THE LAST HUNT

 

THE MOVIE (MGM, 1956)

DIRECTOR: Richard Brooks;  PRODUCER: Dore Schary;  WRITERS: screenplay by Richard Brooks based on novel by Milton Lott;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Russell Harlan

CAST: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Lloyd Nolan, Debra Paget, Russ Tamblyn, Constance Ford, Joe Desantis, Ainslie Pryor, Ralph Moody, Fred Graham, Roy Barcroft, Steve Darell, Dale Van Sickel, Dan White, Henry Willis, Terry Wilson 

THE PLOT.

The year is 1882, somewhere in South Dakota.  An experienced buffalo hunter named Sandy McKenzie (Stewart Granger), who has tired of killing buffalo, is approached by Charlie Gilson (Robert Taylor), an inexperienced hunter, who nevertheless relishes killing buffalo, and, as it turns out, Indians.

A deal is worked out to go partners and they hire a one-legged skinner known as Woodfoot (Lloyd Nolan) and the half Irish, half Indian Jimmy O'Brien (Russ Tamblyn) to help him.

When Indians steal their horses, Charlie trails them and ambushes them in their camp.  He spares only two lives; a young Indian woman (Debra Paget) and her baby son.  He brings them to the hunters' camp.  Charlie hates Indians, but he intends to make the Indian "his woman."

Unfortunately, for Charlie, she and Sandy are attracted to each other, but they are afraid to let the ruthless Charlie know.  But the mutual attraction cannot be hidden.  Sandy had already been in the process of seeking a way to sever his ties with the sadistic Charlie, and his relationship with the Indian woman (who is never given a name) drives the two hunters even farther apart.

At the late date in which the film is set the buffalo had vanished in the southwest and much of the Great Plains, decimated by the hunters who killed them for their hides, leaving the carcasses to rot and be consumed by scavengers.

It was an ugly business that not only wiped out the herds but also transformed the lives of the native tribes that were heavily dependent on them for their livelihoods, forcing them against their will to live out their days on government reservations.

The film manages to show the viewer just how brutal the act of shooting buffalo must have been.  It does that by filming the annual "thinning out" of the protected herd in Custer State Park in South Dakota, giving viewers the most graphic scenes of a buffalo hunt to ever be filmed.

Sometime in the 70's I first read the novel the film's screenplay is based on, and shortly thereafter I viewed the movie on TV.  A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, but I never forgot the chilling climax to the film and it is still a vivid memory all these years later.  Recently, I reread the novel, and the story's conclusion was just as shocking to me as it was a half-century ago.  

However, I am not going to spoil the ending for future readers of the novel or viewers of the film.

THE STARS.

Robert Taylor, born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911 in Nebraska, died in 1969, at age fifty-eight.

He appeared in only one Western before 1950, and that was when he was miscast as the title character in BILLY THE KID (MGM, 1941).

Taylor was not believable in the role for several reasions, but especially since he was thirty-years old and was portraying an historical figure who died at twenty-one.

Furthermore, it doesn't help things that Billy is a good guy cleaning out the territory of bad guys and that Brian Donlevy, near the top of my list of actors who should never have been cast in a Western, is Taylor's co-star.

In the 50's, Taylor starred in six Westerns.  Fortunately, he and the films were great improvements over his debut Western.  THE LAST HUNT is one of the best -- and perhaps the best -- of the six. Taylor was cast against type in the film and the result is that he gave one of his best perfomances.

He starred in a couple more Westerns during the 60's, the last produced three years before his death.

Robert Taylor and Ricard Widmark in THE LAW AND JAKE WADE (MGM, 1958)

Stewart Granger, born James Lablache Stewart in London in 1913, died in 1993.  Since he needed to adopt a new screen name in order to avert confusion with James Stewart -- and he couldn't have very well chosen his middle name, he became Stewart Granger.

Granger was much more a swashbucker than a westerner, but he was quite good in the Westerns in which he appeared.

His only two Westerns made in the United States were THE LAST HUNT and GUN GLORY (MGM, 1957).  He did star in three Westerns made in Europe in which he portrayed Karl May's "Old Surehand."

In the 1970-71 TV season Granger, as Col. Alan MacKenzie (ironically), became the last owner of the Shiloh Ranch in The Virginian series.  However, the title was changed to Men of Shiloh.  James Drury and Doug McClure continued in their roles as The Virginian and Trampas, respectively, while Lee Majors was added to the cast.

As good as THE LAST HUNT is, it could have been even better if Taylor and Granger had been backed with better supporting actors.

Debra Paget, who had portrayed an Apache woman in BROKEN ARROW (Fox, 1950), portrayed a Sioux in THE LAST HUNT.

It wasn't that she was a bad actress, but that she just didn't look the part.  Anne Bancroft had been originally cast in the role in THE LAST HUNT, but was injured early in the filming when she fell off a horse.  As good an actress as Bancroft was, it would be just about as difficult to accept her in the role as it is Paget.

