Undescribable Perfection

So much average

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Released in 1970 and directed by Sam Peckinpah, "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" is a quirky Western drama/comedy/romance starring Jason Robards as a grizzled man left to die in the SW desert, but he miraculously finds a spring and starts a way station servicing stagecoach people and other travelers. He befriends a dubious evangelist (David Warner) and falls in love with a local prostitute (Stella Stevens) while hoping for revenge against the men who double-crossed him (Strother Martin & L.Q. Jones). R.G. Armstrong is on hand as a banker.If you're looking for a conventional Western akin to Pechinpah's "Ride the High Country" (1962) or "The Wild Bunch" (1969), look elsewhere because this is a totally offbeat Western. As noted above, it's an eccentric mix of drama, comedy and romance, but such a description doesn't do it justice because it's so much more. Despite its amusing elements, it's a clever commentary on the human condition: The nature of God and man, spirit and flesh, love and sex, vengeance and forgiveness, religion and libertinism. Legalistic types might find it "offensive" and "anti-God," but nothing could be further from the truth. The LORD is all over this movie, despite the characters' overt moral failings or simple ignorance, just as depicted in the bible (the stories of Samson, Rahab and Naomi come to mind). If you can overlook the goofiness, or let it amuse you, this movie is actually profound with riches to mine. My title blurb says it all.The film runs 121 minutes and was shot in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.GRADE: B

Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) gets double-crossed and left with nothing in the middle of the desert. He manages to find water in a waterless stretch between two stagecoach stops. He starts charging a dime for the water. After Rev. Joshua Duncan Sloane (David Warner) makes a threat to spread the news, Cable goes to town to buy up the 2 acres. He falls for local prostitute Hildy (Stella Stevens).Sam Peckinpah is trying more to make a comedy than a violent thriller. The comedy is pretty broad. It's a wild west of sometimes slapstick level. Robards is intriguing but maybe not as a comedian. The story meanders a bit. It is not Peckinpah's normal pathway and it shows a little. It has some fun moments but I wouldn't say any of this is a big laugh. It is still interesting.

Uneven but entertaining.Nevada, early-1900s. Cable Hogue (played by Jason Robards) is double-crossed and robbed by his two partners. he is left for dead, wandering the desert without water. However, Hogue manages to survive and sets about restoring his fortunes. He finds water near a main road, buys a small plot of land around it and sells water to passing travelers. He also falls in love, with Hildy (Stella Stevens).Directed by Sam Peckinpah, who gave us The Wild Bunch, Cross of Iron, Straw Dogs and The Getaway. Peckinpah movies are generally known for being violent dramas, with the violence being quite graphic. This movie, however, is more of a comedy than a drama, and thus a bit of a departure for Peckinpah. It still has, at its core, a dramatic plot, one of recovery and revenge, but it is difficult to take seriously with some of the hilarious scenes that we see.Very funny at times, with some wonderful lines and physical comedy. Peckinpah also makes use of the Benny Hill-like sped up footage for comedic effect. If anyone was under the illusion that this was purely a drama, that device would have shattered that illusion.However, as mentioned, it retains a dramatic core and the ending is particularly sombre (and unsatisfying). Therein lies the problem with the movie. One moment its a comedy, sometimes to the point of being quite silly, next it is deadly serious. Very uneven.Still, quite entertaining. Just best to not take it too seriously.

