BLU-RAY REVIEW / SDR SCREENSHOTS
Lee Marvin, left, and Jack Palance star as Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, aging cowboys who are facing a vanishing West. Most of the production, including a spectacular round-up of wild horses, was filmed in and around Mescal, Arizona.
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“MONTE WALSH”
Blu-ray; 1970; PG-13 for some violence and sexuality
Best extra: Just one, but it’s a keeper — a new commentary by Lee Marvin biographer Dwayne Epstein
“ELEGIAC.” That’s how Lee Marvin biographer Dwayne Epstein (the best-selling “Point Blank”) describes this under-appreciated Western, and he’s absolutely right.
As he points out in his new commentary, other movies of the time — notably George Roy Hill’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” — were also concerned with “the death of the West,” but Epstein makes a solid argument that “Monte Walsh” captures it better in the way it plays out poetically with scenes of long silences and tableaus that recall the paintings of Frederick Remington and Charles Russell.
There are other reasons: The Lukas Heller (“Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”)-David Zelag Goodman (“Straw Dogs”) screenplay was based on the novel by Jack Schaefer, author of “Shane.” Multiple Oscar winner John Barry (“Dances With Wolves”) wrote the evocative score. It was the directorial debut for Oscar-nominated cinematographer William A. Fraker (“WarGames”) as well as the debut for cinematographer David M. Walsh (“Murder By Death”).
(1) “Monte Walsh” had its U.S. premiere on Oct. 2, 1970. (2) Ranch boss Cal Brennan (Jim Davis, center) greets Walsh and Rollins after they return from a winter in the mountains. (3&4) The first half of the film captures the camaraderie of the cowboys. (5) The great French actor Jeanne Moreau plays Monte’s lover, Martine Bernard. Their chemistry is undeniable. (6) Fed up with their grossly unhygienic cook, the men prepare to give wash him down.
But that would all go for naught without Lee Marvin (“The Dirty Dozen”) as Monte Walsh. “It’s one of his best films and one of the best performances he’s ever given in that it’s very poignant and very touching. He took the role very seriously.” Epstein says. How seriously? Mitchell Ryan (“Lethal Weapon”), who was making his debut as bronco-buster Shorty Austin, told Epstein that Marvin “knew Monte Walsh inside and out. He knew the man and he knew the character.”
Same goes for Jack Palance (“City Slickers”), who, in a rare good-guy role, plays Walsh’s best friend Chet Rollins, and the great Jeanne Moreau (“Elevator to the Gallows,” “The Bride Wore Black”) as Martine Bernard, Walsh’s lover and the town prostitute. Their chemistry is undeniable, in part, Epstein says, because of rumors that were probably true that they were having a real-life affair.
Filling out the cast are a who’s who of character actors, including Jim Davis (TV’s “Dallas”), G.E. Spradlin (“Apocalypse Now”), Michael Conrad (TV’s “Hill Street Blues”), Bo Hopkins (“The Wild Bunch”), John McLiam (“Cool Hand Luke”), Tom Heaton (“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”), Billy Green Bush (“Five Easy Pieces”), and Richard Farnsworth (“The Grey Fox”).
While the movie spins an intimate story of aging cowboys looking for their place in a vanishing world, Fraker and Walsh deliver some high-octane sequences, in particular a thrilling roundup of a herd of wild mustangs and one in which Monte, determined to tame an equally-determined horse, practically tears the town apart.
The power of “Monte Walsh,” though, is in its intimacy. The first part of the film establishes the cowboys’ camaraderie, and does so with liberal doses of raucous, raunchy humor, but it takes a dark turn as jobs dry up and some of the men resort to desperate measures. When Rollins marries the widow who owns the hardware store, Walsh thinks about settling down, too, and asks Martine what she thinks about getting married. “I like it,” she says in a luminescent moment. Monte even considers starring in a Wild West show back East.
The final shot of Walsh could not be more melancholic as it unreels to the song “The Good Times Are Coming” by Barry and Hal David (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”) and sung by the inimitable Cass Elliott after she left The Mamas & The Papas.
(1) The round-up ends with the death of one of the cowboys. (2&3) Brennan tells the men that the conglomerate that owns the ranch is cutting back and he has to let three of them go. (4) Veteran character actor Mitchell Ryan made his film debut as the bronco-buster Shorty Austin.
VIDEO/AUDIO
This addition to Kino Lorber’s Studio Classics Collection (2.35: 1 aspect ratio) is from the same unrestored 2K master released by KL in 2015, and for the most part, it holds up just fine. Shot in and around Mescal, Arizona, colors are true, skin tones are natural, and detail is more than adequate. That said, there are instances when the resolution drops off and “dirt” is apparent. In no way does that detract from the movie.
Same goes for the original mono sound mix. The roundup and gunplay may not have the depth that you’d like, but the quieter scenes play to the film’s strengths. The dialogue and music are plenty clear.
EXTRAS
The only bonus is Epstein’s engaging commentary, and it’s a good one chock full of choice anecdotes. Marvin, he says, chose his own wardrobe, trying on something like 10 hats before deciding on the one that fit the character. Paramount wanted Deborah Kerr (“The King and I”) to play Martine, but Marvin insisted on Moreau and flew to Paris with Fraker to talk her into taking the role. He also points to Marvin’s changing facial hair as evidence that the studio made cuts.
It’s one reason why, he says, that “Monte Walsh” is not regarded as what it so clearly is: The last of the great, big-studio Westerns.
— Craig Shapiro
(1&2) The somber mood in the bunkhouse is lifted when the men get into a fistfight. (3) Monte starts thinking about marrying Martine and settling down. (4) The film takes a dark turn in the second half as some of the men, their prospects bleak, resort to desperate measures. (5&6) Rollins marries Mary Eagle (Allyn Ann McLerie), the widow who owns the hardware store, and is later held up by Austin and Powder Kent (Billy Green Bush).
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