In short, when someone else says you’re a writer, that’s when you’re a writer… not before
Hello to all of the classic people that are returning. I am glad you are back. I want to welcome any new visitors. Today on Classic Movie Review, we are taking on western comedy Hearts of the West (1975).
I don’t remember this movie from when it was released, although it was in my prime movie theater going years. I saw it on cable and decided to give it a look, especially because Jeff Bridges became such a good actor. I’m glad I did; I think you will also like it.
I want to shout out to CWD K. Thanks for the comments on Seven Days in May (1964). Also, to Thunderstruck54 for commenting on using the famous Wilhelm scream for Johnny going to the gas chamber. I try to put it in every time a bad guy dies.
On iMDB.com, this film has a 6.5 rating[1]. This film is much better than that score. Rottentomatoes.com has this film at 88 percent on the Tomatometer and 43 percent audience score[2]. I am shocked and horrified by these scores. These scores make as much sense as a Montana weasel ranch.
The great film critic Robert Ebert gave this film three stars on January 01, 1975. Ebert said of the film:
“Hearts of the West is a lovely little comedy, a movie to feel fond of. It’s about a farm kid who sends away for a correspondence school course on how to be a cowboy and runs away to a godforsaken crossroads in Nevada because he wants to “hang around the campus. “…
The kid, all earnest and engaging, is played by Jeff Bridges, that open faced young actor from The Last Picture Show (1971) and Fat City (1972). He brings a nice complexity to the role: He’s Lewis Tater (“Did you say Taylor?” “No — Tater”), fresh off the farm and totally naive. But he’s got pluck, and he’s determined to survive in the Hollywood jungle.
The movie’s no great shakes, I suppose, but I liked it…There are a few big laughs in the movie, but not too many, and most of the time, what we’re feeling is affection. These are likable people — Lewis and his girl and even the so called friend who tries to plagiarize the novel. And when the con men find themselves involved in a shoot-out, one of them apologizes “I never ever thought things would go quite this far.”[3]
New York Times film critic Vincent Canby said in an October 4, 1975, review that there is the glamorous side of 1930s Hollywood and:
“…The other side is the scroungy, tacky world of B-pictures — Westerns, war movies, raucous musicals, shot on shoestrings on back-lots and in the nearby hills, by fly-by-night operators who make the major studio film makers look like Cellinis. This is the eccentric world recalled with such affection and good humor by “Hearts of the West,” the benign comedy directed by Howard Zeiff… There’s not a truly nasty person in the movie, though it has its share of operators and con artists, each of whom fails with varying degrees of ineptitude. The film tells the remarkable adventures of an Iowa farm boy named Lewis Tater (Jeff Bridges), whose father is called Pa Tater and who dreams of becoming a writer of Western novels like Zane Grey. To this end Lewis goes west to pick up local color and winds up, instead, reluctantly being groomed as a Western star of B-pictures directed with a stunning hysterical lack of talent by a Mr. Kessler (Alan Arkin)…in Lewis, it has a hero who must be two things at once—a comic dunderhead, a sort of a Merton-of-the-movies, to give the film comic drive, as well as straight man, to give it poignancy. It doesn’t always work. Instead, the film is carried by the consistent intelligence of its observations and the sweetness with which it tolerates ineffectual rogues, rascals and fanatics of a very parochial kind…The film is also consistently well played by Mr. Arkin and Mr. Bridges and the large supporting cast, including Blythe Danner, Andy Griffith, Donald Pleasence and by Richard B. Shull and Anthony James, who recall Twain’s Duke and Dauphin as operators of a phony correspondence school for writers.[4]
I like this film. It’s funny and uplifting. I recommend all, but the worst cynics watch this one.
Actors – Hearts of the West (1975)
Returning
Jeff Bridges is pretty amazing in the role of naive Iowa farmer and aspiring writer Lewis Tater. His future film greatness can be seen in this film. Bridges was first covered in Against All Odds (1984), the remake of Film Noir Out of the Past (1947).
Anthony James was cast as the unnamed Lean Crook. He is pretty good a being a villain. James was recently covered in In the Heat of the Night (1967).
