Larry McMurtry - The Passing of a true legend

 Larry McMurtry will always have a special place in the hearts of western fans for his Lonesome Dove sequence which started in 1985 with Lonesome Dove (the source material for the excellent TV mini-series), which was followed by a sequel The Streets of Laredo (1993) and then two prequel novels Dead Man's Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997). The characters of Gus and Call are now as iconic to western literature as any of the other characters who have ridden across the page and blazed over the silver screen.

Mr McMurtry died on March 25th this year at the age of 84 and left behind an envious body of work. And whilst Lonesome Dove may be his most famous work, largely thanks to the multiple Emmy winning TV version of the sequence he is responsible for many many highly regarded and wall known works - The Paul Newman movie, Hud came from one of his books, as did The Last Picture Show and he was responsible partly for the script of the movie, Brokeback Mountain. During his lifetime he scored many awards including a Pulitzer and a National Humanities Medal.

In tribute I here post my review of Streets of Laredo, chronologically the final book in the Lonesome Dove saga:

'More worrisome to him was the fact that the joints of his fingers had started to swell, when it got cold. For most of his life he had paid no attention to weather; weather was just there. He never let it interfere with his work or his movements. In time, the weather would always change, but the work wouldn't wait. Now it seemed, weather was interfering plenty. When the cold struck his wrist joints became swollen, and the joints of his fingers even more so.'

The Streets of Lardeo is the sequel to the Pulitzer Prize winning, Lonesome Dove and where it was the second book published in the series it is actually the fourth book chronologically. The author would follow this novel with   a couple  of prequel novels (Dead Man's Walk and Commanche Moon) that looked at the early days of Captain Call and Augustus McCrae. This book though is a direct sequal to that first novel and not to be confused with that TV movie, Return to Lonesome Dove which is a poor substitute to this, the real conclusion to a beautifully written, painfully realistic western tetralogy . In The Streets of Laredo, McMurtry adds the final strokes to the story of Captain Call, and gives the character a worthy if somewhat depressing send off.

The book is all about growing old - as the Wild West that needed men like Captain Call slowly fades into history then so too do men like Call. McMurtry's westerns have never been about gun blazing heroics, although there are plenty, but more about presenting in as vivid and truthful a fashion as possible the real cruelty of the period. The book opens many years after the events told in Lonesome Dove and when we meet up with Captain Call he is an aged character, someone better suited to spending his days in a rocker whittling away at pieces of wood, but Call doesn't pay much attention to his growing old and has long as he can still do what he sets his mind to he doesn't really think about the changes age brings to his once strong body.


'When she looked out the door of the rooming house and saw Captain Call coming, she had been shocked at how decrepit he looked. Pea Eye had mentioned, casually, that the Captain wasn't as spry as he had been, but the comment hadn't prepared her how the man actually looked.'


Call find himself hired by the railroad to track down the youthful bandit, Joey Garza who is making  a name for himself by striking trains across the Mexican border. Call is teamed up with Brookshire,  a man of the East who is really not suited to the harsh conditions in the West - he spends much of his time either chasing his hat which blows off in the Texas winds or pining for his bossy wife, Kate. Soon they are joined by  yound deputy, Plunkert who is no more suitable that Brookshire and also spends much of his time thinking of the young wife he felt behind in Laredo. Both of these men will lose their wives during the long journey ahead of them.

As well as Joey Garza, Call has to contend with Mox Mox, the manburner, a truly sadistic character who takes great pleasure from burning people alive - man, woman or child it matters not to the runty bandit and some of the scenes concerning the character, although largely told in flashback, are truly stomach churning. It's not all grim though - there are many great character moments. The Indian tracker, Famous Shoes offers some great comedic relief and there is a scene where a group of whores are talking about the first men in their lives that displays the author's incredible skill with character and dialogue.


In the end Captain Call is a legend and the author skilfully weaves his story around several real historical characters, Charles Goodnight, Hanging Huge Roy Bean and John Wesley Harding for instance play major roles in this wonderfully written epic of the old West.

