Midnight Cowboy

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Midnight Cowboy

Directed by	John Schlesinger
Produced by	Jerome Hellman
Written by	James Leo Herlihy (novel) Waldo Salt (screenplay)
Starring	Jon Voight Dustin Hoffman
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	May 25, 1969
Running time	113 min
Language	English
Budget	$3,600,000 USD (est.)
IMDb profile

Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 film written by Waldo Salt based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy, and directed by John Schlesinger. It stars Dustin Hoffman, and then-newcomer Jon Voight in the title role. An assortment of much smaller roles are filled by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt (the screenwriter's daughter), and Bob Balaban.

The film won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director; it is the only X-rated film to win an Oscar in any category. (Coincidentally, the previous year had seen the sole G-rated Best Picture winner, Oliver!.)

Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for Best Actor awards. For Hoffman, the role enabled him to avoid any typecasting due to his previous role in The Graduate and began his reputation as an actor of considerable dramatic range.

In 1971 the film was re-submitted to the MPAA ratings board in anticipation of a re-release. This time the board granted it an "R" rating. The re-released version of the film was identical to the original.

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Joe Buck symbolizes the arrogant naïveté of the American West, and Ratso the seedy underbelly of the American city. Ratso prefers to be called "Rico," Spanish for "rich" or "tasty." The characters use their names, the city of New York, the state of Florida and its unattained promise of a better life, and the Statue of Liberty as further symbols of America in the late 60s.

John Barry, who supervised the music for the film, won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Theme. The film featured the song "Everybody's Talkin'", written by Fred Neil and sung by Harry Nilsson, which won a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance; Schlesinger chose that song over "I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City", which Nilsson had written specifically for the film. (Other songs considered for the movie included Randy Newman's "Cowboy", and reportedly Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay".) The song "He Quit Me" was also on the soundtrack; it was written by Warren Zevon, who also included it (as "She Quit Me") on his debut album Wanted Dead or Alive.

1 Plot
2 Cultural references
3 Parodies
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film follows the story of a young Texan named Joe Buck (Jon Voight) who dresses like a rodeo cowboy. (As he tells people he meets, "I ain't a for-real cowboy, but I am a hell of a stud!") He heads to New York City in the hope of leading the life of a kept man. His naïveté becomes evident as quickly as his cash disappears. He is soon forced to hustle for a meager living as a "midnight cowboy" with a clientele that is the opposite (in affluence, and often gender) of the wealthy women he had originally set out to attract.

He meets the lame, scraggly Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), who first cons him out of $20, but after they cross paths a second time, they begin a partnership, with Ratso working as Buck's "manager". Over the course of the rest of the film the two deal with the realities of all-but-homeless street life (living in an abandoned building waiting to be torn down), suspended briefly by a foray into a Warhol-esque party scene (with some of the Warhol superstars in cameo appearances). They form a friendship, none too soon for Ratso, who becomes increasingly dependent upon Joe as mounting health problems (probably including tuberculosis) begin to take their toll on him. Joe wants to take Ratso to a doctor, but he spurns the offer, not wanting to end up in Bellevue Hospital or someplace worse, and Ratso dreams of leaving New York for Florida before winter comes.

The events of Joe Buck's life are told in mostly chronological order, interspersed by flashbacks or daydream sequences which hint at his back-story. The only people Joe ever cared about were his grandmother Sally, who raised him but died while he was away serving in the Army, and his onetime girlfriend, a "loose" girl called Crazy Annie, who was committed to a mental hospital after the two were caught together. Losing them both had left Joe completely alone in the world. Ratso Rizzo's story comes mostly through things he tells Joe; his father was an illiterate shoe shiner who worked at a subway station, developed a bad back, and "coughed his lungs out breathin' in that wax every day!" Ratso learned shining from his father, but he refused to follow (such as he could, with a bad leg) in the old man's footsteps.

