Midnight Cowboy

Two guys discuss the Oscar winners for Best Picture from worst to best. They talk about the movie Midnight Cowboy and its history. They also discuss the losers, which include Anne of a Thousand Days, Hello Dolly!, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Z. They talk about the success of Midnight Cowboy and other movies from that year. Lastly, they discuss the plot of Midnight Cowboy, where a young man from Texas goes to New York to become a male prostitute, but faces difficulties and eventually befriends a man named Rico. Hi, welcome to Sippin' Dinner. I'm Benno. And I'm Barney. And we are here counting down the Oscar winners for Best Picture from Worst to Best. Theoretically. Theoretically, yes. We're all the way up to number 29, which is theoretically the best one so far. What are we talking about today? We're talking about Midnight Cowboy from 1969. Yeah, so what's your history with Midnight Cowboy? No history at all. I didn't know anything about it. I might have heard of it. I don't know. Oh, okay. But knew, never heard anybody talking about it. Didn't know it. Well, you had a good guess last week when I asked you about it. I did, yeah. You said it was about a male stripper. Right, that was pretty close. Pretty close. Because I was also seeing the image on our little, whatever we call thumbtacks. But they're not thumbtacks. Thumbnails. They're like, yeah. They're little postcards. Yeah, I have some visual aids in our podcasting. And so on this, it's usually the movie posters, but down at a miniature scale. And so I could see that there's a man, a couple men, now I see it's a couple men, in what looks like New York City. So then I was like, well, Midnight Cowboy, New York City, that sounds like a stripper name or something. Yeah, and this is our third Dustin Hoffman movie that we've covered. Yeah, I was thinking about that. Best Picture Winner is the end of three consecutive decades, really. 1979 and 88 for Rain Man. Wow. So theoretically, this is the best of his Best Picture Winners. But let's get into the Losers. There were four Losers. Okay. Anne of a Thousand Days. I've never heard of it. It's a historical costume drama about Anne Boleyn. Okay. Her relationship with Henry VIII. It's just kind of a long, late 60s costume drama. Richard Burton. Okay. But it's Henry VIII. It also, in telling the story, kind of recycles the story of Thomas More as a subplot. Right. Because Anne Boleyn was the first mistress that he... Yeah, before he had friends for her. For her. And then he beheaded her, right? Well, yeah. I mean, his reasoning was different. Yeah, and then he beheaded her because she's an embarrassed one. Yeah, I think it's kind of a snus that makes you realize how good Man for All Seasons actually was, telling a similar story in just a much more compelling way. Only three years after that. So it felt like A Thousand Days. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Anne of a Thousand Minutes. Also from a rather big Hollywood movie of the year is Hello, Dolly! Okay. The big budget musical version of the Broadway smash hit. Okay. Carol Channing is kind of iconic in the Broadway version, but she's replaced here by Barbra Streisand. Who can definitely sing. Really great singer. You know, the movie was extremely expensive. It ended up losing money, even though it was one of the year's biggest money makers. Oh, because it's expensive. Because it was so expensive. You see the big budget musicals kind of in decline towards the end of the 60s. But it's not the disaster that Dr. Dolittle was. Okay. Like Dr. Dolittle, it does scrape off a Best Picture nomination. Is it a good movie? I see Walter Matthau in it. That's fine. Yeah, Walter Matthau's in it. What about in comparison to My Fair Lady? I think My Fair Lady does it better, by the way. Okay. It's certainly better. I mean, it's a good musical. I don't think it's as good a musical as My Fair Lady, just talking about the stage versions. It's kind of long, but it's watchable. I mean, you like musicals, so you'll probably enjoy it. Wally really likes it. It's the movie that he would play in the movie Wally. Oh, okay. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do. That kind of opens the movie with a song from Hello Dolly. