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"Cowboy" (1958) and "Psycho"

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Floating onto my streaming choices the other night was "Cowboy," a 1958 Columbia film with Glenn Ford(sometimes a Columbia contract player) and Jack Lemmon(at the time, DEFINITELY a Columbia contract player.)

I do believe that Columbia Pictures is the one studio where Hitchcock never worked. Maybe United Artists, too -- though I seem to remember that maybe Foreign Correspondent was made there. But definitely, no Columbia Hitchcocks exist. (And only one Fox Hitchcock. And only one MGM Hitchcock. I trust you know what they are.)

Its too bad, really. Hitchcock missed out on getting that Columbia Lady with her torch held high(and very "classic" looking in 1958) with some Herrmann music and a Saul Bass credit sequence.

"Cowboy" doesn't have Herrmann music, but it DOES have a Saul Bass credit sequence, and it has some of that "Psycho credit sequence" abstract movement to it -- but in Technicolor. It also has its own "touches"(like how an 1880's newspaper page is reproduced with some credit names on it, or how an etching of a cowboy appears, or how the "stars at night" take the screen.

Still, it IS a Saul Bass credit sequence and I am again reminded: though Hitchocck got Saul Bass credit sequences for arguably his three greatest movies(Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho) -- methinks maybe Hitchcock didn't like being "jammed into the Saul Bass credit sequence machinery" of the late fifties/early sixties. In short, "Cowboy" opens rather LIKE "Psycho" with its credit sequence, and that rather "takes away" Hitchcock's uniqueness. Indeed -- like "Psycho" -- "Cowboy" ENDS with Saul Bass titles taking over the final image.

Given that I consider Vertigo, NXNW, and Psycho to be "the big three" in Hitchcock, I think one reason is that these are the ONLY three Hitchcock pictures to have BOTH a Herrmann score and a Bass credit sequence. Herrmann got to work with Hitch twice more after Psycho(though without music, in The Birds, which I always took as Hitchcock being a little bit jealous of Herrmann's contribution to Psycho) and Marnie(which led to Herrman being fired off of Torn Curtain; Hitch felt Herrmann already looked "weak" with Marnie; and "The Big Shots Didn't Approve." Chicken Hitch!.)

So "Cowboy" is linked to "Psycho" via the Saul Bass credits, but there is one more element:

Though this film will mainly take place on the range, in the wide open spaces, it begins in an opulent Chicago Hotel, where Glenn Ford is about to bring his dusty, macho crew of cowboys in off the trail to cash out(cattle equals beef), and party down. The lowly , slightly milquetoast desk clerk is...Jack Lemmon. "Cowboy" is about how tenderfoot Lemmon buys his way onto the next cattle drive and becomes a man under Ford's tutelage(while teaching Ford a thing or two, too.)

Anyway, in this first scene, and in his role as a hotel desk clerk, Lemmon must kowtow to his unctuous, anxious boss. And its Vaughn Taylor.

Mr. Lowery in "Psycho." And when you SEE Vaughn Taylor standing there ordering Lemmon around(as he will order Janet Leigh around in Psycho) you realize ...in 1958-1960 , Vaughn Taylor was the "go to actor" to play nervous-making bosses. Its interesting to see "Mr. Lowery in Technicolor." And Taylor -- working from a different script in a different type of story -- is more of a direct tyrant to Lemmon than he will be to Leigh two years later.

Still: same guy, with that same great character guy face(rodentoid, I tell ya ...he looks a bit like a rat in the face.) Still, history has immortalized Taylor AS Lowery -- its the movie of his that gets the most play on broadcast, cable, VHS, DVD, streaming...Vaughn Taylor IS Lowery.

Saul Bass and Vaughn Taylor are the direct Psycho references in Cowboy, but there is one somewhat shocking scene on the trail that has gone into the movie history books(from what I've read of them),and it has a link to Psycho, too.

Ford's group of cowhands are eatin' grub and telling jokes around the campfire at night; Jack Lemmon just barely fits in . (Unfortunately, one is reminded of the Blazing Saddles bean eating scene!) Two cowhands in particular (Dick York and Richard Jaeckal) don't like each other much. Suddenly, Jaeckel finds a rattlesnake in the camp. He puts the snake on a stick and waves it around in the other cowhands' faces to scare them. He almost puts it in Jack Lemmon's lap.

And then he elects to fling it at his enemy(Dick York), who catches it on his own stick and flips it away...

...onto the neck of Strother Martin, that famous old actor here in a younger role when he was barely known. "It got me!" Martin says of the rattler. And indeed it did, and despite Glenn Ford's attempt to make a cut and suck the venom out...its a vein wound to the neck(bloody for 1958...Psycho was always there in Westerns and epics)...and Martin will die.

Dissolve.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The cowhands are gathered round as Strother Martin, covered in a blanket, shivers and chills and slowly dies. To divert everyone's attention, Leader Glenn Ford ignores the dying Martin andstarts making small talk ""You know, sometime in the future, there will be fences all along this trail, and we're gonna hate it." Cowhands start joking with one who once ate an Indian..."No, only the HAUNCH!" Jack Lemmon is disgusted by all this while a man is dying, but actually Ford and his cowhands are being respectful. They chit chat all the way to the death of Martin, and then respectfully bury him. Jack Lemmon has got his first taste of "cowboy adventure on the cattle drive."

What's Hitchcockian about this (famous?) sequence in "Cowboy" - what ties it to Psycho -- is how suddenly, out of nowhere, Death Arrives. A rattlesnake. And it could have just as easily bitten and killed Lemmon when Jaeckel waved it in Lemmon's face. And Jaeckel HOPED the snake would kill Dick York...but York flung the snake on poor innocent Strother Martin..whose resultant death is "taken in " by Glenn Ford and company, accepted. Death happens. Life goes on.

The Saul Bass credit sequence to Cowboy is accompanied by exciting, rousing "Western music" by George Duning(who would handle a more magical score for "Bell Book and Candle" the same year -- versatile.) It ain't Herrmann, but its exciting in its own appropriate Western way.

It was nostalgic and fun watching "Cowboy." Its of that 50's/60's cusp I so love...they don't make 'em like that anymore. And watching it, one realizes how much Hitchcock -- in his own very different way-- was part of that universe at that time.