In 1994, Midnight Cowboy was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.[5]
Plot
Young Texan Joe Buck quits his dishwashing job, and heads by bus to New York City in cowboy attire to become a male prostitute. Initially unsuccessful, he finally beds a middle-aged woman, Cass, in her Park Avenue apartment. She is insulted when he requests payment, and Joe ultimately gives money to her.
Joe meets Rico "Ratso" Rizzo, an indigent con man with a limp who takes $20 for introducing him to a pimp. After discovering that the alleged pimp is actually an unhinged religious fanatic, Joe flees and unsuccessfully searches for Rico. Joe spends his days wandering the city, listening to his Zenithportable radio and sitting in his hotel room. When his money runs out, management locks Joe out and impounds his belongings.
In an attempt to make money, Joe receives oral sex from a meek young man in a movie theater, but the man cannot pay. Joe threatens him, but releases him unharmed. The next day, Joe spots Rico at a diner, and angrily confronts him. Rico manages to calm Joe, and invites him to share his squalid, condemned apartment squat. Joe reluctantly accepts, and the two begin a "business relationship" as hustlers. Rico asks Joe to call him "Rico" instead of "Ratso", but Joe does not oblige. They struggle with severe poverty, stealing food and failing to get work for Joe. Joe pawns his radio and sells his blood, while Rico's persistent cough worsens during a winter without heat in the freezing apartment.
In intermittent flashbacks, Joe's grandmother raises him after his mother abandons him. He has a tragic relationship with Annie, disclosed through hazy flashbacks in which they are attacked and raped by a cowboy gang. Annie shows signs of mental trauma and is taken into an ambulance.
Rico tells Joe his father was an illiterate Italian immigrant shoeshiner whose job yielded a bad back and lung damage from inhaling shoe polish. Rico learned shoeshining from his father, but considers it degrading and generally refuses to do it. When he breaks into a stand and shines Joe's cowboy boots to attract clients, two police officers arrive and sit with their dirty boots next to Joe's. Rico dreams of escaping to Miami, shown in fantasies in which he and Joe frolic on a beach and are pampered at a resort, including a boy polishing Rico's boots.
A Warhol-like filmmaker and an extrovert female artist approach Joe in a diner, taking his photograph and inviting him to a Warhol-esque art event.[a] Joe and Rico attend, but Rico's poor health and hygiene attract unwanted attention. After mistaking a joint for a cigarette and receiving uppers, Joe hallucinates. He leaves with Shirley, a socialite who pays him $20 for spending the night, but Joe cannot perform sexually. They play Scribbage, and the resulting wordplay leads Shirley to suggest that Joe may be gay; suddenly, he is able to perform. The next morning, she sets up her female friend as Joe's client, and at last his career appears to be progressing.
When Joe returns to the apartment, Rico is severely feverish. He refuses medical help, and begs Joe to put him on a bus to Florida. Desperate for cash, Joe picks up an effeminate middle-aged man in an arcade. The two return to the man's hotel room, where Joe demands money. However, when the man refuses to give him more than $10, Joe brutally beats, robs, and apparently smothers him. Joe buys two bus tickets to Florida with the stolen cash. Rico again tells Joe that he wants to be called "Rico", not "Ratso", and Joe finally begins to oblige. During the bus trip, Rico's health worsens, and he suffers from urinary incontinence.
Joe buys new clothing for Rico and himself at a rest stop, discarding his cowboy outfit and boots. Back on the bus, Joe muses that there must be an easier way to make money than hustling, and tells Rico that he will get a regular job in Miami. When he does not respond, Joe realizes that Rico has died. Joe alerts the bus driver, who asks Joe to close Rico's eyelids, saying that they will soon be in Miami. The other passengers stare. With tears in his eyes, Joe sits with his arm around his dead friend as the bus continues past rows of Floridian palm trees.