Lloyd Nolan, who was a good actor, is also on my list of actors who should never have been cast in Westerns.  He was much more at home on the streets in large cities than in the Dakota Badlands or the Black Hills.

Russ Tamblyn, in the role of Jimmy O'Brien, was even more miscast than Nolan or Paget.

THE DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER.

Richard Brooks was one of Hollywood's most respected and acclaimed directors and screenwriters, though many people, because of his bad boy reputation, didn't exactly relish the idea of working with him.

However, he was nominated for eight Academy Awards as either a director or screenwriter, but won only one, that being his screenplay for ELMER GANTRY (UA, 1960).

He directed only two Westerns after THE LAST HUNT: THE PROFESSIONALS (Columbia, 1966) and BITE THE BULLET (Columbia, 1975).

THE CINEMATOGRAPHER.

Russell Harlan began his career behind the camera when he served as Harry "Pop" Sherman's cinematographer on the Hopalong Cassidy B-Western series from 1937-1944.  He is one of the reasons that the series was the all-time best looking B-Western series ever filmed.

His first two A-Westerns were also for Harry Sherman, both starring Joel McCrea: RAMROD (UA, 1947) and FOUR FACES WEST (UA, 1948).  They are two highly entertaining middle-budget films, that are beautifully filmed by Harlan.

Then there was RED RIVER (UA, 1948), followed by THE LAST HUNT, and three years later, both RIO BRAVO (WB) and DAY OF THE OUTLAW (UA).

Of course, Harlan was busy during those years filming important and critically - acclaimed non-Westerns.  In a thirty year career, though he never won, he was nominated for six Academy Awards, including two in the same year in 1962: HATARI (Paramount) and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Universal).

 The Director/Screenwriter

                The Cinematographer

                    

******

Reviews

"The film has a worthy message, teaching us the evils of bloodlust, indiscriminate hunting, Indian-hating, and lack of respect for the environment." -- Jeff Arnold, Jeff Arnold's West

"This one is admittedly clumsy -- the screenplay reduces Lott's complex novel to a slender simple yarn; the acting, except for the two leads, is poor; the movie is too slow.  But it is strong stuff and the ending is one you are not likely to forget. -- Brian Garfield, Western Films: A Complete Guide

"Harlan's low-key photgraphy captures beautifully the bleak tone of Brooks' script and direction." -- Phil Hardy, The Western

"The equating of Indian-hating with a lust for slaughter is morally good.  But it does seem to take Mr. Granger an awfully long time to get around to freezing out Mr. Taylor." -- Bosley Crowther, New York Times

******

The Book.

"I hope that no one makes the mistake of classing this book as a 'Western.'  It is about as far removed from the run-of-the-mill book of that variety as it is possible to get." -- W.R. Burnett, New York Times

The Last Hunt (1954) was Milton Lott's (1916-1996) debut novel.  Although he may have written more, only two other novels were published: Dance Back the Buffalo (1959) and Backtrack (1960).

Needless to say, Lott is remembered, if remembered at all, for THE LAST HUNT, a book that was nominated for both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award.

While the movie is set in South Dakota in order to take advantage of the buffalo herd in Custer State Park, the book is set in northwestern Montana.  Lott chose that location because by 1882, as earlier noted,  the buffalo in the southwest and much of the plains had been decimated. 

The Last Hunt is a landmark novel about that slaughter and the near extinction of the great herds.

It is a slow burn that may not satisfy readers who require a lot of action in their Westerns.  To be sure, there is action, but at first Lott uses flashbacks to flesh out his four main characters and even after that the story if very much character driven.

I don't know if Lott ever wrote poetry or painted landscapes, but if not, he nevertheless possessed the soul of a poet and the eye of a painter.

Since he grew up in the Snake Valley in Idaho, he was intimately acquainted with the setting of his novel and his lyrical descriptions allow one to picture the valleys, badlands, and mountains of Montana, even if one has never been there.

I have read only one other novel about buffalo huntng that can compete with The Last Hunt.  It is Butcher's Crossing, the only Western written by John Wiliams.  In its plot, characterizations, and psychological impact, it reminds me of The Last Hunt.  

What W.R. Burnett wrote about The Last Hunt is also true of Butcher's Crossing.  Both are examples of historical fiction that happens to be set in the West.  And I have to admit that it is a toss-up for me as to which is the better book.

******

Reviews

"A resolution of destinies against an enduring setting of mountains, plains, and valleys, and an encyclopedic sense of buffalo hunting, and its bloody, hoggish destruction ... with a bitter knowledge of the waste." -- Kirkus

"In one sense, THE LAST HUNT is a frontier morality play, a struggle between good (Sandy) and evil (Charley), two men engaged in the same deadly pursuit but with strikingly different attitudes about their professions." -- Edward Joseph Brawley, Chasing the Sun: A Reader's Guide to Novels Set in the American West

"[Lott] creates a sense of chronicle, channeling a series of events through geographical area, and he is solidly artistic in his depiction of landscape, atmosphere, and emotion." -- Christina Bold, Twentieth-Century Western Writers

THE END

SAM SHEPARD: A Life

 

Once upon a time, I shook hands with Sam Shepard.

