Midnight Cowboy

Star Rating: 2
Length of Film: 113 minutes
Director: John Schlesiner
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Gilman Rankin, Gary Owens, T. Tom Marlow, George Eppersen,
Al Scott, Linda David, J.T. Masters
Oscars: Jerome Hellman (best picture), John Schlesinger (director), Waldo Salt (screenplay)
Oscar Nomination: Dustin Hoffman (actor), Jon Voight (actor), Sylvia Miles (actress in support role), Hugh A. Robertson (editing)
Berlin Internation Film Festival: John  Schlesinger (OCIC award, Golder Bear nomination)


This movie was AWFUL!!! I don't understand why this movie was even made, I could see why people would see the movie, because the plot line is about prostitution. Joe Buck (Jon Voight) grew up in Texas, and decides to move to New York, to make a lot of money, selling himself to rich ladies. He carries one suitcase with him and heads to New York confidently. Once in New York, he struts around the city in his cowboy hat, snapped collar shirt, and fringed jacket.

On the street, he met a woman using the line, "Do you know where I could find the Statue of Liberty? Joe meets Cass, who she invites up to her Park Avenue apartment. Joe thinks he's finally made it big. They have sex, and while she gets dressed, she opens her purse, shows Joe she has no money for her taxi fare, to meet her next "date" with sugar-daddy Maury:

Cass: I hate to ask you, but you're such a doll.
Joe: You know, Cass, that's a funny thing you mentioning money. 'Cause I was just about to ask you for some.
Cass: (shocked) You were gonna ask me for money? Huh?
Joe: Hell, why do you think I come all the way up here from Texas for?
Cass: (now indignant and throwing a fit) You were gonna ask me for money? Who the hell do you think you're dealing with? Some old slut on 42nd Street? In case you didn't happen to notice it, ya big Texas longhorn bull, I'm one helluva gorgeous chick.
Joe: Now, Cass, take it easy.
Cass: You heard it. At twenty-eight years old. You think you can come up here, and pull this kind of crap up here! Well, you're out of your mind!

Ignorant of the ways of street hustling, he opens up his wallet and displays all the bills. Taking advantage of him, she reaches for a $20.

At a bar, he meets Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a conman bum who lives on the street. They get to talking about what Joe does, and Rizzo tells him he needs a manager. If he paid him $10, he would set him up with a guy that he knows. Rizzo walks Joe to the apartment building, and then says he needs another $10. Naïve about New York, Joe loses another $20. He ends up tracking down Rizzo, and demands his money back, but Rizzo only had $.64 left of the $20. Having no money to pay for his hotel room, Joe is homeless with none of his possessions. Joe agress to Rizzo's proposition to stay with him, in his squat. In the beginning of Rizzo and Joe's relationship, Rizzo took care of Joe, later on the roles reverse.

You see, Rizzo is a cripple, and has an awful cough. Together they team up to steal food from a fruit stand, while Joe still tries to make it as a prostitute. There's this one scene where a teen boy approaches Joe, and they see a movie together. The teen ends up going
down on Joe, but you don't ever see anything. Joe has constant flashbacks of his past, his mother who abandoned him dropping him off at his grandma's. Grandma leaving him in the house alone to go out on dates, and his girlriend, Annie, who duplicates the kissing and intimate moments with the teen. The flashbacks are really strange, and hard to comprehend, because we only see certain pictures at a time.

Rizzo becomes weaker and Joe takes on the role as his caretaker. Before a party, Joe smoothes Rizzo's hair with his shirt, a very intimate, and what a true friend would do to help out his buddy.

It's really great the bond that develops between Rizzo and Joe, but it's not a memorable movie. I mean...a movie about a male hustler, gets your attention, but the sex scenes aren't explicit, and when he goes off with other males, they don't show anything. I know that this movie was a big deal, in 1969. Heck...they gave the film an "X Rating", because of the drug using, and prostitution but it sucked!

I would NOT recommend this movie, and I disagree with the individual whomever reviewed this movie, and recommended it to be apart of the "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". Sylvia Miles never should have been nominated for her role for the 10 minutes of screen time for the film. It wasn't Oscar worthy, THANK GOD she didn't win. Jon Voights accent was fair, but I give him props for being intimately close to the other actors in this movie, especially having the topic of gayness and hustling.