Cast
Dustin Hoffman as "Ratso" or Enrico Salvatore "Rico" Rizzo
Paul Rossilli (aka Gastone Rossilli) as Hansel McAlbertson, The Factory party/happening filmmaker
Craig Carrington as Charlie Dealer
Production
The opening scenes were filmed in Big Spring, Texas, in 1968. A roadside billboard, stating, "If you don't have an oil well...get one!", was shown as the New York-bound bus carrying Joe Buck rolled through Texas.[7] Such advertisements, common in the Southwestern United States in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, promoted Eddie Chiles' Western Company of North America.[8]
In the film, Joe stays at the Hotel Claridge, at the southeast corner of Broadway and West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan. His room overlooked the northern half of Times Square.[9] The building, designed by D. H. Burnham & Company and opened in 1911, was demolished in 1972.[10] A motif featured three times throughout the New York scenes was the sign atop of the facade of the Mutual of New York (MONY) Building at 1740 Broadway.[7] It was extended into the Scribbage scene with Shirley the socialite, when Joe's incorrect spelling of the word "money" matched that of the sign.[11]
Dustin Hoffman, who played a grizzled veteran of New York's streets, is from Los Angeles.[12][13] Despite his portrayal of Joe Buck, a character hopelessly out of his element in New York, Jon Voight is a native New Yorker, hailing from Yonkers.[14] Voight was paid "scale" (the Screen Actors Guild minimum wage) for his portrayal of Joe Buck, a concession he willingly made to obtain the part.[15]Harrison Ford auditioned for the role of Joe Buck.[16]Michael Sarrazin, who was Schlesinger's first choice, was cast as Joe Buck, only to be fired when unable to gain release from his contract with Universal.[17][18][19]
The line, "I'm walkin' here!", which reached number 27 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, is subject to differing accounts. Producer Jerome Hellman disputes the notion that it was an ad-lib on the two-disc DVD set of Midnight Cowboy. The scene, which originally had Ratso pretend to be hit by a taxi to feign an injury, is written into the first draft of the original script.[20] Hoffman, however, on an installment of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio, stated that there were many takes, with the actors hoping to get to the crosswalk at a red light so as not to have to wait for traffic while talking. In that take, they were able to cross the road without waiting, but a cab unexpectedly ran the red light and nearly hit them. Hoffman wanted to say, "We're doing a movie here!" and can be heard beginning to say as such in the final film, but he ultimately changed his sentence halfway and stayed in character as he berated the driver. As such, the latter's angry response is also unscripted.[21]
On initial review by the Motion Picture Association of America, Midnight Cowboy received an "R" ("Restricted") rating. However, after consulting with a psychologist, executives at United Artists were told to accept an "X" rating, due to the "homosexual frame of reference" and its "possible influence on youngsters". The film was released with an X rating.[1] The MPAA later broadened the requirements for the "R" rating to allow more content, and raised the age restriction from 14 to 17. The film was later rated "R" for a reissue in 1971.[1][22]
It took several hours to shoot the rape scene, and Jennifer Salt recalls the evening as a traumatic ordeal for her. The wardrobe crew had given Jennifer a nude-colored body suit to wear, but the night was so hot and sticky that she quickly stripped it off. "I felt that the most horrible thing in the world was that people were seeing my bare ass, and that was so humiliating I could not even discuss it. And this kid was just on top of me and all over me and it hurt and no one gave a fuck and it was supposed to look like I was being raped. And I was screaming, screaming, and it was traumatic in some way that couldn't be acknowledged."[23]
Reception
Critical response to the film has been largely positive. Vincent Canby's lengthy 1969 review in The New York Times was blunt: "a slick, brutal (but not brutalizing) movie version of... Herlihy's 1965 novel. It is tough and good in important ways, although its style is oddly romantic and at variance with the laconic material.... As long as the focus is on this world of cafeterias and abandoned tenements, of desperate conjunctions in movie balconies and doorways, of ketchup and beans and canned heat, Midnight Cowboy is so rough and vivid that it's almost unbearable.... Midnight Cowboy often seems to be exploiting its material for sensational or comic effect, but it is ultimately a moving experience that captures the quality of a time and a place. It's not a movie for the ages, but, having seen it, you won't ever again feel detached as you walk down West 42nd Street, avoiding the eyes of the drifters, stepping around the little islands of hustlers and closing your nostrils to the smell of rancid griddles."[24]
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune said of the film: "I cannot recall a more marvelous pair of acting performances in any one film."[25]
In a 25th-anniversary retrospective in 1994, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Midnight Cowboy's peep-show vision of Manhattan lowlife may no longer be shocking, but what is shocking, in 1994, is to see a major studio film linger this lovingly on characters who have nothing to offer the audience but their own lost souls."[26]
As of 2022, Midnight Cowboy holds an 89% approval rating on online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8.50/10, based on 116 reviews. The website's critical consensus states: "John Schlesinger's gritty, unrelentingly bleak look at the seedy underbelly of urban American life is undeniably disturbing, but Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight's performances make it difficult to turn away."[27]
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited this movie as one of his 100 favorite films.[28]
Box office
The film opened at the Coronet Theatre in New York City, and grossed a house record $61,503 in its first week.[29] In its tenth week of release, the film became number one in the United States, with a weekly gross of $550,237,[30] and was the highest-grossing movie in September 1969.[31] The film earned $11 million in rentals in the United States and Canada in 1969,[32] and added a further $5.3 million the following year when it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.[33] It eventually earned rentals of $20.5 million in the United States and Canada.[34] By 1975, it had earned rentals of over $30 million worldwide.[35]
Television premiere
More than five years after its theatrical release, Midnight Cowboy premiered on television November 3, 1974. Twenty-five minutes were edited from the film due to censorship regulations and a desire for broader appeal.[citation needed] Although the cuts were approved by director John Schlesinger, critic Kay Gardella of the New York Daily News said the film was "hacked up pretty badly".[36]
John Barry's version, used on the soundtrack, charted at No. 116 in 1969. It also charted at No. 47 in the U.K. in 1980.[53]
Johnny Mathis' rendition, one of only two known recordings containing lyrics (the other being the Ray Conniff Singers), reached No. 20 on the U.S. adult contemporary chart in the fall of 1969.