This next group of relatively well-known actors were only in the movie for a minute or two. This ties in with something I will talk about in the conclusions. Anne Seymour, from All the King’s Men (1949), had a bit part as a maid. Donald Pleasence from The Hallelujah Trail (1965) played a publisher, Dub Taylor from The Undefeated (1969) played a grouchy “naturally,” Nevada Ticket Agent, Frank Cady from When Worlds Collide (1951) played Pa Tater, Herb Edelman from The Yakuza (1974) played Polo, a frustrated director, Woodrow Parfrey from Planet of the Apes (1968) played a Producer, and the great Film Noir actress Marie Windsor from The Narrow Margin (1952) played a small part as Woman in Nevada. Most of these roles were uncredited as well.
New
Andy Griffith played cowboy stuntman Howard Pike. Griffith was born in the small town of Mount Airy, North Carolina, in 1926. I understand the town is now a tourist spot designed to look like Mayberry. Griffith’s mother was a homemaker, and his father was a carpenter.
Introduced to the guitar by his mother, Griffith graduated from Mount Airy High School in 1944, where he acted and performed music. Griffith attended the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, earning a degree in music.
Before he was successful, Griffith worked in New York clubs as a comedian and singer. Griffth was performing in the play “Destry Rides Again” when Danny Thomas and former film tough guy Sheldon Leonard approached him to play Sheriff Andy Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show” 1960-1968, which was proposed as a spin-off from “The Danny Thomas Show” 1953-1964.
In Griffith’s first film, A Face in the Crowd (1957), this homespun and good-natured played one of the meanest and hated film characters, Lonesome Rhodes. After appearing in the stage performance, Griffth went on to star in the film No Time for Sergeants (1958). He occasionally returned to sinister roles, and it was always shocking to see Sheriff Andy do something bad. He was a bad guy in a couple of TV movies, “Pray for the Wildcats” 1974 and “Coweta County” 1983. He was also in Rustlers’ Rhapsody (1985), a 1940s version of a movie similar to today’s film. Also, Griffith was in the spoof film Spy Hard (1996) with Leslie Nielsen.
Griffith had another successful television series with “Matlock” 1986-1995, where he played a cheapskate lawyer in a small town. Following this show, Griffith retired to Manteo, North Carolina. He died in 2012. He was 86. Manteo is the presumed site of the lost colony of Roanoke, where all the colonists vanished, leaving only a sign saying Croatan.
Blythe Danner played the role of the assistant Miss Trout. Full disclosure, I have had a crush on Danner since The Great Santini (1979) as the perfect southern lady. Danner was born in Philadelphia in 1943. Must be a good actress too.
Danner grew up in Philadelphia. She graduated from high school in 1960. Danner studied acting at Bard College. After graduation, she began working for theater companies in Boston. She did quite well, being awarded a Theater World Award for work at the Lincoln Center and a Tony for “Butterflies Are Free.”
Danner began working on television in 1968 and was in a few TV movies. Her first film was To Kill a Clown (1972). That same year, Danner was in the musical 1776 (1972) about the writing of the Constitution. She played Martha Jefferson, wife of Thomas Jefferson, played by Ken Howard. You may remember Howard for “The White Shadow” 1978-1981.
Danner had a successful film career highlighted by Hearts of the West (1975), Futureworld (1976), the sequel to Westworld (1973), The Great Santini (1979), The Prince of Tides (1991), Meet the Parents (2000), Meet the Fockers (2004), The Last Kiss (2006), and the hilarious Paul (2011).
Fred Ward had a small uncredited role as Sam. So why am I including his bio here? Well, I’m getting ready to review The Right Stuff (1983), which has about 20 actors. So, I’m trying to spread them out a bit.
Ward was born in California in 1942. Ward served three years in the U.S. Air Force before moving to Europe where he worked dubbing movies. He had a couple of small parts in some Rossellini films.
His first significant film role was in Escape from Alcatraz (1979), co-starring with Clint Eastwood. He kept playing the role of a tough guy in films like the Cajun-inspired Southern Comfort (1981), Uncommon Valor (1983), and as the foul-mouthed astronaut Virgil Ivan ‘Gus’ Grissom in The Right Stuff (1983).
