I will buy almost any DVD priced at $10 or less. I made a 99-cent exception for “The Cowboys,” a movie I loved when I was 15, a book I loved even more. I bought the book in paperback at the downtown Hutzler’s, then a 10-story, two-building compound of wonders. (Now: The Department of Human Resources.) I loved “The Cowboys” so much that it inspired me to try my hand at fan-fic, although I didn’t know the term at the time; I just wanted the story to continue. (And the short-lived television series never truly satisfied.) But now, with the film in hand for the first time in at least 20 years, I wondered if it would satisfy or reveal to me just how low my standards were as an adolescent.
The film is actually better than I remember. Although it lacks the bloodlust of the novel — and, therefore, the full melancholy of watching these boys become men via violence — it is well-written, fairly spare. Bruce Dern, the villain (inevitably) takes a pair of spectacles from one boy and tries them on. He then says: “I can see all the way to home from here, back to where I had to call the carpetbaggers ‘Mister.’” That’s the only personal information we receive about Asa. Do we need any more?
Good score. Lovely performance by Roscoe Lee Browne. I have to part with my hero Pauline Kael on this one, as she said dismissively that no one who wants to see a John Wayne movie wants to see him teaching little boys become cowboys. (By the way, I fall in line with David Thomson on Wayne, whose genuine achievement in film was overshadowed by his regrettable views on Vietnam. That, and “McQ.”)
And I’m not the least bit ashamed of having a crush on A Martinez as Cimarron. He was the Orlando Bloom of his day.
So, to put those old cliches on their heads: What childhood fave-place-treat is better than you remember? Bigger? Tastier? Cuter?
omg, I didn’t think anyone knew about this movie much less the book. I saw the movie first and loved it so much that when I got my first horse, I named him Cimarron(a beautiful blood-red paint America Saddle Bred—I fell in love with A Martinez too and was shocked several years later to see him on a soap opera). It wasn’t until a year later that I found the book on the library’s shelf. The book was much better and what I loved the most about it was the extensive glossary of old timey vocab that was included.
Too bad Hollywood wasn’t into sequels back then, this might have made a good one.
Also, just a suggestion, if you’ve ever seen the mini-series Lonesome Dove, I suggest the book(although some of the geographical aspects are not accurate). It too was much better and in depth, but it also showed how Robert Duvall really nailed that character.
I’m with you on A Martinez. One of my early crushes.
He was less interesting to me by the time he showed up on LA Law, I admit. But yesterday, while watching the movie with others, I did say: “Shut up, I have to give my undivided attention to A Martinez’s entrance.”
I adore Lonesome Dove. Clearly, I really should read more Westerns.
Comparing A Martinez to Orlando Bloom? I dunno about that, ole A seems a trifle less girly to me.
But it’s funny to read your reaction to Martinez in the movie, Laura–bears a striking similarity to when I saw GOSFORD PARK, and was completely, absolutely riveted every time Clive Owen showed up on screen. Undivided attention? Oh yes, he certainly had mine for the movie’s duration…
I can’t think of a single thing I loved as a kid that still holds up. Not moviewise or bookwise, anyway… Usually I find that the things I thought were great don’t do it for me anymore, and the things I couldn’t get into (books, especially) are exactly what I most enjoy as an adult. Classics, especially. Or, no–pretty much anything that requires experience to understand, now that I think about it.
I mean… THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA? What’s a junior-high-school kid supposed to get out of that?
Quite contrary to Keith’s unfortunate experience in this area, I find that a great deal of what I loved as a kid is stuff I love now. I grew up hearing a ton of Beatles and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, and that’s still my favorite stuff. I spent a lot of time as a kid at the museum where my dad worked (the Walters), and the painting that most compelled me then continues to kill me every time I go back.
Maybe I just grew up amidst good stuff, but I find that I used to like Pet Sounds for its singable tunes, and now I love it for the barebones poignancy of the lyrics and the complete genius of the arrangements. The recurring theme here is this: I think the best art (movies, books, music, etc) is the best because of its cross-generational appeal. My mom was working for a while on a Master’s degree as a children’s librarian, so we read lots of young adult books. I came to think that the best “young adult” fiction is only categorized as such for its lack of gratuitous sex or violence. Good stuff is good. I do think I’m with you on the middle school Hemingway, though, Keith.