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's very cool. I like Wally. Oh, Wally's great. So I think I've heard that Barbra Streisand has a reputation of being difficult as an actress. Yeah. I feel the same thing. I mean, she's ridiculously talented, just in terms of programming her scene. It's really iconic. And she's a very good actress, too. She has the reputation of kind of a diva, but I think there's certainly some sexism in that. I'm sure she's not pleasant to work on, like the caterer or the sound boy on the set, but I think you get that with big stars a lot of the time. And if she were male, big star. Yeah, I think Robert Redford is very insistent, I think at this time, on his image. I'm sure these performers have a lot on the line, and they can walk over and hold their kids. Anyways, speaking of Robert Redford, we have Butch Caspi and the Sundance Kid. Okay, I've heard of that. Yeah. So this brings the—well, no, it's the same team as this thing. This is a few years earlier, with Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and director George Roy Hill. So this is about a band of outlaws from— I think they're real legendary figures from the Old West. They're train robbers. The movie is very much a beloved classic. Similar to this thing, I do get kind of frustrated with the Redford character as a Sundance Kid. It's kind of too sanitized in what should be kind of an anti-hero role, image consciousness. But in this case, I think that Paul Newman has— It's given a lot more to do than he was in this thing. I mean, it sounds a lot like this thing, just a different setting. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like this thing in the Old West. It introduced the famous song, When Drops Keep Falling on My Head. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That theme song doesn't really sound like it comes from the West, but it is from this movie. And finally, we have Thee. Ever heard of Thee? No. Yeah, this is a political thriller. It's a French-Algerian production, directed by Costa Graves, a Greek director. We talked about briefly in our Gandhi episode, he directed Missing. Oh, yeah. So he does a lot of these political thrillers, a lot of stuff about revolutionary violence. This kind of tells the story of—it's a fictionalized account of an actual assassination of a revolutionary who became a threat to the junta, the military dictatorship at the time in Greece. Okay. Yeah. Not in Algeria. Not in Algeria, no. But there was similar stuff going on in Algeria at the time, too. All right. Actually, I don't—I just rewatched it this week. I don't think the movie names the country. Oh, okay. But the actual plot is based on those in Greece. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I think Greece was under dictatorship for, I think, the late 60s through the mid-70s. Yes. So Z is a very good movie. Yeah. But this one is just the letter Z. It's just the letter Z, or Zed in Britain. Oh. So Bishkashin and Sundar's hit was the biggest hit of the year, followed by The Love Thug. Do you remember The Love Thug? Herbie movie. Herbie movie. I love that one. Talking car. Not talking car, just a car with a personality. Yeah. Kind of like in R2-D2, he talks through people. Yeah, exactly. I loved that movie. Yeah. Yeah. It was so fun. Do you love all the Herbie movies? No. But I loved a lot of them. Yeah. I loved it. I liked the second one as a kid, the one with Helen Hayes, Herbie Writes Again. San Francisco? Yeah, San Francisco, and he saves the house that's being bought by realtors. I haven't seen that since I was maybe 10. Yeah. I remember, I think it was Herbie Goes Banana. Yeah. That was the first movie in my life that I didn't like. Yeah. It's always gone, every movie. I was probably 11 or so. Yeah. And saw it, we were living in Italy. Okay, yeah. And saw it on the outdoor theater on the base, that big park. Anyway, I remember where I was, and it was just like, oh there, I'm all ready to do it. And it was Herbie Goes Bananas, and I was just like, this is a dumb movie. It is a dumb movie, yeah. It's the first time ever. Yeah. Yeah. Surprisingly, I think Midnight Cowboy was a really big hit. It doesn't really seem like a crowd-pleasing blockbuster, but audiences were different. Yeah. Probably in the boomer era. Also, you see with Easy Rider. I don't know Easy Rider. It's a biker movie. It was made independently. Henry Fonda made it. No, sorry, Peter Fonda made it. Henry Fun, Jane's brother. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, so definitely baby boomer. Definitely. Dan Fonda had a reasonable hit this year with They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Depression-era movie about a dance competition. Also, a classic western, subway movie. I actually would prefer the 2010 remake, which is one of my favorite movies. Tone Brothers. Tone Brothers, yes. I'm learning. Yeah. This was a great one, too. I've also seen True Grit, the Coen brother. I've seen both of them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Good. So, we are through our main attraction. So, what is Midnight Cowboy about? Midnight Cowboy is about a young man from Texas who decides to leave his sort of dead-end town to go to his dreams. He's going to go to New York, become like a male prostitute to wealthy women. Yeah, a boyfriend dream. And just make a high society life for himself in New York. Right. But the movie is really, I guess it's mostly about this, his time in New York and how it doesn't go as he plans. It's much harder than he had envisioned. And so, he battles with a lot of things. He battles with just people aren't friendly. Mm-hmm. He doesn't get paid. Yeah. It's hard to get into the business. He gets taken advantage of. He gets taken advantage of. Yeah. He's not very smart. No, not at all. So, it just kind of tells that story. And eventually, through all this, meets up with Dustin Hoffman's character. I don't remember his name. Ratso Rizzo. Oh, that's right. Ratso. He doesn't like that. His name is Rico. Rico. So, just to call him what he wants to be called, Rico, is this big guy living on the margins of society. Yeah. He's like the opposite of this cowboy in every physical aspect. Right. tall, blond, physical specimen of a guy. He's this small, has a limp, but very smart. Yeah. And anyway, just scrapes his way by in New York, Italian from the Bronx. Yeah. And so, they end up striking, eventually, a sort of partnership, friendship. And I guess it becomes a buddy movie, but it's very gritty. Yes. Depressing. Slimy. It's a downer. Depressing. I already said depressing. It's a downer, yeah. It's definitely a downer of the movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's Midnight Cowboy. When we talked about the French connection, how kind of in this era, New York City kind of becomes the stand-in for hell. Yeah. Concerning the hell. Right, yeah, yeah. That's really what this is. Yeah, you definitely see that. It's just, again, this era is just terrible. Yeah, it makes you want to not go to New York. Not want to go to New York. Not want to be in the 60s. Everybody is bad. Even the good people are bad. So, did you like it? I did not like it. I decided, because of the way you indicated it last week, I think you even said you might want to watch this one alone. Yeah. I don't think Adam would like this. No, I watched it, and I told him I watched it, and then I said, you're welcome. He would not have liked this movie. Yeah. I think I prefer American Beauty to this movie. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I really didn't like this movie. So, you're going to have to explain to me, what am I missing? I mean, I can see that Dustin Hoffman is remarkable as always. I don't know how he makes himself so small. I know. Yeah. Maybe John, who's the, John Floyd? John Floyd, yeah. Is this, well, we've seen him as an old man, right? Yeah, he's been in a lot of, I think he was a villain in Mission Impossible. Okay. The first one. I don't recognize his face. He was in Ali. Yeah. He played Howard Cosell in all of Ali. Who is, what's her name, Angelina Jolie's dad? John Floyd. Oh, that is her. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's. I don't think I've ever seen him young before. Oh, yeah. No, he was very different young. I mean, he's kind of become a very, he's very much a MAGA. John Floyd? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. Kind of speaks out a lot on politics. It seems like Angelina Jolie would not. No, I don't think she supports that. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, so I don't. At this point, it was like anti-war activism and all of that. Okay. But he's really kind of changed a lot over the years. Yeah, it's interesting. He plays his part well, I guess. I don't know if he's kind of not very bright. But anyway, if he is bright, then he plays the part really well. And it's just this sort of, you know, he is sort of a beautiful man. You know, he's a tall, strapping, good-looking, I don't know, special. And that's really all there is to him. Well, he's very dim. Very dim. I think he gives a really good performance of what the role is. Yeah. He's kind of the really naive guy who has just no idea how he's coming across. Yeah. And just kind of the battles that he's dealing with. I'm probably not the best person to maybe try to redeem the movie for you guys. Yeah, because