'Call was no longer the man who had lived in the old times; he was no longer even the man who had killed Mox Mox. That man was not the cripple who lived in a granery, in a barn on the Quitaque. That man lived back somewhere in memory, across a canyone, across the Pecos; that man had been blown away, as Brookshire feared he would be, on the plains of time.'


To sum up - a wonderful book that must be read. Absoluely astounding - lyrical, elegiac and jaw dropping!


Like the other books in the series, Streets of Laredo was made into a TV mini-series, this time with James Garner in the role of Captain Call.

Franchise Fallout: The Lonesome Dove saga part 5

Streets of Laredo is the true sequel to the Lonesome Dove mini-series - author Larry McMurtry wrote this part of the story after being enraged at the way his characters had been treated in the mini-series, Return to Lonesome Dove which was made without any of his input.

This time James Garner steps into Woodrow Call's shoes while Sam Shepard takes over the role of Pea Eye. Sissy Spacek is on hand to portray Gus's old whore-friend, Lorena who is now respectable and a schoolteacher and married to Pea Eye. Newt, we learn, is dead and so is July Johnson. Clara also plays no part in this story, other than a few off the cuff mentions.

 Return to Lonesome Dove, was rushed out without author Larry McMurtry's input, but Streets of Laredo, which McMurtry scripted from his own novel, returns us firmly to his brutal West. Legendary Texas Ranger Captain Woodrow Call (James Garner,  has turned bounty hunter, and he heads off on the bloody trail of vicious Mexican gunman Joey Garza (Alexis Cruz), a sadistic, angry south-of-the-border rebel without a cause. Lonesome Dove echoes through the story: Call's former trail hand Pea Eye Parker (Sam Shepard) is enlisted in his posse and Parker's wife, Lorena (Sissy Spacek in the role Diane Lane created in the original ), follows in their wake with news that the psychopathic renegade Mox Mox (Kevin Conway), who once held her captive, is alive and back on the warpath.

Comedian George Carling gives a great turn in this as the grizzled old timer, Billy Williams and Dennis Quaid gives us a superb John Wesley Hardin. Judge Roy Bean also turns up, played with relish by Ned Beatty. All of these have some great character scenes and Streets of Laredo, like the other Lonesome Dove mini series, uses a rich and expensive canvas to tell an epic story. The West of Larry McMurtry is not a nice place and populated with sadistic killers and all manner of unsavory characters. This is a dirty, dusty and dangerous West.

'You got family. I don't.'

Sad new when spoken by James Garner at a pivotal moment in the film - we've followed Woodrow Call since he first joined the Texas Rangers in Dead Man's Walk. All these years later, all these struggles later and he is still alone. He's lost many people over the years - Maggie, Gus, Newt, Gideon Walker and now he finds himself an old man, making a living as a bounty hunter, while the way of life he knew vanishes by the day.

Streets of Laredo is a fitting end to the saga,and doesn't cheat the viewer by giving us a nice happy ending - instead we get a climax that remains true to the spirit of McMurtry's vision. And when taken as a whole the entire saga offers one of the most expansive stories of the West ever filmed. There are many people who claim that the original Lonesome Dove mini-series is the best western ever filmed, and I guess it does hold a claim to a position in the top ten.

Out of the entire saga I'd say that Return to Lonesome Dove was probably the weakest, but that's not because it was a bad film but because it feels different to all the others, the tone is considerably lighter than the original mini-series. Comanche Moon is a favorite because I love Steve Zahn's take on Gus but I also like Dead Man' s Walk for Jonny Lee Miller's Call - if Steve and Johnny had been teamed up as Gus and Call then the resulting mini series could have been as good as the original Lonesome Dove itself. It was of course Lonesome Dove  that gave us the prefect Gus and Call in the shape of Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. Each and every one of the mini-series though are worth watching, they all have their high points and very few lows. To get the full Lonesome Dove saga you can skip Return to Lonesome Dove, but that one is still worth watching for an alternative look at the Lonesome Dove saga.

Excellent.