Odd for me to go first, I know, but — upon re-reading this entry, the day that I bought the book “The Cowboys” came rushing back to me. It was the MLK holiday, 1973. I was with my sister and we were in one of those wonderfully giggly moods where everything became a joke.
I’m with Keith. The stuff I thought was great when I was a kid doesnt hold up now and the stuff I hated then I now appreciate much more. The most potent example of this is the Hardy Boys series. I loved those books and thought they were the greatest. I read them again a few months ago and was severely disappointed. Shakespeare on the other hand has grown into one of my favorite authors.
I think the one exception to this is Kurt Vonnegut. Loved him as a kid and love him now, but even still it’s different. I don’t get that amazing feeling I used to get, now it’s more of a comfortable feeling.
When I started reading this blog and posting here one of the first things I did was check out the web sites of all of the contributors and then immediately got myself a copy of the Night Men. Frankly it pissed me off.
It is one of the most perfectly constructed stories Ive ever read and managed to bring back all of my favorite memories of childhood and adolescence. and the giddy enjoyment I got reading my first detective novels. While I’m trying to perfect my first novel the last thing I need to read is something that good. Thanks a lot Keith.
But it’s a _good_pissed. Right, Byron?
By Keith’s criteria, “The Cowboys” was one of the first books of my young adult life. Then again, I read “To Kill a Mockingbird” at age 12, so it gets complicated. And I was right to love that beautiful version of Aesop’s fables, illustrated by a variety of world-class illustrators, IIRC. I’d buy that book in a second if I found it.
My musical tastes? That’s another story. With one exception. Growng up in Baltimore, I seem to have absorbed r&b music almost by osmosis.
Thanks, Bryon. It’s actually nice to know anybody’s reading it–your comment was a high point of my day.
Now, Laura, when you say R&B…?
The Betsy-Tacy books hold up. I’m not the least bit embarrassed to read them every year.
As for A and O — the comparison rises out of A’s riding prowess in The Cowboys, in which he breaks a wild horse. In the book, Cimarron was, in fact, supposed to have an almost feminine beauty and, IIRC, the traveling whores the boys found on the prairie serviced him for free. (Little Whore House on the Prairie?) In the film, the women agree to go away without tempting the young men.
Keith — what about The Night Men? Seriously, does the work diminish in Jason’s grown-up opinion, or is it still vital?
For those here who don’t know: Keith Snyder wrote a book called The Night Men, which contains excerpts of an old detective novel called “The Night Men,” and IMHO it should replace A Separate Peace on school reading lists. One of my favorite coming-of-age stories of all time.
Word. I think I’m due for a reread, too.
As for books I read that hold up, one of them’s occupying a place on the right-hand side of my blog, which is Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s TOTTO-CHAN: The Little Girl at the Window. I’d like to believe the translation got the gist of the book because by itself, it is an excellent memoir of Kuroyanagi’s (who is a famous TV presenter in Japan) experiences at a tiny, short-lived school called Tomoe. If only all schools were like that one…
Those that didn’t: Janine Boissard’s LES FILLES DE CALEB novels, alas. Loved the pseudo-melodramatics as a young teen, now I want to slap all the characters for being so foolish and silly. Funny, these books are translated, too (from French.) A pattern, perhaps?
Thank you, Laura.
I think THE NIGHT MEN is the first book of Jason, Robert, and Martin’s adult lives, not so much a book from their childhoods.
What I was thinking of when I wrote my comment above was the stuff I went back and revisited before we moved to New York. We sold a whole bunch of books, so I re-read some of the science fiction that I thought was great in junior high and high school. The science-fiction ideas are still terrific, but I couldn’t take the one-dimensionality of the male characters, the non-dimensionality of the female characters, and the generally pedestrian writing styles.
The books I read at the beginning of my adulthood… those are a different story.
A round-about answer to Keith’s question. Years ago, a local NPR station used to run a series on the history of black radio in the U.S. on early Saturday mornings, when I was walking my dog. I heard every installment at least twice and thus learned that the music that was played on Baltimore radio stations was a kind of programming invented by a D.C. radio mogul (a woman), who dubbed it “The Quiet Storm.” These were lush, romantic songs for people who didn’t have dates on Saturday night.
And those are the kinds of songs I mean. I feel like I know them, even when I don’t. I certainly felt that way when I first started listening to Johnny Otis. (Not sure of the spelling there.) Or some lovely compilation albums put out by Okeh in the 1980s.