The Real Trail

What's a cowboy? If 1958's Cowboy doesn't answer the question I don't know what would. The term has long been applied to any fella with a broad-brimmed hat and a pair of six shooters but, once upon a time, it was a job, it was herding cattle across hazardous frontier. Glen Ford and Jack Lemmon star in this magnificently shot film about a fascinating relationship between two men. The beginning of the film is a little awkward and the ending is strangely abrupt but the stuff between is terrific.

Frank Harris (Lemmon) is a hotel clerk who dreams of driving cattle across the open plains, earning a fortune in the process, and also maybe approval of his girlfriend's father. Frank loves Maria (Anna Kashfi), the daughter of a wealthy and influential Mexican cattle rancher (Donald Randolph).

Enter the illustrious cowboy Tom Reese (Glenn Ford). Frank begs him to give him a job as one of his men. Tom finally relents after Frank gives him 38,000 to help him win a poker game. Tom regrets it later but finds himself saddled with the greenhorn on a long drive south into Mexico.

The relationship between the two is a volatile clash of personalities as the two look for reasons to respect or excuses to despise each other. Gradually, Tom gets to thinking his instinctive dislike for Frank means he's feeling fatherly affections and there's a nice scene where Tom suddenly starts stuttering through an attempt to console Frank over his broken heart.

The friction between the two goes to a new level when it comes to the issue of people's lives. When do they ruthlessly look after the dollar interests of the herd at the cost of men's lives? When do they sacrifice two hundred head of cattle for one man? It's damnably murky and it's a miracle the tension doesn't make them try to kill each other.

The film has some amazing stunts, some of them even performed by the actors. Once scene where Tom has to put a ring on an angry bull's horn must have used a stuntman but it was so cleverly shot it's impossible to tell what shots are Ford and what aren't.

The end of the film is really abrupt and the relationship between Tom and Frank, which feels like it could have taken up another hour of screentime, is suddenly and weirdly resolved. But this is still a damned fine Western and you could do worse on the Fourth of July.

Cowboy is available on The Criterion Channel.