Franchise Fallout - The Lonesome Dove saga part 4

Out of the entire Lonesome Dove saga, it is Return to Lonesome Dove that is the most problematic. It's a fine western in itself but it operates in an alternative universe to the regular Lonesome Dove universe. It's the only adventure not written by Larry McMurtry and takes place immediately following the events in Lonesome Dove but completely contradicts the official McMurtry saga closer, The Streets of Laredo. It chronologically follows Dead Man's Walk, Comanche Moon and Lonesome Dove. Return to Lonesome Dove is part of an alternate time-line that does not include Streets of Laredo. In this new time-line, it is followed by the TV show Lonesome Dove: The Series and Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years. The latter two TV series are not included in our Lonesome Dove retrospective, but I wanted to include Return to Lonesome Dove as it is a part of the Lonesome Dove box set.

Jon Voight does a good job in the  role originally played by Tommy Lee Jones, but there's no escaping the fact that the script isn't as colourful as the original mini-series. It was nice to see the relationship of Clara and July developed which was in the original novel, but ignored in the Lonesome Dove mini series.


Captain Woodrow F. Call (Jon Voight), having just buried his friend Augustus McCrae near Lonesome Dove in Texas, plans to return to his ranch in Montana. In order to make the trip profitable he decides to take a herd of wild Mustangs and drive them north with the help of Gideon Walker (William Petersen) and Isom Pickett (Louis Gossett Jr.). Call sends word to Newt Dobbs (Rick Schroder) that he intends to meet him at the home of Clara Allen (Barbara Hershey) but Newt becomes involved in a bar fight that concludes with the death of two local men. Newt is to be hanged for the incident before he is rescued by a neighbour, Gregor Dunnigan (Oliver Reed). Newt is paroled into his custody and develops a close relationship with Gregor's young wife, Ferris Dunnigan (Reese Witherspoon).

The weak points are that this movie doesn't share the realism of Lonesome Dove, and many of the new characters are drawn from the oft-visited well of western stereotypes. It's also overly sentimental and too many of the newcomers merely seem like replacements from much loved characters we lost in the original mini-series. Lou Gossett plays Deets replacement, and William Paterson's character is a younger,smoother version of Gus - suffice to say neither of these actors are given the script to develop their characters in the way Deets and Gus were drawn in the original.

 Author Larry McMurtry wasn't at all happy with what the producers did to his vision, and it was this mini-series that prompted him to write The Streets of Laredo which was his novel and screenplay that more faithfully told the final story in the Lonesome Dove saga.

Though it's not all doom and gloom and Return to Lonesome Dove is a quality western even if it is sanitised for TV - this is 19th century America and not one character seems to partake in the dreaded tobacco leaf. This, for me, is a problem with TV shows set in bygone eras - the anti-tobacco lobby are so powerful and TV executives so scared of angering sponsors that small period details such as smoking are left out. It's not that important but when you see a saloon scene with no-one puffing on a pipe,cigar or ciggie it stands out and the scene becomes glaringly PC. I have no doubt that one day we'll have our cowboy heroes forsaking the whiskey and supping soda-pop -sugar free of course.

Jon Voight is exceptional even if the Call he plays here is a far more likable character that he has been in the McMurtry universe. Oliver Reed is another standout as the devious, Dunnigan.

Think of it as an alternative Lonesome Dove and you'll have a fine enough time with this one. It's a quality western mini-series, just not a patch on any of the proper instalments of McMurtry's masterpiece.

Franchise Fallout - The Lonesome Dove saga part 3

Before I talk about the original Lonesome Dove TV mini-series I would just like to say that this is as about perfect a western as you can get. All of the sequels and prequels, as good as they were, can not hold a candle to this absolute classic of the genre. In fact many people claim this to be the best western ever made.

Lonesome Dove is where we were first introduced to the one time Texas Rangers Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrea (Call and Gus) played respectively by Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall. The two men are firmly in their twilight years and where Gus is content to laze away his days, Cal hungers for the adventures the two men once shared. When Jake Spoon rides back into Lonesome Dove with stories of the riches to be made in Montana, Call decides to start off on an epic cattle drive to Montana - "Oh about twenty five hundred miles that way!"