you don't like it either? No. Why is it ranked so high? Well, we'll get into that. How is this ranked higher than Rain Man? Well, it's a lot higher than Rain Man. It was 54th. Yeah, well, before we get into the comparative analysis, let's just kind of look at it on its own terms. Okay. But we'll get into that. I remember not liking the movie, but it had been a while. And kind of as I was anticipating it coming up and thinking about it, and I remember these two performances, and I was thinking about what it actually is, is just kind of these two people at the bottom rungs of society just finding value in each other and developing this friendship. And so I was thinking to myself, I actually think I'm going to like it this time, because, you know, sure, it's kind of a downer, but I think that there's a lot of value in that, showing the dignity of these people at the lowest rung of society. And then, like, as soon as I kind of get into the stylistic choices and the techniques, especially how the flashbacks are handled, it started all coming back to me, like what really disturbed me about the movie. And I was like, oh, I can't wait for this to be over. Yeah. And actually when it ended, I said to myself, I'm not going to watch this one a second time. Oh, wow. Because I was like, that was unpleasant. Yeah, it hits you. Then, like, a day goes by, and I'm reading some other reviews and some video essays, and it's like, okay, I'll go through it again. And I guess it's, you know, taking it in small chunks. I watched it again. It was a little bit easier to get through. But I just find it so, I think it's, I don't, I feel like it doesn't trust itself. It's kind of all these, like, really weird bells and whistles where I really just want it to be about the drama of these two people. And I think it's just a little bit too heightened in a way that just kind of turned me on. I just didn't think it was disciplined because some of these interludes that it has, they're all kind of filmed in the same kind of, like, dream-like type way. But, like, some of them are flashbacks, and some are fantasies, and some are just, like, kind of drug-fueled hallucinations. There wasn't, like, a discipline to kind of distinguish them from each other. Eventually, I read the review by Roger Ebert. Okay. Which, I was like, once I read it, it makes it hard for me to talk about it because I agreed with it so much that it's like, how can I talk about it without just paraphrasing the review? So I'm just going to read a paragraph from this longer review. But he says, The characters in their immediate world are absolutely like them, but the director, John Schlesinger, was not willing to tell their story with the simplicity I think it required. He took those two magnificent performances and dropped them into a trendy, gimmick-ridden exercise in fashionable cinema. They go to the sween, 60s homestead night cowboy, and robs it of the timelessness it should possess. Okay. Which I just think is exactly right. I have a hard time talking about it without just paraphrasing that. I think without all the excesses, if it were just the story of Joe Buck and that, I think it would still be depressing and kind of a downer, but I think I'd appreciate it more. Like No Man's Land. Yeah. No Man's Land is fairly simplistic. Very simple, yeah. It tells a story of people on the margins, and it's in a gritty fashion, and it's not always pleasant. It's not like this pretty thing to watch. No. But I would watch that again. It's not... Yeah. Yeah. No Man's Land is kind of consistent in its... You know, from the start, it's very non-narrative. It tells a story through imagery and emotion, and it's very consistent, whereas here, I just kind of got... It really takes me out with the kind of juxtaposition between the realism and the more formal elements of these things. LSD, whatever they were. Yeah, and I think it was actually effective in that party scene, even though it's unpleasant to watch. Yeah. But it was effective in kind of putting it in that headspace of what it must be like to be in one of those New York City, you know, Bacchanal-type things. But it's the same techniques we'd seen over and over again for these flashbacks and... Yeah. So I'm not a big fan of it. I don't think I have it that blue. It's surprising that so many people went to go see it and loved it. Yeah, I mean, it really makes it... 1969 must have been like a time of Robespierre or something. Yeah, well, it was the... Yeah. Or maybe it was just edgy and so it's... Yeah, I don't know. I