MovieChat Forums > The Cowboys (1972) Discussion > Watching for the First Time as an Adult

Watching for the First Time as an Adult

posted 7 years ago by CoriSCapnSkip (1562)
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(Not to mention uncut, in color, and in HD--SPOILERS, of course.)

Having to divide this post into two parts as apparently this format has a text limit.

Part 1:

Scenes I recalled in vivid detail after nearly 44 years:

Loved the scene where two older boys lowered the blackboard for Hardy. His ecstatic beaming expression was wonderful! (His small grin when the villain met his fate was also great.)

The cook remarking on how young the boys were by promising to make some sugar teats--I had to ask Mom what those were.

The soiled doves scene--I remembered the exact line, "The first time should be in the back of a buggy with a girl he thinks he's in love with," but I about fell over when I saw that Colleen Dewhurst delivers this line! I of course saw this many years before the Anne of Green Gables films! Also, the girls’ amusement over Cimarron bragging that two boys were 15--I had just turned 12 not long before seeing the film and didn't know but what that was pretty old. (Also I remembered the line as being, "the oldest of us is 15," rendering the amusement more understandable, as that would make all the rest younger. The line is actually, "two of us are 15," only implying they were the oldest of the group--they could have been the youngest as only two boys were present at the time.)

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (1562) 7 years ago

Part 2:

The death of Charlie, so ominous and sad. Charlie died doing not one, but two, acts of kindness for Dan. It was Dan's turn to stand watch, not Charlie's, and Charlie knew Dan was terrified, but not why as Dan would not tell a soul about the bad guys. His friend went out to reassure him, and his pocketing of Dan's lost glasses proved to be poor Charlie's last act on earth. A shock, coming so unexpectedly, and after Long Hair's threats to Dan, the viewer would expect if any boy died it would be Dan. The scenes of Charlie's death and funeral I recalled exactly after all this time, but not really that his death was indirectly caused by the actions of Long Hair--otherwise Dan would have been on watch alone.

Of course, the shooting of Wil Andersen, but I would swear we saw an edited-for-TV version in which he was shot only once. It is really shocking to see him shot FIVE TIMES, three from behind and two as he turns while falling to the ground, and in full color, too! I also recalled the touching final scene.

[–] Foghorn1969 (6) 7 years ago

Bruce Dern said in an interview years later that he wished he'd never taken the role. Men threatened him, old ladies spit at him and kids threw rocks at him all because he shot John Wayne in the back.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (1562) 7 years ago

If you look at other threads here, people threatened him online as well.

[–] Foghorn1969 (6) 7 years ago

I never heard that. Of course the interview I was talking about was with Johnny Carson in the 80's before there was an internet (publicly accessible internet the is).

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (1562) 7 years ago

I saw the movie in 1973 and know I heard that by 1975.