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Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Director: John Schlesinger
Plot Synopsis[]
A naive hustler (Jon Voight) travels from Texas to New York City to seek personal fortune, finding a new friend (Dustin Hoffman) in the process.
Male Deaths[]
- Dustin Hoffman [Enrico Salvatore 'Ratso' Rizzo]
- Barnard Hughes [Towny] (Possibly)
Female Deaths[]
- Ruth White [Sally Buck]
Trivia[]
- The "I'm walking here!" line was allegedly improvised by Dustin Hoffman after he was nearly hit by a cab in the middle of production. It has since been considered as one of the most iconic and well-known quotes in cinema.
- Before Dustin Hoffman auditioned for this film, he knew that his all-American image could easily cost him the job. To prove he could do it, he asked the auditioning film executive to meet him on a street corner in Manhattan, and in the meantime, dressed himself in filthy rags. The executive arrived at the appointed corner and waited, barely noticing the "beggar" less than ten feet away who was accosting people for spare change. At last, the beggar walked up to him and revealed his true identity.
- Dustin Hoffman kept pebbles in his shoe to ensure his limp would be consistent from shot to shot.
- The film was rated "X" (no one under 17 admitted) upon its original release in 1969, but the unrestricted use of that rating by pornographic filmmakers caused the rating to quickly become associated with hardcore sex films. Because of the stigma that developed around the "X" rating in the ratings system's early years, many theaters refused to run X-rated films, and many newspapers would not run ads for them. The film was given a new R-rating (children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian) rating in 1971, without having anything changed or removed. It remains the only X-rated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, be shown on network television (although the "R" reclassification had taken place by then), or be screened by a sitting U.S. President, Richard Nixon.
- Jon Voight was paid "scale", or the Screen Actors Guild minimum wage, for his portrayal of Joe Buck, a concession he willingly made to obtain the part.
- Dustin Hoffman put in so much effort portraying one of Ratso's coughing fits that one time he actually ended up vomiting.
- Jon Voight and John Schlesinger wrapped filming in Texas and Voight noticed how red the director's face was. Voight thought Schlesinger was having a heart attack and asked him if he was okay. "He looked up at me and said, 'What have we done? What will they think of us?' After all, we had made a film about a dishwasher who lives in New York and f*cks a lot of women," Voight told Esquire. "In the moment he'd finished it, he was shaking. All of a sudden, he saw it as banal and vulgar. He's having an anxiety attack and I grabbed his shoulders to shake him out of it. I said, 'John, we will live the rest of our artistic lives in the shadow of this great masterpiece.' He said, 'You think so?' I said, 'I'm absolutely sure of it.' The only reason I said such an extravagant thing was because I wanted to get him out of it and nothing would take him out of it but that. But the statement turned out to be true."
- Dustin Hoffman stated during a 1994 interview on Larry King Live (1985) that Jon Voight (being from Yonkers, New York) originally did not get the part of Joe Buck because he was having trouble mastering the character's Midland, Texas accent.
- Bob Dylan wrote the song "Lay, Lady, Lay" for the film, but didn't complete it in time to be included in the soundtrack.
- Dustin Hoffman's performance as "Ratso" Rizzo is ranked number seven on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.
- Director John Schlesinger admitted that there are some things that he would have changed, such as the overlong party sequence. But, for the most part, he felt he succeeded in making a film that was compassionate rather than bleak, one that truly captured "the mixture of desperation and humor which I found all along Forty-Second Street."
- In one particular scene, Ratso and Joe get into an argument over cowboys. Ratso states that "Cowboys are fags!" Joe's response is "John Wayne is a cowboy! Are you calling John Wayne a fag?" Coincidentally, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for their roles as Ratso and Joe, respectively. They lost out to John Wayne for his role in True Grit (1969).
- Mike Nichols tried to persuade Dustin Hoffman not to do this film. He said, "'Are you crazy?' He says, 'I made you a star. This is an ugly character. It's a supporting part to Jon Voight. What are you doing? Why are you sabotaging?'"
- The movie's line "I'm walking here! I'm walking here!" was voted as the number twenty-seven movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
- Al Stetson, the Florida bus driver, was an electrician on the movie. He filled in at the last minute when the extra failed to show up.
Gallery[]
Barnard Hughes
Dustin Hoffman
Posters[]