Ward was given a role designed to create a breakout in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985). This campy movie hurt his career more than it helped. Someone, thank goodness, recognized his comedic talents, and he found a place in films like Tremors (1990), The Player (1992), Bob Roberts (1992), Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994), Joe Dirt (2001), and Corky Romano (2001).
Story – Hearts of the West (1975)
The credits roll over the sound of a film crew preparing to film a screen test. The test is shown in black and white. The director says Lewis Tater (Jeff Bridges) test, take one. Tater doesn’t come into the screen because the director didn’t say action. When he does enter, he is dressed as a gun sling cowboy. He follows the directions and is shot from all angles. As he smiles, the title of the movie is shown.
When more credits roll, Tater is behind a typewriter creating the world of the outlaw west on the page. Tater acts out western scenes as he thinks about his writing. It is the middle of the Great Depression, and Tater lives with his family on an Iowa farm.
At supper, Pa Tater (Frank Cady) reads a letter to the family from the “dean” at the correspondence school, the University of Titan in Nevada. Tater’s brothers laugh at the brother wanting to be a western writer in the vein of Zane Gray. The letter requests a $25 payment. The letter continues about the beauty of the school’s location. Tater doesn’t want to take the course by correspondence. He plans to go out west and study at the school while learning about the west.
Tater is later dropped off at the isolated train station in Titan, Nevada. Tater goes inside to talk with the station manager (Dub Taylor). Tater doesn’t think he has gone far enough west because he doesn’t see anything that he considers western. Tater asks about the buffalo head on the wall, and the station manager says there ain’t no buffaloes around here. The head was just something left in the shipping room by a furniture mover.
Tater asks about the university, and the station master tells him he can see it from where he is standing. The university is postal boxes 17-24. The station master says there is no university and that once a week, two guys come in to pick up the mail. Against advice, Tater sits down to wait.
A woman (Marie Windsor) enters the station and checks both the bathrooms before asking Tater who got off the train. Tater gives a detailed description of the couple that also got off the train. He says in his line of work, writing, he notices details.
The woman gives him a ride to the town in her battered truck. She takes him to the Rose Hotel, where she works. A man is asleep in the lobby, but it doesn’t stop Tater from rattling on about being a writer. He acts out scenes that he envisions in his mind. The hotel people are not interested.
The woman gets a call from two men in one of the rooms. The two men are the correspondence school scammers. They are known as Stout Crook (Richard B. Shull) and Lean Crook (Anthony James). The woman goes to the room and tells the two crooks that the new guest is a farm boy that came out because of their advertisements. The Stout Crook says they pay the woman to check for postal inspectors and not help those they have ripped off.
Tater is still acting out a script when Stout Crook goes down to check him out. The woman introduces Tater as a writer. Stout Crook now knows that Tater is not an undercover postal inspector. Lean Crook proposes robbing Tater, but Stout Crook says that would be a stupid idea.
Later, when the woman takes Tater to his room, he tries to hit on her despite their considerable age difference.
Later that night, while Tater is asleep, Lean Crook enters the room and begins robbing Tater. Tater wakes and begins fighting. He eventually wins the fight by hitting Lean Crook with a lamp. Tater grabs his belongings and runs out of the hotel to where Stout Crook is preparing to get in his car. Tater steals the car leaving Lean and Stout Crook behind.
He flees down the road having no idea where he is going. It is not too long before the stolen car runs out of gas on a desert dirt road. Tater checks the car’s boot for gas but only finds a metal box. The top of the box has a revolver and ammunition. Tater sees the light from a car containing the two crooks coming down the road. Tater takes his bags and the metal box and runs into the desert. When the two crooks arrive, Stout Crook says Tater won’t survive in the desert, so they will return in the morning to find the body.
Tater walks through the desert carrying his suitcase and the metal box. He has a shirt tied on his head. This shot was ripped plainly by National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983).
The two crooks arrive at their stolen car on mules.
Tater acts out scripts in his head as he walks. Suddenly he hears gunfire. A group of mask-wearing cowboys comes riding by, shooting their pistols as they ride. They are at Vasquez Rocks. More about that later. Tater falls down as the men ride past.
