The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Year: 1970 (USA)
Genre: Western/Western Comedy
Directed: Sam Peckinpah
Stars: Jason Robards, Stella Stevens, David Warner, Strother Martin, Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, Peter Whitney, R.G. Armstrong, Gene Evans, Kathleen Freeman, Susan O'Connell
Production: Warner Bros.

Those who can think back to grade school no doubt can recall their class reading snippets of "The Iliad" or "The Odyssey" among other folklore of ancient antiquity. Even if you've never read the legends or seen the Disney movie, Hercules is a name we can all recognize along with Odysseus, Orion, Jason and the Argonauts etc. In a thousand years those names will likely be relegated into obscurity, replaced by the likes of Rooster Cogburn, Django and The Man with No Name. Yes love them or hate them, Westerns are the American mythology, likely to outlast even our ambitious Democratic experiment.

Also boobies!

What will the poets say about The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) probably my favorite western film since The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)? Well modern critics say it's a wistful farewell love letter to the west; a Sam Peckinpah oddity that strives for humor over outright violence; at times a romantic comedy too saccharine for its own good. Yet The Ballad of Cable Hogue is so much more than that. Beneath its broad and occasionally satirical joviality there's not just the beating heart of true western heroism but a doctrine of positivism.

The film starts with our hero Cable (Jason Robards), who is double-crossed by his partners in crime (L.Q. Jones and Strother Martin). Forced to wonder the desert with no water or gun, Cable is near death when he stumbles onto a muddy hole in the ground. He digs with his withered hands to find an underground spring that saves his life. The spring is smack dab between two rural towns connected by a stagecoach trail. Despite having nothing but two nickels and the clothes on his back and being functionally illiterate, Cable manages to buy the rights to the land and makes a name for himself as a the chintzy proprietor of Cable Springs.

Revenge plays a large role in Cable's master plan though what he didn't count on was the friendship of the eccentric reverend Joshua Duncan Sloane (David Warner) with a penchant for courting married women. What starts as a tumultuous relationship, blossoms into a mutual respect; philosophizing about the nature of love and loss. Cable also didn't count on a chance meeting with Hildy (Stella Stevens) an ambitious prostitute who at first sees him for the scallywag he is. She has dreams of moving to San Francisco and marrying the richest guy in the city but her plans get complicated when the two become close.

Apparently this is a bad thing

The love the two shares is based on respect and necessity. Both are considered too uncouth for life in the small town nearby. First time in town, Cable pour water on a banker's pants then nearly destroys a Christian revival tent. Cable then sets up his pit stop and regales and disgusts travelers with his backcountry ways and diet. Hildy is a little more refined than the gruff-and-tumble Cable but nonetheless makes a living in a house of ill-repute. Eventually the town gets fed up with her and drives her off as far as Cable Springs.

When asked by Hildy if Cable minded sleeping with an experienced woman Cable responds in his plainspoken way "Hell no, it never bothered me…We all got our own ways of living." It's that self-determination and individualism that keeps the story so interesting and worthy of repeated viewings. She helps him until she feels the need to leave for San Francisco to the disappointment but understanding of Cable. There is no compromise in this love story. Both parties don't mind the lack of compromise however because the time they spent together was the most important thing. They understand each other.

What some claim Cable Hogue to be wistful I say the film is more triumphant. Not to spoil the film for you but Cable does bump into his former associates before the film's end. What results isn't necessarily in the tradition of American western folklore. Unlike Lonely Are the Brave (1962) or Hud (1963), The Ballad of Cable Hogue accepts with open arms the ideas of progress both intellectually and technologically and even postulates that thinking in the past is pejorative.

Say yes to progress

Yet Cable remains a product of his time and is left back in the romantic vantages of the wild, wild west. With great humor, warmth and stubborn industry his ballad is a cinematic cultural piece, a legend that exemplifies what the little guy did to tame the wilds of that time. Do not fret the loss of Cable's way of life. Instead appreciate the fact that for a time people lived and were made better by those who found water where there was none.

Final Grade: A