they barely did any promotions for the movie, thus was one of the reasons why this movie bombed in theaters.

Now despite all that, I have heard good things about this movie. I haven't really bothered to read what exactly this thing is going for in terms of a plot, so I'm gonna go into this thing completely blind. And I am hoping that it will live up to being as good as what I had heard. I don't know if that will end up being the case or not, but I am gonna find out momentarily. And the only way I'm gonna find out as to whether or not this movie will be any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Ballad of Cable Houge".

1 minute later

So, guys, the film's just started, and I already saw someone shoot a lizard in half! That was...kinda nasty, and sorta fucked up. I will say, though, that kill was really cool. But still, that just seemed a little fucked up to shoot a lizard in half like that.

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I am gonna say this much, as the credits are rolling by, this opening song here is actually pretty good. Why? Because it's from Jerry Goldsmith. I know this, because the opening credits just told me so. Granted, so far, it's not as good as his other works, but still, it's sort of a decent song. So, at least we have that much going in.

10 minutes later

Well...lesson learned, guys. If you don't pay 10 cents to drink water from the hole that Cable originally found it from, then you will be eventually shot at. Granted, it was that guy's own fault for drinking it on Cable's "land", but still, probably should've paid him the 10 cents anyway.

6 minutes later

You know, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, I wasn't expecting this many close-up shots of this blonde woman's breasts. I mean, granted, she IS kinda sexy-looking, but still, I think that point would've been taken the first time around without having to repeat it many times over. But maybe that's just me.

20 minutes later

OK...I just learned that Hildy's strong enough to kick part of her door off, barefoot and all. I gotta say, that was pretty impressive on her part.

13 minutes later

So our pastor here for the past couple of minutes has been trying to comfort this lady by groping her ass and her breasts as well. Again, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, I wasn't expecting this much sexual humor in a Western of all things. That is just fucking mind blowing, guys! Damn.

12 minutes later

So I guess Cable wasn't kidding when he said that it was easy to wash dishes, as he earlier stated that he nailed the plates down to a wooden table whenever someone stopped by to eat, and now he's just pouring water all over the dirty plates with a bucket. I'm gonna tell you, guys, regardless of how easy that might look, I imagine those dishes are still gonna look dirty as FUCK every time he finishes washing them. It's creative, but still, you could've found a different method to wash them with.

8 minutes later

OK, that was a bit of bizarre editing there. Cable was just about to greet some people coming to his springs...and then all of sudden, it cut back to him and Hildy, as she's talking about something regarding revenge. I'm going to assume, maybe, there was suppose to be something there from the half hour that was originally edited from the rough cut of the movie, but still, that shit came from out of nowhere! Just thought I'd let you guys know.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Ballad of Cable Hogue". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where exactly do I begin here? I'm gonna be honest, guys, this film is gonna be a little bit tough for me to review. Because on one hand, I honestly do like this movie. But on the other hand, I don't know if it's something that I would watch on a second viewing. Which may sound disappointing, but I'll get into all that eventually.

I suppose I should just get into this review and try to explain it further. Let's start with the writing. Specifically, I want to start with the film's tone. You see, going into this movie, I had no idea what direction this movie was going to go in. Because like I said earlier, I didn't know anything about the plot to this thing when I was doing research on it. I'll mention more about the plot later, because it does tie into an issue I had with the film's story. What I wasn't expecting was that this movie is, at times, genuinely funny. And part of that is because they aim for a type of humor that I haven't seen really often in a Western movie, which would be sexual humor. There is a LOT of sexual, and somewhat crude humor. Whether it's shots of our lead actress's breasts, or when there's a scene involving our priest, Joshua, who was trying to hit on this lady in some of the most oddest ways possible by groping her breasts and ass while he's trying to console her. Some of that is genuinely funny, and, again, it's not something I see very often done in a Western movie. Probably, for it's time anyway, it was something that was never attempted before. And to see it being executed in this movie is definitely a change of pace. Now I understand that not everyone will like the sexual humor here, but I do think it is one of the better highlights of this movie.

But then the movie slowly starts to change shifts with it's tone. Because right around the hour and twenty minute mark of the film, the movie slowly starts to become more of a drama. Now granted, there were some bits of drama being played out from before that point, but it didn't completely overshadow the humor that this movie was trying to go for. And from that point on, the movie kinda delves into more of a slower point, where it focuses on Cable just trying to run his water business while also dealing with a couple of old foes from early on in the movie. And by that point, this is where I felt the movie started to lose some of it's steam, because it felt like it didn't exactly know what to do from there. Now I can see what this movie was trying to aim for, in which we follow our main character, Cable Hogue, as he's living in a time where the Old West was starting to die off, what with the invention of vehicles and all. And he kinda just sticks with it for the most part as he's living his life there. That part I do appreciate, but it feels like the movie, at around the point that I just mentioned, just kinda felt like slowing itself down because of it's somewhat directionless plot. Now I am not trying to say that, as a whole, the film is badly directed, far from it. It's mostly done really, really well. But I can *kinda* see why exactly Warner Bros. didn't take a particular liking to this movie, because it does feel pretty damn slow at times. And even with the cuts that this movie was forced to make, it still felt like it had a bit of a pacing issue that didn't really need to exist.