think that there's... One of the odd things about it is like the... The gimmicky parts just kind of don't stick with me as much as the core performances do. Yeah. When I reflect on it, it's like I kind of remember these kind of pathetic scenes with these two guys trying to desperately make a connection and that's kind of sweet. And I kind of forget about a lot of their stuff. Yeah. So I think time kind of helps it. Yeah. Even just kind of a few days removed, it's like I remember that those scenes annoyed me but I don't really feel it. The way I can still... Like when I think of American Beauty's Spudness, it's still visceral to me. Where now it's almost like I remember that I was annoyed but it's not front of mind. But yeah, I think that... I've looked at a lot of other reviews and listened to some podcasts that are more enthusiastic and they're just kind of not bothered by that distracting stuff and are just kind of moved by these two people finding something in this world. So it basically comes down to that. It's not things that we're missing. Yeah, I mean, I think we get it. I think there are things to appreciate. I mean, I think that kind of visual contrast between these two guys, the starkness is very memorable. I was actually kind of wondering how much this influenced Laverne and Shirley. Do you remember their side characters, Lenny and Squiggy? Oh, yeah. And that sort of kind of like these guys. You have the tall, blonde one and the small, greasy one with the nasally voice. Yeah. Yeah. Very different tone. Yeah, Lenny is no Jon Voight No, he's not. He's dumb. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Did you remember the Forrest Gump reference? I mean, the Midnight Cowboy reference in Forrest Gump. No. I'm walking here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably the most famous line in the movie. According to Dustin Hoffman, it was... Except that you had the exact opposite. Well, no, it wasn't Dustin Hoffman. It was Tom Hanks. Sorry. Dustin Hoffman was the character, but it was Tom Hanks. Yeah. I'll just stop talking. No, that's okay. You're supposed to stop talking. This is not one better than 12 Years a Slave. No, but really, the point of the list, as I said before, it's not a definitive list. I spent an afternoon aggregating different lists and rankings online, and it mostly, I think, represents consensus more than objective quality. Right. And I think that's more or less kind of borne out as we've gone through. Some of our earlier movies, like Wings or Mrs. Miniver, I think we've had a lot higher than are ranked here. Those were great movies. Effectively better, but the consensus is not there. Right. And where I'd say, like, Mrs. Miniver is ranked too low, I mean, like, it needs to be re-appreciated. I wouldn't say, oh, why is it ranked at 67th? It's because it's so beloved and people still talk about it. It's like, Midnight Cowboy just gets a lot more cultural. It's much more present in the culture than Mrs. Miniver, even though I'm not a fan of it. Yeah. Womp womp. And that's okay. You know, art is subjective. Right. Watch it if you want to. Yeah. We're not here to tell you not to watch it. Yes. It is noted as the only X-rated Best Picture winner. X-rated? Yes. It's not, it's now an R. The rating system was very new then. Okay. And so it was, I think at first it was G, P, G, M for Mature, and then X is really like what we think of as R now. Okay. It was actually originally, first rated M, and then Jack Valenti the Head changed it to X because of the homosexual references. Okay. Really? And then after it became a hit and won the Oscars, they resubmitted it and it was made an R, which they had made at that point. Okay. But the switch from X to R was because the X rating ended up getting co-opted by the porno theaters in New York, so then the public started to associate X with pornography. Right. Okay. Right. So, you know, when you say it's an X-rated movie, it's not really pornography. Okay. Got it. But it's not a movie for children. Right. So that's why I probably... Definitely a hard R. Yeah. Why I was surprised when you said X-rated. Yeah. At any rate, did you pull up the limerick? Oh. You said what? No, your big job was watching the movie. Yeah, but that was dramatic in itself. Okay. So here is the chat GPT limerick. Okay. In Midnight Cowboy to Rome, like R.I.M., Joe and Ratso seeking a home. Through hustle and strife, they navigate life. In New York's urban jungle, they comb. That's one of the most limericky. In Midnight Cowboy to Rome, Joe and Ratso