The head of the group, Howard Pike (Andy Griffith), gives Tater a ride to where a film crew is shooting a movie. The group of cowboy actors includes Lester (Burton Gilliam) of Blazing Saddles (1974) fame and Jackson (Matt Clark), who acted in Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). The group tells Tater they are making a movie. Pike calls Miss Trout (Blythe Danner) over to help the still confused Tater. Earl (Alex Rocco) comes and puts the actors back to work.
Trout comes over with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. She is the assistant to the director Kessler. Tater tells his tale in western slang and says he is a writer.
Later, Kessler (Alan Arkin) directs a scene where Lyle (Wayne Storm), the big star, and another stunt cowboy fight. The sign on their vehicle says Tumbleweed Production Company. Tater sits on the side and takes everything in. When the shot is finished, Pike invites Tater to ride to Los Angeles with the crew.
Later the two crooks arrive on their mules. The only clue they have of what has taken place is a boxed lunch from the Rio Cafe in Hollywood.
On the ride back to town, the actors rib each other about their looks. Tater asks what the job pays. Pike says you are paid based on the work you do. They say the top actors and all the money is upfront in a nice car. Jackson says to ask Pike what it is like. Pike replies that he heard it is pretty grand.
Tater gets out at Pike’s apartment, but none of the actors will take him in. They point him in the direction of a boarding house.
In the morning, Tater wakes in a bed. He grabs his wallet to see if he has been robbed. He has not. He is staying at Stern’s Hacienda la Cienega. Tater keeps working on his typewriter, trying to find a sellable story.
Sometime later, Tater goes to Tumbleweed Production Company and asks Trout about a job. She says that Kessler writes the scenarios, and all writers are out of work. Trout gives him an application but no hope of a job.
Pike steps over and asks Tater if he can fight and deal with crabby cow folks. Pike sends Tater to the Rio Cafe for a bus boy/dishwasher job. One of the waitresses (Candice Azzara) thinks Tater is cute.
Tater gets a call to be an extra on a western film. Earl tells the stunt men in what order they are to be shot. Kessler says to keep it simple. Pike tries to explain the rules of the stunt work. Tater is caught in his own world of western writing. Tater asks Pike about Trout. Pike says it is hard to tell about a woman who wears slacks and she may have deviant sexual taste.
The filming begins, and Tater jumps into hero mode and runs out of the rocks towards the western star. He does an epic death scene. Kessler attacks Tater and Earl has to save him. At night around the fire, Tater is too gung-ho. The crew camps out at the filming site. Tater sits in his tent and continues to type his story.
The two crooks drive to Los Angeles to search the Rio Café for Tater and their missing metal box.
On the second day of filming, Kessler offers $7.50 for a stunt jumping on a horse. None of the veteran stuntmen will do the stunt. Tater jumps forward and says he will do the stunt for free.
They dress Tater as the western star, and Kessler takes him upstairs, where he will jump through a window, onto the roof, and down onto the back of a waiting horse. Tater does the stunt pretty well but is racked by the jump onto the horse without wearing a cup. Pike explains that you must wait out the director until the price is high enough to make it worthwhile.
The crew goes back to the city. Tatter gingerly sits on a stool in the Rio Cafe, talking to the waitress. He goes on about his injuries, including the private one. He is looking down, and the waitress leaves. An old man at the counter (Bill Quinn) thinks Tater is talking to him.
The two crooks arrive at the Rio Café. Tater comes face to face with the crooks. He escapes out the back of the restaurant with the two in pursuit. He gets away and makes it back to his room. Tater opens the metal case and finds the gun, stationary from the University of Titan, and a couple of thousands of dollars in cash and money orders.
The Stout Crook tells the waitress that Lean Crook is Tater’s father. She says she has never seen him before. During the encounter, the waitress gets a phone order from a studio. Lean Crook steals the list of studio addresses.
Tater goes back to the studio where Kessler is firing an actor for wanting a raise. The producer Mr. Gates (Woodrow Parfrey), Kessler, and Earl, are in the office. Kessler says they can easily replace the fired actor. Kessler goes outside and looks the stunt actors over. He brings Tater into the office. Even though Tater has never acted, Kessler gives him $55 and then $60 a week to start.