I suppose that most people who remember Shepard remember him as a movie actor; but that was only one facet of his professional life -- and it wasn't even the most important.

He first made his mark as a playwright and his talent led New York Magazine to name him the greatest playwright of his generation.  In fact, three of his plays were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and one of them, Buried Child, won.  He also directed a number of plays.

He even co-wrote a song with Bob Dylan, Brownsville Girl.  It was eleven minutes long.  It was said that it was either Dylan's longest song or Shepard's shortest play.

You can watch an interesting video of the song on YouTube that features scenes from two Gregory Peck western movies.  Also, Dylan changed the title to Danville Girl, because, he said, there were already too many songs about Brownsville.  The link is : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLlNoilSqA

Shepard also wrote poetry and prose, prose that is difficult to categorize, because, as with many of his plays, it is experimental; also because Shepard admitted he found it easy to write dialogue, but struggled when it came to narration.  All his life he was a rambling man and his prose which is always semi-biographical bears that out.

Sam, age 21, already an accomplished playwright

When he began acting he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of famed test pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983).

Sam is Chuck Yeager

He didn't win; instead the Oscar went to Jack Nicholson, who ironically played an ex-astronaut in Terms of Endearment.

During the years in which he was in great demand as an actor he continued to write plays, directed a couple of films, and wrote screenplays.  His best script was for Paris, Texas (1984), a film that won three prizes, including first place, at the Cannes Film Festival.

All and all, "not bad for a Southern California kid whose greatest dream had once been to be 'a veterinarian with a flashy station wagon, and a flashy blond wife, raising German shepherds in some fancy suburb.'"

Although he was uniquely someone who was simultaneously an accomplished playwright and movie star he once said, "I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff.  I think of myself as a writer."

Furthermore, "being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody.  Whereas, as an actor, you have to audition or wait for somebody else to make a decision about how to use you, with writing, you can do it anywhere, anytime you want.  You don't have to ask permission."

However, he said that while nobody could make a living as a playwright he was able to make enough money from one movie that allowed him to spend a whold year concentrating on his writing and also be able to feed his horses.

Shepard placed a high premium on his privacy and guarded it with a vengeance and therefore refused to cooperate with Winters -- or any other biographer.  He did, however, leave a mother lode of written material that Winters was able to mine and that allowed him to accomplish his goal of revealing "the chasm that exists between the Shepard the public sees and thinks it knows, and the man himself."

******

Some of what I have written I already knew before reading his biography.  I knew that he was an impotant playwright, but I was much more familiar with his film career.  That's partly because we don't have many opportunities in the Missouri Ozarks to take in plays staged by professionals.  That's an ovestatement; we don't have any opportunties

If, however, I had known then what I now know after reading the book, I might have been in such a state of awe that I would have been unable to say anything to him.

It was in a coffee shop in Santa Fe in the fall of 2015 that I shook his hand.  I was there with my son, who manages a well-known western hat store just off the plaza.

Now, unlike me, my son is accustomed to seeing celebrities, since Santa Fe has become a magnet for actors, writers, and entertainers who want to escape the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles.  And sometimes they wander into his store.

I was at the coffee shop because I was in the middle of a road trip and had stopped for a couple of days to spend some time with my son and his family.  It was a weekday and it was my son's routine to go to this coffee shop each morning before going to work.  It was a popular place that served good coffee and you had to stand in line to be waited on.

We're standing in line and my son nudges me in the ribs and whispers "Look, look."

So I looked, but I didn't see what he saw.

And then I heard him say, "Hello, Mr. Shepard."

And I turned my head and Sam Shepard was standing in front of me.

My son knew more about Shepard than I did, especially about his literary career.  And because he will talk to anyone and everyone, he was able to engage Shepard in a conversation that had not yet gotten around to his films, which I could have commented on.

But I noticed that Shepard was carrying a book, and I asked him what he was reading.  It was Empire of the Summer Moon, a biography of the last Comanche war chief, Quanah Parker, a book that I had read earlier that year.  So now I had something that I could add to the convesation, one that lasted a good half hour.

We were still standing in line, but people were stepping around us and finally Shepard said that he should be moving on, that he was keeping us from getting our coffee.  We shook hands -- and he left.

Less than two years later, he was dead.

******

The cause of death was complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly called Lou Gehrig's Disease.  I had a friend who died from the disease so I know something about it.  It is an insidious disease in which the mind outlives the body, with the victim living on the average two to four years after contracting the disease.

Although his handshake was firm and I didn't notice that he was experiencing any difficulties in walking, in all likelihood Sam Shepard was already in the early stages of ALS, and yet he paused to pass the day with two of his admirers.

