Midnight Cowboy

As the battered and bruised 1960s limped towards its end, triple Academy Award winning movie, Midnight Cowboy appeared, (Best Picture, Best Director & Best Screenplay) very much a  product of its dismal time.

With the war in Vietnam splitting the nation in two, and 1967's Summer Of Love tailspinning into a heroin epidemic, the playful squeaky-clean romantic optimism of Doris Day & Rock Hudson were a million miles away.

Instead, the Academy gushed over a new couple, Joe Buck, (Jon Voigt) a handsome Texan cowboy who comes to The Big Apple convinced he can make his fortune as a gigolo and Ratso Rizzo, (Dustin Hoffman) a pathetic, sleazy con-man, who immediately skins Joe of the little money he has.

Midnight Cowboy trailer

Somehow these two misfits soon meet up again and as much through convenience as anything else, begin to rely upon each other, living in squalor. With little financial gain coming from Joe's work with women, he eventually turns some homo tricks to make some pocket cash, enough, at least, to feed the increasingly ill Ratso. Eventually they scrounge together enough to make it to leave New York and catch the bus to Miami, where Ratso is convinced he'll be able to recouperate.

Midnight Cowboy DVD

 "...The first, and only, X-rated film to win a best picture Academy Award, John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy seems a lot less daring today (and has been reclassified as an R), but remains a fascinating time capsule of late-1960s sexual decadence in mainstream American cinema..." Amazon blurb

Midnight Cowboy soundtrack

"...Barry's aching theme for this movie is only one of several prizes here. Nillson croons Everybody's Talking sweeter than any country singer could..." Amazon reviewer JMark2001

Midnight Cowboy: the poster

Both Voigt and Hoffman put in great performances and Midnight Cowboy, though dated, is a wonderful period piece. At the time it was considered "daring, shocking, provocative, compelling!" (original movie blurb on the DVD), whereas now, the bleakness might just be considered "indie". Nevertheless, it's well worth catching of you're at all interested in how The Sixties ended.