Er Kenny Rogers(?) and Gus

The entire thing runs for 6 hours and so it gets to offer a story as big as the west itself - but it is for the characters that the show is so loved by so many people, myself included. There's something deeply involving in the friendship between Gus and Call, and both actors play their parts to perfection. Duvall gets the best screen time but then Gus is a  good natured, fun loving character and he seems to have much more heart than his partner, Call. Duvall is so good here that you can honestly say he has never played a better role- and this is an actor with several iconic movie roles behind him, but still he has never been better than he is here.

Tommy Lee Jones offers the prefect opposite as Call, but even although the character seems emotionless the actor does a great job in conveying the inner man beneath the necessarily hard surface with by playing the subtext in his eyes. It's another stunning performance and together Gus and Call may just be the best buddy/buddy combination we've ever seen on screen anywhere.

It had originally started off as a project for James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda before being adapted into the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by author Larry McMurtry, and in the mini-series Robert Ulrich plays the third lead, Jake Spoon who would have been played by Henry Fonda had the movie been made. And although it is an enticing thought to imagine the film with Wayne, Stewart and Fonda  it is perhaps the best thing that it never got made. No two hour movie could have truly done such a large story justice and the mini-series format was much more suitable. Ulrich though is perfect as Jake Spoon, a character who seems to be just as lazy as Gus, but far more spiteful and cowardly, nevertheless when he comes to his end,  friendships are sorely tested. Danny Glover is another important case member as the one time slave, Deets and Rick Schroeder plays Newt Dobbs, a 17-year-old whose mother was a prostitute named Maggie and whose father may be Call.

Original US broadcast attracted an estimated 26,000,000 homes, unusually high numbers for a Western at that time. The western genre was considered dead by most people, as was the miniseries. By the show's end, it had earned huge ratings and virtually revamped the entire 1989–1990 television season. A favorite with audiences, as well as critics, Lonesome Dove garnered many honors and awards. At the 1989 Emmy Awards, the miniseries had 18 nominations and seven wins, including one for director Simon Wincer. Another miniseries of significantly lower TV ratings and less critical acclaim, War and Remembrance, won the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries. Yet, Lonesome Dove found success later, when it won two Golden Globes, for Best Miniseries and Best Actor in a Miniseries (Robert Duvall).

We lost several characters during the epic story which is as much about death as it is life, but no matter how solemn things become there is a genuinely moving feeling of hope running through what is  basically a very dark story. Author Larry McMurtry has told interviewers that he is puzzled by the way so many people identified with what is anything but a feel good story. None of the characters truly get what they want out of life and theirs is a cruel and hard existence.

 Funny at times, brutal at others but never less than compelling. Lonesome Dove is a close on perfect adaptation of a perfect western novel. And needs to be seen by everyone and not just western fans.

Franchise Fallout - The Lonesome Dove Saga Part two

Chronologically the second story in the Lonesome Dove series, but actually filmed and broadcast last - the first thing I would like to say about Comanche Moon is that the casting of Steve Zahn in the role of Gus is absolutely spot on, and you can really believe this is a younger version of the Gus that Robert Duvall played in the much loved original mini-series, Lonesome Dove. Not so much with Karl (Judge Dredd) Urban's version of Woodrow McCall I think and I much preferred Jonny Lee Miller's take on the character in Dead Man's Walk. I'm not saying Urban is bad because he isn't - he's a fine actor and plays the role well - it's just that Jonny Lee Miller's take on the character was close to definitive; perhaps second only to Tommy Lee Jones' depiction of the character in the original Lonesome Dove mini-series.

It was nice to see Ray McKinnon back as Long Bill - and although his story arc is smaller than that in Dead Man's Walk it is incredibly powerful - I won't go into this in too much detail as it would be a major spoiler but it's a heart rendering story arc that effectively realizes the thinking and attitudes of the time and place. Other quality turns include Val Kilmer's Captain Scull who shamelessly chews the scenery with his turn as the borderline insane Texas Ranger.

The story itself gives us our first look at Lonesome Dove - described here as a half town it is nothing more than a few half constructed buildings in the wilderness. We also see the birth of Newt, Cal's maybe son. Everyone else is convinced that the baby is indeed Cal's son but given that the mother Maggie is a whore, Cal refuses to fully recognize the boy as his blood.