"I could go on and on about death.  One of my favorite subjects -- so long as you can keep it at arm's length." -- Sam Sheperd

1943-2017

    

 

ELMER KELTON (1926-2009)

"My dad wanted to make a cowboy out of me, but every time he turned around to see where I was, I was reading a book."

Crane, Texas (1940s)
"In an oil-patch town like Crane a boy who excelled in English and won spelling bees was automatically suspect."

No writer ever knew West Texas better than Elmer Kelton.  No, that's not quite correct.  Let me start over.  No writer ever knew west Texas as well as Elmer Kelton.

After all, he was born on a west Texas ranch where first his grandfather and than his father was the foreman.  He grew up near the town of Crane on the McElroy Ranch located in Upton and Crane counties where his father, R.W. "Buck" Kelton, was employed for over thirty years.  His mother was Neta Beatrice "Bea" (nee Parker).

Kelton wrote in his autobiography, Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer (2010), that:

"Dad gave me every chance to learn to be a cowboy.  I was probably the greatest failure of his life.  I was always better talking about it, and writing about it, than I ever was at doing it .... By the time I was eight or nine years old, I fantasized about someday writing the Great American Novel."

A good listener, Kelton was quoted as saying that "Cowboys, especially in the days before television, were pretty good storytellers.  As a kid I loved to sit around and listen to them talk.  I soaked it up like a sponge."

After high school he attended the University of Texas at Austin and was a semester shy of graduation when he was drafted into the army during WWII and served in the infantry in Europe from 1944 to 1946.  A Bronze Star was among his ciatations.

After the war he finished his degree in journalism at the University of Texas.  Beginning in 1948 he wrote for over forty years about farming and ranching in west Texas for various agricultural newspapers and journals, before retiring in 1990.

Kelton's mother, a former school teacher, encouraged him to be a writer, but his father was rather dubious about his son's career choice.  His response was "That's the way with you kids nowadays, you all want to make a living without working for it."

When asked if he had any advice for young writers, Kelton said: "Keep your day job.  Read, read, and keep on reading.  Write, write, and keep on writing."

Kelton took his own advice.  He kept his day job.

During those four decades as an agricultural journalist he wrote fiction in his spare time, in the evenings and on the weekends.  He began writing short stories for pulp magazines and published his first novel, Hot Iron, in 1955.

He went on to write more than forty novels, all westerns, and, with few exceptions, set in west Texas.

His first real recognition was due to the publication of his novel, Buffalo Wagons (1957), which received the highest honor that a western novel can receive, that being a prestigious Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.

That was just the beginning, for six of his later novels would also win the award.  They are: The Day the Cowboys Quit (1971); The Time it Never Rained (1973); Slaughter (1992); The Far Canyon (1994); Eyes of the Hawk (2001); and The Way of the Coyote (2002).

In addition, three of his novels have received Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.  They are: The Time It Never Rained (1973); The Good Old Boys (1982); and The Man Who Rode Midnight (1987).

Note that The Time It Never Rained is the only Kelton novel to be honored by both organizations.  This is only fitting since it is his most popular and most critically acclaimed work, as well as being his personal favorite.

In 1995, The Good Old Boys was made into a TV movie on TNT, starring Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed and co-wrote the script.  To date, it is the only Kelton story to be adapted for film.

That same year Kelton's peers in the Western Writers of America organization voted him the "All-time Best Western Author."  I don't know where the two biggest selling authors, Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour, placed, but it was somewhere behind Willa Cather who finished a distant second.

When asked in an interview how he felt about the vote, he said, "I'd hate to have to stand up and defend that in front of a jury.  I appreciate the compliment, but I can't say that I believe it."

Kelton's primary theme in his novels "has always been change and how people adpt to it or don't adapt."  Never is this more apparent than it is in his most acclaimed novel, The Time It Never Rained.

It is the story of an actual drought that occurred in west Texas during the 50's, one that lasted seven long years.

During those years the ability of ranchers to adapt was severely tested year after year.

Kelton not only wrote about the drought in his novel, he lived it.

He said that "I could never have written it without my experience as a reporter.  That drought was my daily running story as an agricultural writer for seven years."

Charlie Flagg is the story's primary protagonist.  Kelton said, "I have heard Charlie described as a mythical character representing old-fashioned ideals of rugged individualism and free enterprise.  To me there was nothing mythical about him.  He was real."

And so were you, Mr. Kelton.

 

THE GOOD OLD BOYS: The Movie

Elmer kelton wrote more than forty novels, all set in the American West.  One would think that more than one of them might have been filmed, wouldn't you?

After all, Zane Grey's stories were filmed over and over and over.  The plots were rewritten so many times that in the last productions the only two things they had in common with the original product was Grey's name above the title -- and the title.

This despite the fact that, let's face it, he wasn't a good writer.