Good ol' Bloody Sam hid his softer side quite well, too well if you want my opinion, which might explain why "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" sank into oblivion somewhere lost between the popularity of "The Wild Bunch" and "Straw Dogs". How pitiful, "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" would have probably helped to contradict Sam's detractors, but no one remembers it. And this sad reality poetically fits the film … Jason Robards plays the prospector Cable Hogue, whose bushy beard, raspy voice and sad looking eyes, embody the colorful heritage of the Old West. His odyssey starts when he's double-crossed by his two associates and left alone and waterless in the desert. Hogue has no other choice than a long walking during which we're transported by the beautiful ballad "Tomorrow is the Song I Sing". Hogue's tomorrow is uncertain, but not hopeless, he regularly addresses God with a touching but never blasphemous complicity and all the determination of a man, who doesn't want to die, like the allegory of the agonizing Old West spirit. But after four exhausting days of walking, Hogue finally gives up and in an ironic twist, his abandon coincides with the providential discovery of a water hole in the middle of nowhere, right between the towns of Deaddog and Gilla. Hogue found something more valuable than gold, a stage stop in the desert.What follows is a tribute to the American Dream : Hogue registers his two acres of precious land, gets a loan from a banker and a succession of very colorful characters assist him. Hogue develops a cordial relationship with two stagecoach drivers and a strange friendship with probably one of the most perversely amusing cinematic preachers you'll ever see. David Warner as Reverend Joshua Sloan will provide some of the film's funniest moments both in the slapstick and the one-liners department. Indeed, Sloan has a very personal way to choose his parishioners, his 'sisters of the Spirit' and purge "the grief" from "their soul" and release their "true spirit" … with his very tactful hands. But the heart of the film is the love story between Cable and Hildy, the prostitute, not the archetypal one with the heart of gold. The gold, she's digging it, but not anywhere, in San Francisco where she plans to marry the richest man or the two richest men and become "the ladyest damn lady in town". Stella Stevens is absolutely irresistible in this role, combining an exquisite femininity with a very strong personality.I firmly believe the romantic story is responsible of the comedic tone of the film. It's like Peckinpah decided to loosen up a bit and let all the fun repressed during the making of the more dramatic "Wild Bunch". The movie provides fast motion, subliminal shots of Stella Stevens' beautiful boobs that hardly keep us focused, the slapstick of a good old Benny Hill show and a sort of poetical wisecrack that provides some of the funniest Western lines : "Give me the rifle" "You'll get what's in it" Priceless! I used to believe that this film should be a more popular Western comedy than "Blazzing Saddles" but I finally got the point that the comedy was in fact comic relief as to hide the dramatic aspect of "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" which is, a tragic love story.Hildy has a real fondness on Hogue, and their chemistry is absolutely appealing. The movie is punctuated by many beautiful songs, among them, "Butterfly Morning/ And Wild Morning Afternoons" which offers a tender, delicately handled moment. Robards was robbed an Oscar nom and Stella was stellar, and both exude a mysterious but sincerely endearing love. But there's never a reason in love, it just happens, as says Sloan, there's always one girl who "cuts right straight into you".But Hogue is a practical man, incapable of showing his romantic side every time, haunted by the desire to take his revenge on the guys who betrayed him. Hogue deliberately (or maybe not) ruins what could have been a long-lasting idyll by a remark that hurt Hildy's feelings, telling he didn't charge her the location, because she didn't charge him in bed. At that moment, Hildy's heart is devastated as she realizes that it's time to leave him.The tragedy of "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"'s romance is the impossible love between the hooker who wants to discover San Francisco and the old prospector who hates the town and manages his honest business in the desert. Hogue is someone in the desert, and doesn't have his place in civilization. And the end of the West is incarnated by the automobile era : when the first one appears, Strother Martin's character says he saw one of them ... and so we did, in a movie named "The Wild Bunch". Hogue, like Pyke, embodies the Old West myth and it's no coincidence that he was killed by the ominous arrival of cars. Civilization finally met the Old West.Hogue dies surrounded by all the protagonists of his life, including Hildy, as a rich widow from San Francisco with a dress so green, she's like a beautiful oasis in the desert, indeed, she became the "ladyest damn lady in town". What a poetic ending for a man who would have the honor to hear his own eulogy … And what a powerful significance to the film, probably the only one which 'stars characters actors' from Jason Robards, to Stella Stevens, Strother Martin, L.Q Jones, Slim Pickens, the "Ballad of Cable Hogue" is the delightful swan song of an era, a last tribute to a movie genre.And I join myself to honor Cable Hogue, the unsung hero of 'New Hollywood' and 'Cable Hogue' whose tenderness is like the link between the thrills of 'The Wild Bunch' and the passion between 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller', this is the Holy Trinity of the 'New Western' genre. Amen.