A look at a noted 1969 film and two of its songs, after-the-jump ….
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The answer to the popular trivia question, “What is the only X-rated film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?” … is the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. Yet there should be several asterisks next to that, as will be seen. It has several other noted features, including: a famous quote, two noted leading actors and two songs that achieved fame not only on its soundtrack but on subsequent recordings. A retrospective more than half-a-century later seems apropos.
Based upon a 1965 book written by James Leo Herlihy, the screenplay was adapted by Waldo Salt (who won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for this film and the 1978 film Coming Home) and had three non-Americans in prominent roles: the Polish-born Adam Holender as cinematographer, the Englishman John Barry as music conductor and, in his first US film: the Englishman John Schlesinger as director (who also won the Oscar for Best Director).
The film stars Jon Voight as Joe Buck, a young Texan with a troubled past who moves to NYC to seek to become a gigolo. After a failed first encounter, he becomes friends with conman Enrico “Ratso“ Rizzo, portrayed by Dustin Hoffman. Joe’s dreams falter often, and Ratso’s health continues to decline. Eventually, they take the bus to Miami to seek a new life … although not for one of them.
Interestingly, although born in Los Angeles: Hoffman portrays a tough NYC street character … and while portraying a Texan: Jon Voight was born just north of NYC.
While Dustin Hoffman’s career was already on-the-rise (and only continued to do so, over the years) this was the breakthrough for Jon Voight. The brother of songwriter James “Chip” Taylor (of “Angel of the Morning” and “Wild Thing” fame) and father of film star Angelina Jolie, his descent into right-wing land has been well-documented. I see no need for me to repeat it, here.
Still, it’s a great story as to how he came to play the role: as Voight lost-out in a screen-test to the Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin, despite the opinion of casting agent Marion Dougherty (who had cast both Voight and Hoffman separately on the TV series “Naked City” earlier that decade). Yet Sarrazin’s film company kept asking for more money to loan-him-out (based upon his starring role in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”) until Schlesinger and his producer (Jerome Hellman) had just about enough. They took another look at the tapes and decided ... that perhaps Marion Dougherty was right about Voight.
Jon Voight said he knew from the minute he read Waldo Salt's screenplay that the film would make him famous. He told his agent: "Tell them I'll do this part for nothing." To his surprise, "United Artists took me at my word, and they gave me minimum for Midnight Cowboy. It was going to give me a career, and I was right."
He went on to win an Oscar for his role in the 1978 Vietnam-era film Coming Home (co-starring Jane Fonda, an Oscar winner, as well) — which was also produced by Jerome Hellman and won another Screenplay Oscar for Waldo Salt.
One of the taglines from the film that has endured (on its own) is this scene where Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo are discussing a plan …. when a taxi crosses-their-path. And Dustin Hoffman— who originally wanted to say, “We’re shooting a movie” — ad-libs in NYC street language, “I’m walkin’ heah! …... I’m walkin’ heah!”
The director Robert Zemeckis loved the line: using it in both Back to the Future IIas well asForrest Gump (said by Lt. Dan … in a wheelchair, no less). The American Film Institute ranked it as #27 in its 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time.
As noted, it is the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture …. but ahhhh, it’s complicated. Originally, the film was approved with an “R” rating, yet United Artists listened to a prominent psychologist, who felt the film promoted gay sex to young people — and thus United Artists released it with a “X” rating — at the time, the equivalent of today’s “NC-17”. Then, the film exceeded all expectations:
“After it wins Best Picture, the only X-rated movie ever to be nominated (or win) the Best Picture Oscar, United Artists comes back to the ratings board and asked to get an R in. The ratings board doesn't even think twice about it, they give the movie an R."
As to the “X” rating itself:
Introduced in 1968, the “X” rating designated films strictly for adults. And in its inception: films with an “X” rating were understood to be “not for kids” but non-pornographic and suitable for the general public. So, what went wrong? The MPAA’s failure to trademark the “X” ... was a big mistake.
This left the door open by the early 1970’s:
Unlike the other ratings, it was never copyrighted: so while a movie can be rated PG only by the MPAA, any producer can call a movie ”Triple X.” A little of that goes a long way toward giving a letter a bad name. It didn’t take long to realize … the porno industry had co-opted the rating.
As noted, the film won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it #36 in its Top 100 Films, and in 1994 it was deemed worthy of inclusion in the Library of Congress Film Registry.
For many years, there was a belief that a song intended for inclusion in the film was Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay— left out because it was not ready by deadline — although recently an old Dylan interview suggested he had intended it for Barbra Streisand, instead.
Either way, there are two songs that have long endured beyond the film world.
While Everybody’s Talkin’ was made popular by a different singer: it was written and first recorded by the folksinger Fred Neil — and as Fred was not good at self-promotion, it was the record producer Rick Jarrard (who had produced the landmark Jefferson Airplane album Surrealistic Pillow) playing it for Harry Nilsson that made it a hit. Reaching #6 on the Billboard charts, Nilsson’s cover version was chosen by the film’s director John Schlesinger to be part of the soundtrack.
It has been recorded subsequently by performers as diverse as: Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Liza Minnelli, Louis Armstrong, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Lena Horne, Glen Campbell, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes and more recently Madeline Peyroux. Here is the sparse Fred Neil original, not having the scat singing in-between verses of Nilsson’s famous rendition.
Finally … the actual Midnight Cowboy theme song (in a 12/8 time signature) was written as an instrumental by the film’s musical director John Barry (who composed the soundtracks to several James Bond films, as well as Dances With Wolves and The Lion in Winter).
Later it was sung by Johnny Mathis (with lyrics written by his producer). Yet is best known by its soundtrack version … with the Belgian harmonica legend Toots Thielemans carrying the melody.
Now, on to Top Comments:
Nothing came in from-the-field this evening.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about a Missouri hospital forced to spend grant money on panic buttons for their employees — lest they be attacked by Covid denialists — some illuminating comments by leftryn and ozarkblue.
Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.
TOP PHOTOSSeptember 27th, 2021 (NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.) |
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion: