The Ballad of Cable Hogue, written by John
Crawford and Edmund Penney
A different
version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E
and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
This is a
very good comedy- drama
It is included
on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made List:
The director
is Sam Peckinpah.
And he has
been involved with a classic- The Wild Bunch- and a number of other motion
pictures that are remarkable
-
Straw Dogs- twice, with two
different versions- Junior Bonner- also included on The New York Times’ Best
Movies list
Jason Robards
has the leading role of Cable Hogue.
And he is
one of the best actors I have seen…
-
All the President’s Men, Julia, Once
Upon a Time in the West are just a few examples…
At the
start of the film, we have the dirty, bad looking hero in the middle of the
desert, looking at a reptile.
He talks to
it, saying something about the fact that it is its bad luck that it is made up
of half meat and half water.
And then
the poor creature is blown to bits by a shot gun that was used from a short distance
by a cowboy.
Two men are
nearby and the hero addresses them as Taggart and Bowen and Cable Hogue has a
moment of superiority.
But instead
of using it to disarm or even blow away people that he knew and stated that are
villains, he loses the upper hand.
When the
two scoundrels have their guns in their hand, they disarm Hogue and force him
to remain in the desert.
This looks
not only like murder, but torture on top of it, because with no water and the
horse taken from him, the poor man will suffer and die.
Only he
finds a hole with water, that means he is saved and then he is next to the path
of the diligence.
When it
comes by, the men driving it offer a bottle with what I presume is whiskey and
a ride to town, which is twenty miles away.
Cable Hogue
understands that he is half way between two small cities, twenty miles each way
and there is no water in between.
So instead
of taking up the offer, he quickly understands the value of what he has found
and returns to dig the water out.
His first
customer is quickly dead, because he not only refused to pay the 10 cents asked
for the water, but also pulls a gun at Hogue.
Preacher Joshua
is the next to come and they will remain close throughout the narrative and
suggests that the land should be registered with the authorities so that other
claimants could not take it away.
When Cable
Hogue goes to town and in other moments, there are humorous exchanges, one of
which reveals that the hero does not know how to read or write and furthermore,
he does not even know how to spell his name…with le or el is the question to
which the man has no answer…
In this
town he meets the woman that he will eventually become infatuated with, Hildy,
who is selling her body.
The start
of their relationship is not under the best auspices, seeing as Cable takes a
bath, a massage and when they are supposed to consummate their initial client –sex
worker arrangement, the man gets out the door.
On top of
that, he does not pay and makes Hildy mad, with a series of objects being thrown
towards the insolent, bad customer.
Cable Hogue
becomes rather rich, after he invests $ 100 – which could be the equivalent of
half a million dollars in today’s money- into his two acres of land, on which
he builds a sort of eatery, at each he says when asked that he serves snake
combined with prairie rat and other unusual meats that disgust customers.
The Ballad
of Cable Hogue is a pleasant entertainment.
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