Trout helps Tater with his lines, but Earl rushes him onto the rehearsal. On his first try, Tater is terrible at acting. Kessler gives him some tips and pumps him up. Suddenly, Tater can act, but he is the film’s heavy and takes a punch to the gut from the western star. Gates, Trout, and Kessler watch the film. Gates recommends giving Tater a screen test. Kessler tells Tater that his acting was average. The dejected Tater walks away, and Trout goes after him. She makes an excuse to have him come to her house.
The Stout Crook starts calling the studios looking for Tater.
Trout and Tater unpack a hula girl lamp/radio at her house and have drinks. She recommends that Tater show his story to Pike. Kessler has been paying Pike extra for western dialogue. Trout thinks it is cute that Tater would rather be a writer than an actor. The couple has a dance. He tries to get into her bedroom, and a Murphey bed falls from the wall. They end up in bed as the rain falls outside.
Still, in the rain, Tater rushes to Pike’s apartment. Pike has a massive boulder in his living room that fell on him while filming at Vasquez Rocks. Tater says he is a writer. Pike replies that he is a writer when others say he is a writer. Pike takes the “Hearts of the West” manuscript to read.
The crooks are still searching the studios for Tater.
The studio puts a picture of Tater in western garb on the wall of the Rio Cafe. All the stunt men are sitting in a booth talking about films. Lester says Tater looks like Billy Pueblo. Pike agrees. Tater says he has read Pueblo’s books but has never seen any of the actors’ films. Pike says Pueblo was very frugal and invested all his money in a Montana weasel ranch. He says the price of weasel pelts jumped three years later. Now Pueblo walks around his mansion wearing silk pajamas. Pike continues that it is a great success story and goes on to talk about independent wealth. The subject of Tater’s pay comes up. Pike tells him to take nothing less than $150 a week. He also says when Kessler squawks, Tater should head towards the door.
The next day, Tater meets with Kessler about his salary as a heavy in films. Kessler offers $110, and Tater refuses. Kessler already has a lifesize cutout of Tater as a western actor. Kessler explains how much money he has spent on Tater already and how much experience he will gain. Kessler calls Tater small potatoes. Kessler comes up to $130. Tater walks out of the room and is not stopped by Kessler. Kessler fires Tater.
Tater sneaks onto a World War I movie set dressed as a doughboy. He gets Trout’s attention. Tater explains that he got fired, and Trout says that the star of the picture doesn’t get $150 a week. She also tells him to look at the picture of Billy Pueblo next time he is in the Rio Cafe and see if it reminds him of Pike. Trout continues that Pike is Billy Pueblo, and he wasted his money. Trout tells him she may be able to get him in to see pulp novel publisher A.J. Nietz (Donald Pleasence).
Tater is sent to the set of a musical being directed by Polo (Herb Edelman), whom she used to work for. Polo is also Nietz’s brother-in-law. The assistant to Polo is played by Frank Bonner. Polo refuses to introduce Tater to his brother-in-law. Polo is complaining about a film project he is trying to get off the ground. He needs $2000. Tater says he will get the money in exchange for a meeting.
Tater returns to his room and begins typing a letter on the University of Titan letterhead so he can open an account. Trout comes to visit holding his western cutout, but he shoos her out of the room.
At the bank, Tater uses wit to get past Bank Manager (Thayer David) and Teller (William Christopher). Christopher is better known as Father Mulcahy.
Tater takes the check to Polo. He is told that Nietz will hold the money until the picture is done because Nietz is the actual film backer.
Tater takes a taxi to a large mansion. The housekeeper (Anne Seymour) takes Tater to meet Nietz. Nietz has a rack of odd hats and tells Tater to take one. Nietz knows Tater is a western writer when he picks the cowboy hat. Nietz takes the money and agrees to read the novel.
The crooks are still going studio to studio looking for Tater.
Tater gets a message from his landlady that he needs to meet Nietz for brunch. The party is very eclectic and catered. Nietz is wearing pajamas. Nietz takes Tater to the beach and says he has two manuscripts, submitted by different sources, that are the same. He then tells Tater that the manuscripts are titled “Hearts of the West.” Nietz takes Tater to meet the “author.” Tater is shocked that plagiarist is Pike. Tater is heartbroken by the betrayal. Tater throws the manuscript and leaves the brunch.