Ultimately, Ratso collapses, unable to walk at all, as winter sets in. Joe beats and robs a customer to raise the money to take them to Florida, where Ratso can hopefully recover in the warm weather and Joe can find honest work. They leave on a southbound bus, with Joe discarding his cowboy clothes enroute, but Ratso dies as they approach Miami. Joe is alone once more, and wary of the future.

[edit] Cultural references

Rizzo the Rat, a street-wise but pesky Muppet, was named by Frank Oz after Hoffman's character (according to Steve Whitmire the puppeteer behind his performances).
A hustler dressed up like a cowboy in The Boys in the Band is called a "midnight cowboy."
In an episode of Mission Hill Kevin goes to an x-rated film festival, which he assumes is showing pornographic films only to find out that it is showing classic films that were rated X in the 60's and 70's. One of the films shown was Midnight Cowboy. In fact, Kevin ends up asking Wally, "Wait, how can a porno movie win an Oscar?"
Urban Decay Cosmetics Company [1] named one of its eyeshadow shades "Midnight Cowboy" in homage to the movie and have followed up with other shades such as "Midnight Cowgirl", and "Midnight Cowboy Rides Again" The original shade is their best seller and described by the Urban Decay Website as "light beige with lots of silver glitter."

[edit] Parodies

In the Seinfeld episode "The Mom & Pop Store," the film is parodied at the very end where Jerry and Kramer are on a bus to New Jersey, since Jon Voight was the subject of part of the episode.
In the Futurama episode "Brannigan Begin Again", the movie is parodied as Zapp Brannigan and Kif Kroker lose their jobs and work as gigolos, with Zapp standing in as Joe and Kif standing in as Ratso. The movie's theme song is also played and at one point Kif smacks the hood of a passing hovercraft that nearly hits them, saying "Hey, we're walking here!"
Other parodies of the famous "I'm walkin' here!" line include:
- In the Simpsons episode "A Star is Burns", a plane from New York lands at Springfield airport and pushes its way in front of another plane. "Hey! I'm landing here!" the pilot yells.
- In the film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes) in full drag smacks a cab hood and calls out "I'm walkin' here!"
- In Back to the Future 2, Marty's son walks into the street, as a car honks at him he shouts out, "Hey I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"
- In Forrest Gump, there is a scene in which Forrest is pushing Lieutenant Dan in his wheelchair across the street in New York City. A reckless cab driver nearly hits them and honks, after which Dan hits the cab's hood and yells "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" The song, "Everybody's Talkin'" can be heard in the background.
- In the first episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, Randall is nearly trampled by a crowd of people running past, and says "Hey, hey, I'm walkin' here!"

[edit] Trivia

Opening scenes filmed in Big Spring, Texas.
There is an echo of the tubercular Doc Holliday in con-man Rizzo. But in this sly modern version of the myth, Holliday's real-life loyal companions, prostitute Big Nose Kate and archetypal "cowboy" Wyatt Earp have been rolled up into a single memorable composite.
The line "I'm walkin' here!", which reached #27 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, is often said to have been improvised. Producer Jerome Hellman on the 2-disc DVD set of Midnight Cowboy disputes this account. The cab was driven by a hired actor during a scripted take. The Production team filmed it to look like an ad-lib. Hoffman told it differently on an installment of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio. He stated there were many takes to hit that light just right so they didn't have to pause while walking. That take, the timing was perfect and the cab came out of nowhere and nearly hits them. Hoffman wanted to say "We're filming a movie here!" But from brain to mouth, it came out in the now famous line.
This film has often been joked about as one of the few "gay cowboy" movies, such as the joked-about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Brokeback Mountain. At the 2006 Academy Awards, host Jon Stewart made a joke about Brokeback being an Oscar contender, despite its subject matter, saying "It's been more than 35 years when people would watch Midnight Cowboy and say "What the hell was that all about?" Well, now we have fully accepted this new genre of cinema: gay westerns!"