Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buried Treasure, June 21, 2006
The Ballad of Cable Hogue is buried treasure - an outstanding film by a legendary director with brilliant performances that is still little known and rarely seen. Sam Peckinpah made it just months after his groundbreaking film, The Wild Bunch, and both films deal with the same topic - the end of the western frontier, although in radically different ways. While The Wild Bunch is a violently realistic film about a breed of western gunmen who had outlived their day, The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a stylized fable, by turn tender, dark, comic, and tragic that depicts the last days of another sort of western archetypal man. It may be that the film's resistance to easy categorization (is it a comedy? a tragic love story? a morality tale of revenge? a musical?) is responsible for its continued obscurity, but I find it an element of its greatness, and concur with Peckinpah, who characterized the film as part Keystone Cops, part Sartre's The Fly, and considered it his favorite of all his movies.
There are many reasons to love this film, including its stunning scenery of awesome, big sky desert landscapes, and a unique, lilting soundtrack with songs that become mysteriously etched in your mind. Yet its foremost strength is its brilliant performances from an impressive cast. Jason Robards plays the title role, brilliantly rendering the tough as boot leather yet vulnerable Hogue as charming and totally unforgettable. Stella Stevens delivers the crowning performance of her career as Hildy, a prostitute who aspires to go to San Francisco to become the "ladiest damn'd lady", yet unaccountably falls in love with the desert rat Hogue. Stevens and Robards together create an utterly believable screen romance that not only crackles with passion, but conveys real depths of caring and emotion. David Warner adds color and comic relief to the story as Josh, a lascivious traveling preacher who becomes side-kick, foil, and nemesis to the no nonsense Hogue. Several great character actors all at the top of their form, including Strother Martin, Slim Pickens, and L.Q. Jones, round out this first rate cast.
This DVD release includes several excellent special features. There is a mini feature called The Ladiest Damn'd Lady: An Afternoon With Actress Stella Stevens, in which Stevens talks about her career, Director Sam Peckinpah (she didn't much like him), and her experiences working on The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Also included are trailer galleries from five Peckinpah movies - Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Getaway, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Most importantly, however, is an outstanding commentary track featuring four Peckinpah scholars. Their commentary covers the symbolism and philosophy of the movie, Peckinpah's filming technique, and the movie's relationship to Peckinpah's larger body of work. Unlike many commentary tracks that seem to add little value, this excellent track is both entertaining and useful, and leaves you wanting to watch the movie yet again with the new perspectives you have gained from it.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a film that will stick with you, and one you will want to revisit frequently. It is not only my favorite Sam Peckinpah film, it is one of my top five all time favorite Westerns. If your Western collection lacks this quirky gem, it is not yet complete, so go discover it for yourself.
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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant little gem of a movie., March 1, 2002
Starring Jason Robards & Stella Stevens and Directed by Sam Peckinpah, The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a brilliant little gem of a movie that somehow never made it onto the national radar screen when it was released. A major departure for Peckinpah, whose forte back then was the ultra violent epic-movies like The Wild Bunch and the highly acclaimed Straw Dogs-The Ballad of Cable Hoague tells the tail of a fellow abandoned for dead out in the western desert who is lucky enough to find the equivalent of an oasis and converts the spot into a way station for the pony express and the stage coach runs of the time. Wonderfully acted by Robards as Hoague and Stella Stevens as the nearby town's "working girl" as his romantic interest, the story is in essence a depiction of western life and the characters of the time. This was a wonderful vehicle for may well know western character actors of the day: It's full of those sort of actor you recognize in an instant and have no idea what their name is. The story is sweet and engaging and the movie is totally devoid of the violence and gore that Peckinpah was famous for at the time. So, if you are the sort of person who wants a movie to actually tell a story, actually present real characters, and warm your heart-this is definitely a choice you should make. You will not be disappointed.
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84 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sam Peckinpah's Legendary Westerns Collection Product description., October 18, 2005
This upcoming release from Warner bros will contain the following:
-The Wild Bunch Two-Disc Special Edition, Disc 1:
* Commentary by Peckinpah biographers/documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
* New digital transfer (16x9 2.35:1)
* Peckinpah trailer gallery
* Languages: English and French
* Subtitles: English, French and Spanish
Special Features Disc 2:
* Never-before-seen The Wild Bunch outtakes
* Additional scenes
* 3 documentaries
o Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade - A feature-length biography of the legendary director, featuring rare film clips, interviews with family and colleagues, and narration by Kris Kristofferson.
o 1996 Oscar Nominee The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage
o A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and the Wild Bunch
-Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid Two Disc Special Edition, Disc 1:
* 2005 Special Edition: (115 Mins.)
* Commentary by Special Edition Producer Nick Redman, Supervising Editor Paul Seydor and fellow Peckinpah biographers/documentarians Garner Simmons and David Weddle
* Peckinpah trailer gallery
* Languages: English and French
* Subtitles: English, French and Spanish (Feature Films Only)
Special Features Disc 2:
* 1988 Turner Preview Version: (122 Mins.)
* Commentary by Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
* 2 new featurettes:
o One Foot in the Groove: Remembering Sam Peckinpah and Other Things
o Deconstructing Pat and Billy
* One for the Money: Sam's Song
* Languages: English and French
* Subtitles: English, French and Spanish (Feature Films Only)
-The Ballad of Cable Hogue:
* Commentary by Peckinpah biographers/documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
* New featurette: The Ladiest Damn'd Lady with Stella Stevens
* Peckinpah Trailer Gallery
* Languages: English and Spanish
* Subtitles: English, French and Spanish
-Ride The High Country:
* Commentary by Peckinpah documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
* New documentary: A Justified Life: Sam Peckinpah and the Hogue Country
* Peckinpah trailer gallery
* Languages: English and French
* Subtitles: English, French and Spanish
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