“The Ballad Of Cable Hogue” (1970)
One of a handful of films that those who seek to defend Peckinpah against accusations of gratuitous violence hold up as evidence, “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” is certainly one of his softest films. But it is also one of his least satisfying, which puts a crimp in that narrative. Just as he’d later follow “Straw Dogs” with the winsome “Junior Bonner,” here he turned in ‘Cable Hogue’ directly after “The Wild Bunch,” but if the contrast in mood and subject matter strikingly suggests that Peckinpah was more than a one-trick pony, it also proves that some of his tricks were more impressive than others. Jason Robards, who was apparently born crusty, stars as Hogue, a down-in-the-mouth deadbeat whom we first meet as he’s literally left to die in the desert. Semi-miraculously, Hogue discovers a spring, and decides to claim the land and set up a hitching post. Abetted by pervy self-ordained preacher Joshua (David Warner), the ornery Hogue eventually makes a go of the enterprise just as the arrival of the first motor car foreshadows its obsolescence. All of this perhaps sounds relatively standard for a death-of-the-West Western, but what’s truly odd is the Benny Hill-esque vibe —it is as much about cleavage crash-zooms and fast-motion capering about as it is about men doing what they gotta do. Hogue’s relationship with his prostitute girlfriend Hildy (Stella Stevens) is one of the more tender in Peckinpah’s catalogue, but it tends to the sentimental and is not helped by a twee theme song which invokes “butterfly mornings and wildflower afternoons.” And Joshua’s exploitation of emotionally vulnerable women is particularly uncomfortable here, because it’s played for laughs. Peckinpah was a brilliant filmmaker, but he wasn’t a particularly funny one, and this attempt at comedy reveals as much about his prejudices as any of his bloodbaths. [C]
“Straw Dogs” (1971)
“The Ballad Of Cable Hogue” went over budget and over schedule, and proved unpopular with just about everyone, so just as soon as Peckinpah was in favor at Warner Bros., he was out in the cold again and ended up reteaming with “Noon Wine” producer Daniel Melnick for a loose adaptation of Gordon Williams’ novel “The Siege Of Trencher’s Farm,” retitled “Straw Dogs.” The film is one of the most provocative and divisive in a career full of work to which both adjectives could be regularly applied. Dustin Hoffman took the lead as David, an American mathematician who moves with his wife Amy (Susan George) to the remote Cornish town where she grew up. Her ex-boyfriend Charlie (Del Henney) and other locals are hired by the couple to renovate their house, leading to a legendarily controversial scene where Amy is raped by the villagers, while seemingly finding some pleasure in moments of the violation. Then the couple are besieged in their home after David hits and injures a local mentally disabled man, who turns out to have killed a teenage girl (a level of near-apocalyptic coincidence that comes from the novel, but still feels ropey). It’s a deeply troubling film, not least in its sexual politics, but to dismiss it as fascistic or exploitative, as many did, is too easy —it’s less an examination of machismo (though Hoffman is perfect as the timid man forced to stand up) as a look at the darkness, violence and aggression that lie beneath the surface of men. It’s a thin tightrope, but the film mostly stays on it, partly thanks to its refusal to comfort or console you or even to assure you that you’re not like the characters onscreen. And of course Peckinpah executes it with brutal skill: just contrast the film with Rod Lurie’s unimaginatively faithful remake from 2011. [B+]
