Sunday, October 16, 2022

Cable Hogue's Ballad

Another of the movies that I recorded the last time it showed up on TCM is The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Recently, I sat down to watch it and do a post on it here.

The movie starts off somewhere in the desert of eastern Nevada, at the beginning of the 20th century. Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) is propsecting for water, something even more important than gold, with two of his friends, Bowen (Strother Martin) and Taggart (L.Q. Jones). The only thing is, these two aren't really his friends. They realize that the men no longer have enough water for three, but still do for two, so they basically attack Cable, take his water, and leave him for dead.

Amazingly, however, Cable is able to find the one watering hole in the area just before he's about to die of thirst. He sets about to develop it, and realizes that he might be able to make money by charging stagecoaches and other travelers going through this desolate area for the water. And it's not long before he gets his first paying customer, the self-styled minister of a church of his own revelation, the Rev. Joshua Sloan (David Warner). Sloan points out to Cable that if he hasn't staked an official claim at the land office, it's not going to be long before a whole bunch of people from town are going to find out about the water and make their own claims on the land.

With that in mind, Cable goes into town, although he's only got enough money to put a legal claim on two acres. That, however, is enough, as apparently the watering hole is very localized and nobody outside those two acres is going to be able to find water. In town, Cable decides he's going to cavort with one of the women of ill repute, Hildy (Stella Stevens). She's eventually going to follow Cable back to his place, now dubbed Cable Springs, although she really wants the life in a big city married to a wealthy man.

Cable is relatively successful running Cable Springs, but in a fairly obvious plot turn, who should show up looking for water but... Bowen and Taggart? They think Cable must have a bunch of money on the premises somewhere, and are out to find it and screw Cable over again, but this time Cable has a trick or two up his sleeve.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue is the sort of early 1970s western that has a differentl look at the genre than a lot of the older westerns, instead looking at a frontier that's closing, as horseless carriages show up for the movie's climax. It's a fairly gentle western, certainly by the standards of its director, Sam Peckinpah, who was known for his more violent films like his previous one, The Wild Bunch. There's certainly violence here, although the overall tone is somewhat lighter and more comedic.

That having been said, it's also way too leisurely. It's the sort of material that would make a nice 90-minute film, but unfortunately has been stretched out to a shade over two hours, thanks in part to some bad songs that look like Peckinpah had "learned" from the "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" sequence in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That sequence was a bit out of place, but in this movie those songs are even more out of place.

If a good screenwriter could figure out how to tighten the material up to a 90-minute movie, there could be a pretty good remake to be made. As it is, The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a bit of a mixed bag.

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