Two good writers whose novels were many times adapted to the screen were Ernest Haycox and Luke Short, though not as many times as Grey's.

Of course, when all three of these writers were publishing the Western dominated all other genres in print and on the screen.

Louis L'Amour, who sold more Western novels than any other writer, including Zane Grey, began his writing career in the early 50's and many of his did make their way to the big screen, but they were written in the 50s and 60s.  By the time the 70s arrived his books were still selling but they weren't being adapted for movies though some did become TV movies.

Did I mention that Elmer Kelton wrote over forty novels and that only one was adapted as a movie? 

That didn't happen because Kelton wasn't a good writer.  In fact, he was a great one.  The Western Writers of American even named him the greatest Western novelist of all time.  

Of course, one factor that explains the lack of screen adaptations of Kelton's novels is the explanation of L'Amour's drop-off at the end.  Western movie production was curtailed in the 60's due to the competition of the little screen in the living room and even more so during the 70's and later.

However, I am still flabbergasted that only one Kelton story made it to the screen -- and it wasn't even a theatrical release, it was a TV movie.

That movie was THE GOOD OLD BOYS (Turner/TNT, 1995).

DIRECTOR: TOMMY LEE JONES; PRODUCER: SAM NEWMAN; WRITERS: TELEPLAY BY TOMMY LEE JONES & J.T. ALLEN BASED ON NOVEL BY ELMER KELTON; CINEMATOGRAPHER: ALAN CASE

CAST: TOMMY LEE JONES, TERRY KINNEY, FRANCES MCDORMAND, SAM SHEPARD, SISSY SPACEK, MATT DAMON, WILFORD BRIMLEY, WALTER OKLEWICZ, BLAYNE WEAVER, BRUCE MCGILL, LARRY MAHAN, PARK OVERALL, JIMMY DON COX

Here's what Jonathan Taylor had to say about the film in Variety at the time that it debuted:

"THE GOOD OLD BOYS has 'vanity project' written all over it.  Tommy Lee Jones not only stars but also makes his debut as director and writer .... By rights, it should be an indulgent and self-conscious effort, instead, it's a work of uncommon charm and poignance.  It's being shown on TNT but would look just fine on the bigscreen."

Good for you, Mr. Taylor, those are my exact sentiments.  But there's more:

"It's enormously entertaining and marks an auspicious directing debut.  It's not so much of a vanity project as a virtuosity effort."

Well, now, that is indeed high praise.  And it would not have happened had it not been for Tommy Lee Jones' "vanity project."  Look at that cast list; not quite what one would expect for a TV movie.

Tommy Lee Jones is Hewey Calloway

The movie is set in West Texas and is filmed there around Brackettville, Alpine, Del Rio, and Fort Davis.

It is an "end of the West" story in the tradition of films such as SHANE, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, and THE WILD BUNCH.

It is, however, a story of quiet characterization, with a lack of gunplay.  Hewey doesn't carry a gun and was a notoriously bad shot. Only one shot is fired in the whole movie and it is a warning shot fired by a county sheriff. 

Therefore, it doesn't portray the violence that takes place in the previously mentioned films, especially the last one.  It is much more akin to MONTE WALSH, but even that film had a shootout near the end.

Jones and his co-writer must have admired Kelton's novel for the script adheres closely to what the author had written and many of the good lines and humor are taken directly from the book.

Hewey Calloway is one of the good old boys whose only ambition, like that of Monte Walsh, is to be a cowboy forever, and, in the year 1906, that sets him off from most of the rest of the world, for the life he desires to live forever is being rapidly replaced by techological progress.

Elmer Kelton wrote in the introduction to my copy of the book:

"[Hewey] tries to remain a horseback man while the world relentlessly moves into a machine age .... He lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change."

The movie opens with Hewey riding toward the homestead that his younger brother, Walter (Terry Kinney), is farming in west Texas.

Along the way he has a conversation with his horse, Biscuit:

"Biscuit, I'm tired of this cowology.  I'm tired of these mountains.  And if you won't take it the wrong way, I'd just as soon talk with somebody can talk back, every once in a while.  You ain't said nothin' in two years."

Before he arrives at his brother's place he meets up with a former employer and big rancher and banker C.C. Tarpley (Wilford Brimley), who, as it turns out, owns the mortgage on Hewey's brother's farm:

C.C. has designs on Walter's farm

C.C. TARPLEY: "All you got is a brown horse past his prime, an old saddle, and maybe twenty dollars.  Now that ain't much to show for them years, is it?"

HEWEY: "I went north one time into Canada and seen the glaciers.  You ever see a glacier, C.C.?"

Eventually he arrives at his brother's farm where he spies his brother and his brother's youngest son, Tommy (Blayne Weaver), plowing a field.

Father and son are tickled and pleased to see Hewey who had been drifting for two years.

