Books: “Shooting Midnight Cowboy- Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic” by Glenn Frankel
“Midnight Cowboy” (1969) seemed like such a roll of the dice back in the day. What studio in its right mind would consider a script about a Texas dishwasher who takes a bus to New York City in order to have sex with women—for pay?
Fortunately for MC fanatics like yours truly, United Artist was such a pioneering studio, and Glenn Frankel’s book, “Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Classic” is an absolutely terrific account of the events that led to this once-in-a-generation movie.
“Midnight Cowboy” started out as a novel by James Leo Herlihy, a closeted gay, down-and-out writer who depended on the kindness of friends like author Anais Nin. Gore Vidal called it trash and wouldn’t have anything to do with it. After several unsatisfactory film treatments by a variety of writers, a former blacklisted screenwriter named Waldo Salt cobbled together a script that finally seemed to work.
Meanwhile, a nervous John Schlesinger had just finished directing “Far from the Madding Crowd,” the biggest flop of the year. The money men were understandably nervous. Then there was the casting issue. Although pleased with Dustin Hoffman, Schlesinger was never entirely thrilled with Jon Voight as the co-lead in the movie, initially preferring Michael Sarazin (“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”).
Once the camera started rolling, things began to gel. Bad editors were fired; better editors replaced them. Harry Nilsson’s signature tune was first rejected, then later the choice was praised for being visionary. When the film premiered at the Coronet Cinema in New York City, people lined up for blocks.
So what ultimately made “Midnight Cowboy” so attractive? Did it simply reflect the attitude of moviegoers who were tired of boring, big-studio Westerns and bloated musicals like “The Sound of Music?” Or did it just happen to come along at the right time and in the right place?
A complementary documentary at Film Forum, “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy” by Nancy Buirski subscribes to the latter theory. By the end of the 1960s, New York City was on the skids, and portraying it as a Doris Day movie set was not going to work anymore. Outside the city, the Vietnam War was losing hearts and minds by the minute. Gays, Blacks, women and college students were rebelling against “the Establishment.” Embracing MC simply mirrored these societal changes.
The best parts of the documentary are the archival footage of Schlesinger’s early life in the UK and clips from his first films (such as “Darling”); the B-roll shots of Dustin Hoffman, fresh off his success in “The Graduate”, clowning around on the streets of New York; and the contemporary interviews with some of the film’s aging actors, including Jennifer Salt (pictured below) Brenda Vaccaro and Jon Voight who is remarkably articulate and even somewhat moving.
MC marked a turning point in other ways: Hoffman’s and Voight’s careers soared; and while Schlesinger made a few other good movies (e.g. “Marathon Man”), none were as enduring as Midnight Cowboy. But his gritty take on New York was reflected in subsequent movies of the 1970s, including “The French Connection,” “The Taking of Pelham 123” and “Serpico.” James Leo Herlihy mostly faded into obscurity and died from AIDS in 1992.
Both the Frankel book and the Buirski documentary are excellent; if you are an aficionado like me, you’ll find them catnip. But nothing beats rewatching the original movie, especially if you haven’t seen it in a while. Its core message makes it a classic: in a city that can be heartless, nothing’s more important than human connection.
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