Most people who have heard of Sam Peckinpah still probably think of him as "Bloody Sam," a gleeful sadist who love of violence inspired his films' slow-motion bloodbaths. This is unfair,because Peckinpah was much more than just an exploitation filmmaker, and it was no doubt in part to avoid being thought of in this way that he decided to film The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Like all filmmakers who create masterpieces, Peckinpah was faced with the question of what could possibly match The Wild Bunch, and so, no doubt wisely, he decided to bypass the question by making that film's complete antithesis. Cable Hogue is also a Western that shows the closing of the frontier, but it does so in a much more gentle fashion (which, granted, isn't saying too much) with barely any violence. Instead of an epic, here Peckinpah is trying to make a surreal allegory. So I can understand why Peckinpah would want to make a movie like Cable Hogue as a follow-up to The Wild Bunch, but I still can't completely understand exactly what he was trying to do in the movie itself. It gets off to a good start but bogs down in a tedious, inexplicable ending. Jason Robards appears in the title role, a man, played by Jason who is left to die in the desert by his partners, played by Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones, essentially reprising gentler versions of their scummy bounty-hunter in The Wild Bunch. Just as he is apparently about to die, Cable discovers water in the ground, and decided to stay there selling water to passing stagecoach passengers. Though Peckinpah's reputation was partly on his image as the anti-John Ford, in Cable Hogue he shows that in one respect he was the perfect artistic heir to Ford: in his handling of humor. Both directors, at ease with majestic landscapes and exciting action scenes, are almost completely lost when it comes to comedy. Peckinpah's attempts at raising laughs reminded me of The Simpsons episode where Homer gives Mel Gibson suggestions on how to "improve" his Mr. Smith Goes to Washington remake, including speeding up the motion in one scene: "Speeded-up motion is funny!" Homer must have also been creative consultant to Peckinpah when he was making this movie, because that's exactly his approach. Peckinpah was often criticized for his attitude towards women, and this flaw comes to the forefront in Cable Hogue with his handling of the character Hildy. Peckinpah tries to have it both ways by treating her as a sex object and a serious character. Because of this, I never believed in the supposedly deep feelings that Cable had for Hildie. The movie's most embarrassing sequence is a montage of Cable and Hildie's time together, supposedly showing us the deep feelings they have for each other, and all to the sound of an unbelievably saccharine song, "Butterfly Mornings (!)." I'd like to think that Peckinpah was forced to add this song by greedy studio execs, but from what I read about the film's production in a biography of the director, he was given complete creative control. Aside from misogyny and unfunny humor, the main reason for Cable Hogue is simply that the end is completely bizarre. Peckinpah was supposed to have been a big admirer of Fellini, and as strange as it sounds, he seems to be attempting his own version of Fellini in the closing scenes. Once again, automobiles are used as a symbol of the passing of the West and the beginning of the modern era. Hildy, who had left Cable to go to San Francisco and make her fortune, returns a wealthy widow driven by a chauffeur. Cable decides to leave his successful business in the desert and leave with Hildy, but before he can, he is unexpectedly run over. This should remind anyone familiar with Peckinpah of Angel being dragged behind a car at the end of The Wild Bunch, but here Peckinpah handles the scene in an offhand fashion, with Robard barely complaining of any pain. His subsequent death is obviously supposed to be more allegorical than realistic, but it just seems off. Instead of subsiding to an elegiac feeling, as was the case with The Wild Bunch, Cable Hogue just seems to sputter out. I'm sure if I would have appreciated the movie more if I had seen it on a restored letter-boxed DVD that I'm sure would have only provided more evidence of Peckinpah and cinematographer Lucien Ballard's flair for using majestic western landscapes. But I don't think that it would have solved this movie's main problems, which have to do with the basic tone and intention behind the story. If anything kept me interested, it wasn't the writing or the direction but Jason Robard's performance in the title role. Cable may be intended by Peckinpah to be a symbol, but Robard makes him into a believable, likable human being. He's the main reason to watch this deeply flawed film.
Review of The Ballad of Cable Hogue
