Released in 1970 and directed by Sam Peckinpah, "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" is a quirky Western drama/comedy/romance starring Jason Robards as a grizzled man left to die in the SW desert, but he miraculously finds a spring and starts a way station servicing stagecoach people and other travelers. He befriends a dubious evangelist (David Warner) and falls in love with a local prostitute (Stella Stevens) while hoping for revenge against the men who double-crossed him (Strother Martin & L.Q. Jones). R.G. Armstrong is on hand as a banker.If you're looking for a conventional Western akin to Pechinpah's "Ride the High Country" (1962) or "The Wild Bunch" (1969), look elsewhere because this is a totally offbeat Western. As noted above, it's an eccentric mix of drama, comedy and romance, but such a description doesn't do it justice because it's so much more. Despite its amusing elements, it's a clever commentary on the human condition: The nature of God and man, spirit and flesh, love and sex, vengeance and forgiveness, religion and libertinism. Legalistic types might find it "offensive" and "anti-God," but nothing could be further from the truth. The LORD is all over this movie, despite the characters' overt moral failings or simple ignorance, just as depicted in the bible (the stories of Samson, Rahab and Naomi come to mind). If you can overlook the goofiness, or let it amuse you, this movie is actually profound with riches to mine. My title blurb says it all.The film runs 121 minutes and was shot in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.GRADE: B

In direct response to the controversy which erupted over the unprecedented violence and gritty realism of The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah did what many of the greatest American filmmakers have done over the years. His next project would end up being almost intentionally counter to the previous film.The result was The Ballad of Cable Hogue, a small-scale, intimate tale that is equal parts a nostalgic look back to the Old West and a tribute to the kind of man capable of surviving and thriving in such an environment. Jason Robards is touching and firm as the title character, left for dead in the prologue but able to fight through his misfortunes and create his own oasis. Along the way, he encounters a most unusual and shifty man of the cloth and a prostitute with a heart of gold. Stella Stevens is really wonderful as Hildy, one of the best examples of this most ancient of Hollywood screenplay clichés. Her romance with Hogue is both sincere and sad as Peckinpah uses this as a template for how the romantic West quickly found its way into decline and obsolescence.Peckinpah may have gotten a lot of flack for The Wild Bunch but this film received almost just as much criticism, ironically for being almost exactly not what he had come to be known for. However, some forty years later, Peckinpah's true vision of men unable to conform to the regularities of society shines through. Gorgeous photography, solid acting, a beautiful score and themes of survival and memory point to this as one of the most brutal Western director's gentlest and personal triumphs.

I didn't even know this was a Sam Peckinpah movie when I watched it. It has been programmed regularly on Cable TV here in the UK, and I idly switched over to it one Sunday evening. Cowboy movies in 2012? You must be joking! However, I was sufficiently hooked to watch this guy left for dead in the desert. It looks like Jason Robards, so it has to have something going for it. He finds a muddy puddle in the desert. OK, a cliché about this guy building up a prosperous business from scratch. Well, not quite. The clichés never happen. Instead the dialogue is interesting, poetic, never predictable. The character of Cable Hogue has depth and empathy. David Warner hoves into view as a disreputable preacher, dressed in black and thin as a gutter. In the nearest town we meet the hooker, played beautifully by the delectable Stella Stevens. OK, there are elements of slapstick which never quite work, but you feel the movie has something beyond the conventional western. When I discovered it was by Peckinpah, I immediately thought - yes, this is the work of a great director. Not a full-blown symphony, perhaps a string quartet (though by all accounts it cost enough to make). It leaves you with a feeling of satisfaction, tinged with melancholy. That coyote at the end has a collar - perhaps a symbol of the taming of the wilderness.

THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE is a film with a lot to like though the story itself didn't seem to deliver. It's the story about a simple guy left for dead in the desert who manages to eventually make it big and forge friendships.As far as what I liked, I thought it was nice to see a Sam Peckinpah film where there wasn't much violence and no slow-motion death scenes. This is actually surprising as the film immediately followed THE WILD BUNCH--a film notable for violence. Additionally, some of the acting was very nice. In particular, Jason Robards, Jr. had a great role and really was able to carry the character or Cable Hogue very well. Despite being a very flawed character, you really could like the guy.What I didn't like were the messages about religion. Preachers were either seen as sanctimonious jerks or sexually compulsive jerks--and nothing else. The worst of these was a preacher, of sorts, played by David Warner--the only performance in the film that just didn't ring true. Cable's lifestyle also bought into this view of the world, as his sweetie was a clichéd "prostitute with a heart of gold". Just once I want to see a film where a prostitute is bad or at least doesn't have a social worker or the Virgin Mary hidden down deep!!Additionally, the story was a tad slow at times, occasionally had "comedic" clips added that just seemed cheesy (such as playing silent movie music and speeding the film up to supposedly heighten the laughs) and just seemed a little anticlimactic at the end. No,...VERY anticlimactic. This really blunted the message and the ending alone lowered my score from a 7 to a 6.