seeking a home. Through hustle and strife, they navigate life. In New York's urban jungle, they comb. That's a high bar. It is a high bar. That's a limerick. Okay. Oh, this is so good. You didn't even read it yet. I did. I don't like reading my own work. Okay. There once was a drifter named Joe whose prospects were terribly low. His plans all fell flat, so he teamed up with Ratso in this dark urban tale full of woe. I love it. It sums up the movie much better. Thank you. There once was a drifter named Joe. He really was a drifter. His prospects were terribly low. His plans all fell flat. That's true. So, he teamed up with Ratso. His plans all fell flat, so he teamed up with Ratso in this dark urban tale full of woe. That's great. You should write a limerick. I just did. Wow. Dennis, you are good at this. You're better than ChatVPT. Well, that's why writers should be paid. Yeah, very good. Midnight Cowboy got seven nominations. That's too many. Yeah, three acting nominations. Okay, I can see that now. Well, who's the third? The woman that, I mean, that he called up to. I mean, she didn't pay him. He paid her. I thought Sylvia Miles. Okay. The woman with the poodle. Okay. Cass, I think is her name. The first one. Very small role. Yeah, it is a small role, but it's the biggest role out of all the, outside of those two guys. So then John Voight and Dustin Hoffman got, what, to, they're both leading, right? They're both leading, yeah. Okay. Yeah, they both lost to John Wayne. Phew. For True Grit. For True Grit, yes. Okay. They both eventually win. Dustin Hoffman twice. What did John Voight win for? He wins for Coming Home in 1978. The movie about Iraq, not Iraq, Vietnam veterans coming home. Anyway, so one best picture, best director, and best screenplay. So there's only three, but three important ones. Yeah, as I said, Dustin Hoffman and John Voight both lost to John Wayne for True Grit. His only Oscar. And Sylvia Miles lost to Colby Hawn for Cactus Flower. Oh. The comedy is just that she was just, she had better laugh in, this was her first big transition to movies. Okay. She played a dumb blonde, and she was hilarious at it. Yes. It would become her career. Yeah. She's great, so. Yeah, I loved Colby Hawn. Yeah. And then, film editing, it lost, I don't remember what to. But also, Maggie Smith, legendary Maggie Smith, one of the best actors. Oh, from the... From, yeah, Fountain Abbey, Harry Potter. Harry Potter, yeah. Sister Act. She's Mrs., what is she? Professor McGonagall. Professor McGonagall. Yeah. Oh, look at her, so young. She's a terrific actress. She's a national treasure. She's still, still with us. Nice. She won for Primal Mystery and Brody, and then, we did get one, the Supporting Actor Award for, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Wow. Anyway, oh, did you, you wanted to look at the ranking? You ranked it low. It was kind of, polar, very polarizing. Yeah, very polarizing. That makes sense. Yeah, and I think it, it did very well on the, on the AFI polls, so I think the bonus points kind of, bumped it up. Yeah, but, yeah, up in there, it is a, really, three, four of the rankings are in, the top 20-ish. Yeah, and then, four of the rankings are in the bottom half of the list, so it really is polarizing. Yeah. You can see, yeah. Let's see what's coming up next. Oh, hopefully a palate cleanser. Yeah. All right, so I've got, you know, Country for Old Men, Amadeus, Parasite, Moonlight, and The Best Years of Our Lives. I think it's going to be Amadeus. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that will be a, a change of pace. Yeah. I think it's going to, it has to be The Departed, right? I think The Departed starts going to be in the mid-20s, right? I don't know, I've never seen The Departed. Okay. I'll point on the western front, Rebecca, Sound of Music, it would be a nice change of pace, actually. Oh, yeah. I'd do that. And, I'm going to add the Deer Hunter. I'm going to put up the Deer Hunter. Wow. So, without further ado, let's see what it is. Yes, please. Oh. Oh. The Sound of Music. The Sound of Music. It's so nice. So we're, stay in the 60s. Yeah. What year is this? Such, such a whiplash from one to the other. Yes. The Sound of Music. 1965. 1965. Wow. They really got, they got much more cynical in between 65 and 60. Yes. Sound of Music. Well, even the ones in between. It's a Nazi war film. You've seen it before. Yeah. So we will be back next week with The Sound of Music. All right. All right. So long. Farewell. I bid you all adieu. Farewell. I bid you all adieu.