He expected a warm welcome from his brother and nephews, but he knows his appearance will not be welcomed by Eve (Fances McDormand), his headstrong, temperameltal sister-in-law, who seemed to always like him more when he was going than when he was coming.

headstrong and temperamental Eve (Frances McDormand

Before Walter married Eve he was as footloose as Hewey and beginning at an early age the two had ridden many a trail together.

That changed, however, after Walter met Eve, a pretty young woman working in a boarding house.  Despite Hewey's objections and efforts to abort the relationship Walter married Eve.

After their marriage Eve insisted that Walter take a job as a ranch foreman rather than jumping from one job to another as he once did, and as Hewey still did.  She grew dissatisfied with their situation on the ranch and she talked Walter into staking a homestead claim so that they could raise their two sons on land that they owned.  Walter, cowboy, became Walter, farmer.

Eve fears the effect that Hewey might have on Walter and their two sons.  She is afraid that Walter may be influenced by Hewey and long for the days in which he too had the freedom to roam at will.  She knows that Hewey loves her sons and they love him in return, but she is fearful that they might grow up to emulate their wandering uncle.

Eve was always lecturing Hewey about settling down, about responsibility, respectability, always trying to change him.

EVE: "A man with a good woman to help and encourage him can make a garden out of a desert."

HEWEY: "If he's anything like me he'd make a desert out of a garden."

The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different.  He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord's work by making everyone the same.

 

Hewey, riding his horse "Biscuit" flanked by his nephews (L) Cotton (Matt Damon) and (R) Tommy (Blayne Weaver)

 

Fourteen-year old Tommy has grown a good deal in the two years since Hewey last saw him, but he's young enough that he still worships his uncle Hewey.  Cotton, age 16, is a different story.  He has not only grown, he has changed, and he has grown distant from both Hewy and his parents.

young Matt Damon, in one of his earliest screen roles, is Cotton Calloway

Cotton talked of the future as a time of automobiles and great machines and fantastic inventions waiting to burst forth upon the world.  Hewey shuddered.  He tried, but could picture no place in such a world for him.  The wonders that made the future look golden to Cotton made it bleak and terrifying to Hewey.

COTTON: "Yov ever ride in an automobile?"

HEWEY: "No. Only ones I've been around are broken down or fixin' to explode."

COTTON: "World's movin' faster all the time.  You either go on with it, or you get left behind.  I'm gonna be part of it.  I'm gonna help build it."

HEWEY: "Well, I hope you like it when you get finished."

Hewey is approaching middle age, but has never married, and posseses no desire to change that situation, at least not until he meets the boys' teacher, Miss Spring Renfro. This casuses him to examine and re-examine the life he has chosen to pursue.

Miss Spring Renfro (Sissy Spacek)

Kelton states Hewey's quandary in the introdution to his book:

"To fulfill a wish we often give up something of equal or nearly equal value.  Hewey feels drawn to the life his brother Walter has found: a home a family, a piece of land that is his own.  But to have it he knows he must give up his freedom to go where he pleases, when he pleases, to travel his own road without considering the needs of someone else ....

He cannot have it all: nobody can.

He asks Spring to marry him and they make plans.  Enter Snort Yarnell (Sam Shepard), Hewey's saddle pal and partner in making mischief.  He has a string of horses that he is taking into Mexico and asks Hewey if he would like to go with him.

Which road will Hewey choose?  Will it be the open road with Snort or a settled domestic life with Spring?

Sam as Chuck Yeager, his most famous role

Sam as Frank James  

Elmer the Great

******

REVIEWS

".... a charming cowboy yarn that Jones also directed, artfully blending romance and adventure, the call of the hearth and that of the open sky.  He plays Hewey Calloway, a true Texas cowboy trying to keep the modern era from tossing his era out of the saddle. -- Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune

"This is a Western without gunfire or even the threat of serious violence.  The characters and builders we see, to quote novelist Elmer Kelton, are the West's 'main event,' not the storied gunslingers whom Kelton brushes off as 'the sideshow.'" -- Ray Loynd, LA Times 

THE END 

THE HEWEY CALLOWAY TRILOGY by Elmer Kelton

Elmer Kelton (1926-2009)

I haven’t read all of Elmer Kelton’s forty books, but I’ve read about thirty of them and I like some more than others, but I have never read a bad one.

Among my favorites are the novels comprising the Hewey Caloway trilogy: The Good Old Boys (1978); The Smiling Country (1998); and Six Bits a Day (2005).

That's the order that they were published, but it isn't the chronological years in which they are set.  The Smiling Country is a sequel and Six Bits a Day is a prequel.

THE GOOD OLD BOYS

Hewey Calloway is one of the good old boys whose only ambition is to be a cowboy forever, and, in the year 1906, that makes him a living anachronism, for the life he desires to live forever has had its place in the sun, but that sun has set.

As Elmer Kelton writes in the introduction to my copy of the book:

"[Hewey] tries to remain a horseback man while the world relentlessly moves into a machine age…. He lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change."