This time around the mini-series is not so much plot dependent as driven by the characters and it is Gus and Call that we care about the most. Steve Zahn is, as I've said, exceptional and he truly does come across as a younger Robert Duvall - hell, he even gets the voice spit on. There are some oddities in this one because towards the end  Maggie dies in Austin,Texas and yet in Lonesome Dove which is set some sixteen years later it is clearly stated that she died in the town of Lonesome Dove itself, but this and the odd historical mistake does not detract from what is another quality entry in an excellent western series.
 

If you ain't seen it, then go get it.

Next up Lonesome Dove

Franchise Fallout - The Lonesome Dove Saga part one

Chronologically, Dead Man's Walk is actually the first story in the Lonesome Dove saga - though it was filmed after Lonesome Dove and its sequel Streets of Laredo. Originally Lonesome Dove had been a screenplay for John Wayne and James Stewart. It was very nearly filmed too in 1972 with Stewart as Gus, John Wayne as Call and Henry Fonda as Jakes Spoon. However when Wayne quit the project the movie was shelved and so author McMurtry later turned his screenplay into the Pulitzer prize winning novel, Lonesome Dove.

 It did eventually find its way to the screen as the excellent Lonesome Dove mini series and was followed by Return to Lonesome Dove, Streets of Laredo, Dead Man's Walk and Comanche Moon. However the correct chronological order of the stories would be Dead Man's Walk, Comanche Moon, Lonesome Dove, Return to Lonesome Dove and finally, Streets of Laredo, and this is the order in which we will talk about them.

There was also two TV series - Lonesome Dove: The Series and Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years but I've so far been unable to see these shows and so they are not including in this Lonesome Dove retrospective.

Now like most people, I guess, I saw Lonesome Dove first so when watching any of these series it is difficult to get over the powerhouse performances of Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones as Gus and Call, and all of the other films are thus compared, often unfavorably to our first cinematic view of the characters - and yes I know cinematic may not be the correct term since all of these shows started out as a TV mini-series but they really are as expansive as anything the big screen can offer, so cinematic it is.

The two characters who carry the entire saga are Woodrow (Call) and Augustus (Gus) and this time they are played by Jonny Lee Miller  and David Arquette and both actors do a great job with their roles - Miller is excellent and even although Arquette's Gus often seems a little lightweight he does manage to channel some of the character Duvall created in Lonesome Dove. So no real complaints on the casting of our two central characters. Likewise the secondary characters with Harry Dean Stanton, Keith Carradine and Edward James Olmos being particularly good.

The storyline is loosely based on the historical Santa Fe Expedition of 1841.It opens up with Call and Gus having newly joined the Texas Rangers and after a skirmish with commanche, Buffalo Hump they return to civilisation, before soon setting off on an expedition to capture and annex Santa Fe, part of New Mexico (the part east of the Rio Grande) for Texas. The expedition, led by pirate and soldier of fortune, Caleb Cobb, is ultimately a failure; of the large troop only about 40 survive, falling to starvation, bears, and Indians , only to be swiftly arrested by the Mexican authorities. That's where the Dead Man's Walk of the title comes in as the survivors are forced to march the Jornada del Muerto ("Dead Man's Walk") to El Paso, and many, Mexican and Texan alike, die along the journey.


The production standards are of the highest quality and even although this was made for the small screen it is best watched on a HD larges screen TV if you are to get the full effect of the great photography. One memorable scene in which the rangers have to hang over a cliff after the Comanche's set the prairie grasses on fire is seriously  spectacular. As are the many and varied battle scenes, but the most effective moments are all character driven. Each and every character here is fully flushed out and realized fully by the cast. On times the characters suffer incredible hardships which can be difficult to watch, but at all times there is a feeling of humanity running through the entire production. There are some great scenes between Tim Blake Nelson as the gormless Johnny and Ray McKinnon as Long Bill, and these are only two stand outs among a string of great turns.

Dead Man's Walk then is an epic western adventure that although coming from the small screen is as visually effective as any big screen oater.

Next up Comanche Moon.