The two crooks finally make it to Tumbleweed Productions. They use the same story that Tater is a missing son. The crooks are provided with Tater’s address.
When Tater returns to his apartment, the crooks have already ransacked his room and are waiting in a car for his return.
Kessler forces his way into Trout’s apartment. Tater shows up with his suitcase in hand. When Kessler comes out of the kitchen, Tater thinks he has been betrayed again and storms out.
Trout takes a taxi to Tater’s apartment. The crooks see her turn the light on in Tater’s room.
A stag party is taking place in the back room of the Rio Cafe. The waitress is doing a burlesque dance in a western outfit -ish. Trout busts into the all-male event looking for Tater. She goes to Pike and asks for Tater. Pike is uncaring.
Pike is called to tell a raunchy story for the party. Finally, one of the stuntmen tells Trout that Tater is at his place. Trout leaves, but the crooks are following. Pike has an attack of conscience and leaves the stag party.
Tater is soaking in a tub as Trout tries to explain that she is not in a relationship with Kessler. The two crooks break in and begin searching the apartment. Tater tries to talk his way out of trouble. The nude Tater stands up to the crooks. Lean Crook pulls a gun and shoots Tater in the arm. When Stout Crook tries to take the gun away, Tater is shot again.
Pike breaks in with his six-gun firing. He locks the crooks in crooks in the closet before he tells them that he is shooting blanks. Tater forgives Pike and says he looked just like Billy Pueblo charging through the door. Trout calls for help.
The crooks are arrested and hauled away. Tater is loaded on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance. From the stretcher, Tater tells Pike that this would make a great story. Pike replies that it would be independent wealth money. Trout goes with Tater.
Stout Crook asks Pike who the kid is. Pike replies, “He is a writer. He just sold his first novel.” Tater writes the story in his head as the ambulance drives away.
Conclusion – Hearts of the West (1975)
When I watched this film for the show, I noticed that it is written like a screenplay for a movie. This occurred to me when I was watching Marie Windsor in the role of Woman in Nevada. It is the type of title given to a bit player in a screenplay before an actor is selected. For example, neither of the crooks had a name, just being called Stout Crook and Lean Crook.
Of course, this set my wheels spinning. I began to wonder if the entire adventure was taking place in the mind of Tater while he was still back in Iowa. Anyway, just a thought.
Today’s movie can be grouped into a set of movies about Hollywood’s golden age. These movies were made when the original stars of silent films were reaching the end of their lives. It is natural for nostalgia to occur as the generation that did something passes. For example, most Civil War battlefields weren’t commemorated until the surviving soldiers began to die from old age.
According to iMDB.com,[5] these tribute films include Inserts (1975), Valentino (1977), Nickelodeon (1976), Silent Movie (1976), The Wild Party (1975), The Last Tycoon (1976), Hearts of the West (1975), The Day of the Locust (1975), and The World’s Greatest Lover (1977). Dave Karger of TCM said that Hearts of the West (1975) is very similar to the Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).
Much of the movie making that took place in the movie was filmed at Vasquez Rocks[6]. Like so many of us, I first found out about this film location by watching the “Star Trek” 1966-1969 episode where Kirk fights the Gorn. I talked about this briefly in Werewolf of London (1935). However, movie filming at this location goes back at least to Dracula (1931). At least 66 movies have been shot here, numerous television shows, and even music videos.
Lastly, the boarding house where Tater stayed in Los Angeles was called “Stern’s Hacienda la Cienega.” This can be translated as “Stern’s Swamp Estate” or Stern’s Dirty Water Estate.
World-Famous Short Summary – Keep writing. Don’t ever give up
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Beware the moors.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073096/
[2] Hearts of the West – Rotten Tomatoes
[3] Hearts of West movie review & film summary (1975) | Roger Ebert
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/04/archives/film-festival-nostalgiahearts-of-west-views-early-30s-hollywood.html
[5] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073096/trivia/
[6] List of productions using the Vasquez Rocks as a filming location – Wikipedia
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