The story opens with Hewey riding toward the homestead that his younger brother is farming in west Texas, but he approaches with trepidation. He expects a warm welcome from his brother and his nephews, but he knows that his appearance will not be welcomed by Eve, his sister-in-law, who seemed to always like him more when he was going than when he was coming.

Before Walter married Eve he was footloose, but only out of necessity, being of a more pratical bent than Hewey, he wished to live a more settled existence.  At an eary age, however,  they had ridden many a trail together. 

After their marriage Eve insisted that Walter take a job as a ranch foreman rather than jumping from one job to another as he once did, and as Hewey still did.

She grew dissatisfied with their situation on the ranch and she talked Walter into filing a homestead claim so that they could raise their two sons on land that they owned. Walter, cowboy, became Walter, farmer.

Eve fears the effect that Hewey might have on Walter and their two sons. She is afraid that Walter may be influenced by Hewey and long for the days in which he too had the freedom to roam at will. She knows that Hewey loves her sons and they love him in return, but she is fearful that they might grow up to emulate their uncle.

Eve was always lecturing him about settling down, about responsibility, respectability, always trying to change him. The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.

Fourteen-year old Tommy has grown a good deal in the two years since Hewey last saw him, but he is young enough that he still worships his Uncle Hewey. Cotton, age sixteen, is a different story. He has not only grown, he has changed, and he has grown distant from both Hewey and his parents.

Cotton talked of the future as a time of automobiles and great machines and fantastic inventions waiting to burst forth upon the world. Hewey shuddered. He tried, but could picture no place in such a world for him. The wonders that made the future look golden to Cotton made it bleak and terrifying to Hewey.

Hewey is thirty-seven, never married, and possesses no desire to change that situation, at least not until he meets the boys’ teacher, Miss Spring Renfro. This causes him to examine and re-examine the life he has chosen to pursue.

Kelton writes in the introduction:

"To fulfill a wish we often give up something of equal or nearly equal value. Hewey feels drawn to the life his brother Walter has found: a home, a family, a piece of land that is his own. But to have it he knows he must give up his freedom to go where he pleases, when he pleases, to travel his own road without considering the needs of someone else…."

He cannot have it all; nobody can.

Which road will he choose?  Will it be the open road or a settled life with Miss Renfro? 

 ******

I give you Hewey Calloway, philosopher:

If a bath always felt this good, I would take one every week or two.

Looks like to me if they want people to pay attention to the rules, the rules ought to make sense.

He had never seen harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable.  The motive in this case would be to keep Eve from raising hell and later regretting her lapse from grace.  It had always ben his policy to protect her from herself.

I was ducked for a Baptist.  But the water didn't soak very deep.  I taken up my old and willful ways again pretty soon.

I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors.  He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church.

Lots of folks talk about what the Lord wants.  Wonder how many has ever asked Him.

If it cost a hundred dollars to go to heaven I maybe make it to Fort Worth.

And Hewey Calloway, citizen:

I'm a free born American.  I even went to war.  I'd be a taxpayer, and proud to say it, if I owned anything to pay taxes on.

and finally:

Folks have got to take me like I am or leave me alone. 

But does that apply to Miss Renfro?  

******

“Some things we just can’t have, because if we try to hold them they die.  There’s no way I can have you without changing you.  So go ahead, Hewey, go with Snort.  I know it’s what you really want to do, deep in your heart.  Go on then … go on to Mexico.”

 

And he does.

 

“Hewey turned once, reined up and waved his hat.  Then he rode on. 

The sun broke over the prairie in a sudden red blaze.  The family all pulled together, arms around each other, Spring standing to one side, still alone.  They watched as Hewey seemed to ride into the fire, sitting straight-shouldered and proud on Biscuit’s back.  And finally he was gone, melted into the relentless glow of a new day.”

 

And so ends The Good Old Boys.

******

 

The story ended in such a way that it might have been written to allow for a sequel.  If so, Kelton waited a long time to write one, since The Good Old Boys was published in 1978 and its sequel was published twenty years later.

 More than likely, Kelton was looking for a story idea and decided to resurrect Hewey Calloway, one of his – and his fans’ – favorite characters.  The happy result was The Smiling Country, which was also set in west Texas, but in the year 1910, four years after The Good Old Boys.

 

Many of the same characters from The Good Old Boys will be re-introduced, including:

 Walter and Eve Calloway – Hewey’s brother and sister-in-law

Tommy Calloway – Walter and Eve’s youngest son (their oldest son Cotton does not make an appearance; he has gone to town to work in an automobile garage)

C.C. Tarpley – wealthy rancher

Frank “Fat” Gervin – C.C.’s son-in-law and Hewey’s nemesis

Alvin and Cora Lawdermilk – Eve and Walter’s neighbors

Snort Yarnell – Hewey’s sometimes saddle pal and mischief maker

 And –

Miss Spring Renfro – school teacher and Hewey’s ex-fiancée

******

THE SMILING COUNTRY

 The story begins:

“Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance.  In his opinion anyone who wasted time worrying about his age had more leisure than was good for him.  He had not acknowledged a birthday since he had turned thirty a dozen years ago – or was it fifteen?”