Now I kinda mentioned a little bit about the story involving Cable Hogue. So, what exactly is the plot to this movie? Well...that's gonna be kinda hard to explain. And the reason why I say that is because this movie really doesn't have much of any plot to speak of. Like I mentioned a moment ago, it's played out like a slice of life film, where Cable is first being left out in the desert after a couple of stragglers steal his water, transportation, basically, they just take everything that he has with him. And so we get a montage through the opening credits where Cable is just trying to get through the middle of nowhere as he tries to look for water. What I find a little bit odd is the fact that it took 5 whole DAYS for him just to find some speck of water. I would've imagined you'd probably die after, maybe, 3 days or so with no water, but that's just me nitpicking. And once he finds a watering hole, he then later gets to town to buy some land with what little money he has so that he can open up a business to where he can sell water to anyone that comes by his place. It's there where he later meets a couple of other characters such as the priest, who helps him build his business. And our female lead, Hildy, who starts off living as a prostitute who then later forms a relationship with Cable. However, instead of staying with him for too long, she eventually goes off to San Francisco, as that has been part of her dream to live a wealthy life there. But then she later comes back towards the end, and tries to get Cable to go with her. I'm not gonna spoil the ending too much here, but I will say that it kinda feels a little bit cheap. Not all of the ending is bad, mind you, it's just that there is a certain part of it that I felt was kinda cheap and rushed, and it didn't exactly feel convincing to me.

But beyond all that, the writing is still really solid. Our characters here are all likable and have tons of depth, and our story here, what little there is, is still pretty good, even if it does lose some steam towards the third act of the film. So with all said, let's get into the acting. The acting here is great. Nobody here turns in a showing that I would consider bad or weak in the slightest. Even when there's children involved, their roles are VERY minimum, so they don't really take up much screen time to where they could possibly ruin the film. Our three main cast members are some of the best here. We have Jason Robards as Cable Hogue, Stella Stevens playing Hildy, and David Warner, who plays the priest. The latter being a little bit hammy at times, but it doesn't remotely come even close to ruining it. It actually is kinda charming at times, to where it looked like David Warner was having a blast with his role. Everyone else in the cast did really well, too. So without sounding like a dead horse already, the acting here is great, and everybody turned in the best showings that they could give.

Our costuming here is done really well. There really isn't anything I can mention here much in terms of special effects. About the only thing I can really mention is that there are very, very little blood effects. And those are fine, I guess. But then again, this movie's not really a violent Western, like how a lot of them like to be portrayed as. Which I guess is another thing I can briefly mention about the writing is the fact that this movie is not really the standard gun'em down type of Western. And that's fine, because I've seen a few Westerns where they don't really try to amp up the violence too much, like in other Western comedies such as "McClintock!" or "The Villain". Where the violence in those movies are mostly played up for laughs. This movie follows mostly in the same suit, though at least up until the movie starts to become more of a drama and less of a comedy. But again, I'm not gonna try to let that deteriorate from my enjoyment out of this movie.

Camerawork here is mostly really good, though there is that one bit in bizarre editing that I briefly mentioned early on, where Cable goes to meet with some people that came to his business, and then it *suddenly* cut to a different moment, where Hildy was mentioning to Cable about how getting revenge against the two guys that left him out to dry is pointless. And I'm wondering where that conversation even came from, because I don't recall Cable ever mentioning to her about what happened to him at the very beginning of the movie. My theory is, again, that it was something that was probably edited out of the rough cut of the movie, but I have no idea if that's even the case or not. So anyway, the lighting here is great, and that's because this movie was mostly shot outdoors during the daytime where there's plenty of sunlight. Though part of me is curious to imagine how bad the weather was during the time in which they had to stop filming the movie, because that honestly just sounds really fascinating to me. But anyway, I'm getting off track here. Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music here is great, and that's because it was done by the late Jerry Goldsmith. And I've already mentioned in previous reviews where his music in the movies that I've covered before always sounded great. That being said, though, I do think that this is honestly one of his weaker outings. The songs that are used here are good, but none of them are really all that memorable. Most of it sounds like country music, which makes sense given that it's a Western and all, but none of it is really all that great. I want to make mention again that none of the music here is *bad* per se, I just don't think it's something that I'm gonna remember this film by. Which is a shame, really, because I really love Goldsmith's music. But still, what is here is still really good, so I'm just gonna leave that up to personal preference here.

So ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"? I can, yes, provided, of course, if you're into Westerns. I should note, again, that this movie is not really one of those stereotypical Westerns that goes all guns blazing, so if you're looking for that kind of movie in your Western, then you're probably gonna want to skip this. However, if you are looking for something that's sorta different in the Western genre, then you might find something here that'll be worth your time. If you can find this movie on a streaming service like Netflix, or MAX, or if you can find it cheap on DVD or Blu-ray, then by all means, go right on ahead and check it out. As for myself, well, like I stated earlier, I liked this movie quite a bit. However...I don't think it's gonna be worth watching a second time for me. It mostly has to do with the tonal shift of the movie in which I slowly started to lose interest because the movie just kinda felt lost for a while in not knowing where to go next. If this thing were a flat out comedy, I probably would've loved it. And it's not to say that I don't enjoy drama in Westerns. I mean, shit, I love the Dollars trilogy that all star Clint Eastwood, and most of those are dramas by default. However, I just don't like the tonal shift that the movie took within it's third act. That, plus the ending also felt kinda cheap. At least, to me, it did. So, on that note, I'm probably not gonna be giving this movie a second viewing. But who knows? Maybe you'll like the whole ending better than I did. So really, it's just something that you have to go into for what it's worth. I'm glad that I was able to get a chance to watch this movie once. Unfortunately, it's just not good enough to hold onto for my DVD collection. Which is disappointing to say, because I really wanted to like this movie more than I should've. But these happen sometimes, and I guess that's just the way it is for this kind of movie. Now...seeing as how I brought up a couple of Western comedies earlier, I think I'm gonna go and re-watch my copy of "The Villain". I haven't seen that, probably, since I covered it for this series a couple of years ago, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done putting this review together.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.