Ferrante & Teicher's version, the most successful, reached No. 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and No. 2 on the easy listening chart.[54] It went to No. 11 in Canada[55] and No. 91 in Australia[56]:110 in 1970.
Jonathan Vincent Voight is an American actor. Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and four Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2019, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Films in which Voight has appeared have grossed more than $5.2 billion worldwide.
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters.His accolades include two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hoffman has received numerous honors, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1997, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Actor Robert De Niro has described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human".
In music and other performing arts, the phrase ad libitum, often shortened to "ad lib" or "ad-lib", refers to various forms of improvisation.
John Richard Schlesinger was an English film and stage director, and actor. He emerged in the early 1960s as a leading light of the British New Wave, before embarking on a successful career in Hollywood, often directing films dealing frankly in provocative subject matter, combined with his status as one of the rare openly gay directors working in mainstream films.
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in Manhattan, New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities, and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Waldo Miller Salt was an American screenwriter. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978).
The Willis Avenue Bridge is a swing bridge that carries road traffic northbound over the Harlem River between the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, United States. It connects First Avenue in Manhattan with Willis Avenue in the Bronx. The New York City Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining and operating the bridge.
Sylvia Miles was an American actress. She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances in Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Farewell, My Lovely (1975).
Flesh is a 1968 American film directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Joe Dallesandro as a hustler working on the streets of New York City. It highlights various Warhol superstars, in addition to being the film debuts of both Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling. Also appearing are Geraldine Smith as Joe's wife and Patti D'Arbanville as her lover.
Midnight Cowboy is a 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy that chronicles the naïve Texan Joe Buck's odyssey from Texas to New York City, where he plans on realizing his dream of becoming a male prostitute servicing rich women.
Lonesome Cowboys is a 1968 American Western film directed by Andy Warhol and written and produced by Paul Morrissey. The film is a satire of Hollywood Westerns, and was initially screened in November 1968 at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it won the Best Film Award. On May 5, 1969, it was shown for initial viewings at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre in New York City.
Ann Bishop Roth is an American costume designer. In a career spanning over six decades, she is recognized for her prolific work across stage and screen. She has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and a Tony Award.
The 35th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honored the best filmmaking of 1969.
Jerome Hellman was an American film producer. He is best known for being the 42nd recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture for Midnight Cowboy (1969). His 1978 film Coming Home was nominated for the same award.
Larry "Ratso" Sloman is a New York–based author.
"Everybody's Talkin' (Echoes)" is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Fred Neil in 1966 and released two years later. A version of the song performed by the American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson became a hit in 1969, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and winning a Grammy Award after it was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy. The song, which describes the singer's desire to retreat from the harshness of the city to a more peaceful place and an easier life, is among the most famous works of both artists, and has been covered by many other notable performers.
John and Mary is a 1969 American romantic drama film directed by Peter Yates, and starring Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow in the title roles. It was the film debut of Tyne Daly. The screenplay was adapted by John Mortimer from the 1966 Mervyn Jones novel.
In Search of Gregory is a 1969 British-Italian drama film directed by Peter Wood and starring Julie Christie.
Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Eugene Corr. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film was screened at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival and is a part of the PBS American Masters series of documentary films.
"I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" is a song written and recorded by singer-songwriter Nilsson in 1969. A track from his fourth studio album, Harry, it became his second charting single.
↑ Blake Gopnik, Warhol: A Life as Art London: Allen Lane. March 5, 2020. ISBN978-0-241-00338-1 p. 629
1 2 Chris (October 5, 2006). "Midnight Cowboy locations". Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches. Archived from the original on January 6, 2015. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
↑ Frankel, Glenn (2020). SHOOTING MIDNIGHT COWBOY: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp.175–176. ISBN9780374209018.
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