 “…. In horse years, Biscuit was older than his rider, but the brown gelding was equally indifferent to the passage of time …. He could outguess a cow nine out of ten confrontations and outrun her the other time.”

 “… Anybody who couldn’t get where he was going on horseback or in a wagon was in too much of a hurry.”

Hewey, true to his fiddle-footed, happy-go-lucky personality, was opposed to owning property for he viewed it as a handicap rather than an asset.  He never wanted more property than he could tie to his saddle and carry with him to his next job.

 

“I’m satisfied with myself the way I am.  Ain’t much I’d want to change.”

 

He hated giving orders, found responsibility smothering, and preferred to work as a top cowhand at thirty dollars a month.  Unfortunately, responsibility came knocking in the person of his young nephew, Tommy, who was now eighteen and who wanted to be a cowboy, just like his Uncle Hewey. 

Hewey loved Tommy but he knew that his sister-in-law’s greatest dread had  become a reality.

 

EVE TO TOMMY: “Don’t do everything your uncle Hewey does.  Use your head and don’t let him get you hurt.”

HEWEY: “Tommy’s levelheaded.  Like as not he’ll be lookin’ after me more than I’ll be lookin’ after him.”

 EVE: “That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

 

Hewey did look after Tommy and the responsibility put him in the hospital. with a broken arm, ribs, knee, and internal injuries.  It happened when Hewey refused to allow Tommy to ride a mean, unbroken, outlaw bronc and instead did it himself.  Hewey rode the horse but he was badly injured.

He realized that his days as a cowboy and bronc buster were behind him and he was forced to “ponder the imponderable price of freedom.”

After leaving the hospital he went to his brother Walter and sister-in-law Eve’s farm, even arriving in an automobile.

Spring Renfro was the only woman he had ever loved.  In the four years he had been gone she was never far from his thoughts.  He wondered if he should ask her to marry him – a second time.  Unfortunately, he discovered that she and Farley Neal, a good man, with both boots planted firmly on the ground, was also in love with her.

 

Who would she choose? 

******

REVIEWS

 

“Elmer Kelton does not write Westerns.  He writes fine novels set in the West – Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

 

“Elmer Kelton is to Texas what Mark Twain was to the Mississippi River …. Each page of this novel resonates with the authenticity that only Kelton can bring to this stirring adventure tale …. Kelton’s clean, crisp writing makes this a most enjoyable addition to the body of this author’s always memorable work. – Jory Sherman, author of Grass Kingdom

 

Old timey dialogue, newly minted, rhetorical stretchers and whopping good humor right out of Twain. -- Kirkus 

******

SIX BITS A DAY 

In Six Bits a Day we learn the back stories of the Calloway brothers: Hewey, age twenty-two, and Walter, who is a year younger. In the year 1889, they have put the farming life in east Texas behind them, at least Hewey has, and have traveled to west Texas to become cowboys, at least Hewey wants to.

The brothers have different outlooks on life and do not share the same goals.  Hewey is carefree, fun-loving, can't remember how old he is, and can't shoot straight.

But as a Kirkus reviewer wrote: "One has to appreciate a Western whose hero is so bad with a revolver that he couldn't hit water if he was standing knee deep in a lake."  

Walter, on the other hand, has a more practical nature and is more grounded.  He's already tired of the wandering life and wants to settle down, especially after he meets Eve, a pretty girl working at a boarding house, whom he falls for like a ton of bricks, and tells Hewey that he is going to marry.

Hewey feels that it is his obligation as the older brother (he's not sure about how much older) to rescue Walter from a fate worse than death.

If you have read The Good Old Boys you know if he succeeded or not .

the author

Meanwhile, they are hired on by a tough, big rancher, and total skinflint named C.C. Tarpley and because the brothers are rank amateurs when it comes to cowboying they are paid six bits a day (75 cents) rather than the going rate of a dollar a day.

The reader also learns C.C.'s back story, a character whose name is familiar to readers of The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country, and they will get the back stories of practically every character that appears in the other two books, including Snort Yarnell and Fat Gervin.

Hewey, as one would expect, gets himself into some scrapes of his own making and that of others, but through his wit and dumb luck, mostly dumb luck, he escapes, tattered at the edges, but more or less unscathed.

Like the other books in the trilogy, this is not a shoot-em up Western.  There is little gunplay, and that's a good thing for Hewey because he would not have survived.  It is also a little shy on plot, but that's not a bad thing, since Kelton provides color and humor and memorable characterizations, along with the good writing that is the hallmark of his work.

It is my least favorite of the three books, but it's still a 5-star read for me -- and that ain't bad atall.

THE END (for now)