The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Writers:

Forrest Carter (book)
Philip Kaufman (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

30 June 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller | Western

Tagline:

...an army of one.

Plot:

A Missouri farmer joins a Confederate guerilla unit and winds up on the run from the Union soldiers who murdered his family.

Plot Keywords:

Farmer | Vengeance | Missouri | Farm | Surrender

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win

Cast

Clint Eastwood	...	Josey Wales
Chief Dan George	...	Lone Watie
Sondra Locke	...	Laura Lee
Bill McKinney	...	Terrill
John Vernon	...	Fletcher
Paula Trueman	...	Grandma Sarah
Sam Bottoms	...	Jamie
Geraldine Keams	...	Little Moonlight
Woodrow Parfrey	...	Carpetbagger
Joyce Jameson	...	Rose
Sheb Wooley	...	Travis Cobb
Royal Dano	...	Ten Spot
Matt Clark	...	Kelly (as Matt Clarke)
John Verros	...	Chato
Will Sampson	...	Ten Bears

Runtime:

135 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Iceland:16 | Norway:16 (1976) (heavily cut) | Peru:18 | Argentina:Atp (re-rating) | Argentina:16 (original rating) | Canada:14A | Finland:K-18 | Norway:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (edited tv version) | UK:18 (video rating) (1986) | UK:AA (original rating) | USA:PG | West Germany:16 | Australia:M | Australia:MA (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Glen Canyon, Utah, USA

Company:

Malpaso Company, The

Trivia:

There were three waves of release: June 23, 1976 in Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC; June 30, 1976 in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Denver; July 14, 1976 in Minneapolis, Los Angeles.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: At one point in the movie there is a soldier playing a 5 string open-back banjo claw-hammer style in the back-ground. Shadows through the leather head of the banjo can be seen. Even though the banjo started to evolve in the late 1840s, the open-back banjo was invented by Arthur Windsor in England after 1887 and "frailing" (claw-hammer style picking) did not become popular until the late 1800s'.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Josey's wife: Little Josey! C'mon in, let's get you cleaned up!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Seinfeld: The Strike (#9.10)" (1997)

One of the Best Westerns (Short List, Too)

The best thing I can say about this film is that it manages to be Epic --truly grand, covering broad territories interior and exterior, a lot of emotional, moral and physical ground-- without posturing or self-conscious bigness. You never get the feeling people are being herded onto a giant mark for a take. --Or that Eastwood the Director is scrambling for filler, biding his time until the timing is right for the next blow-out set piece. In a word, it really has none of the faults even of some of my long-time cherished 'favorite' epics (no names please). It is more focused and more genuinely evocative of mood than Nevada Smith, which its story may faintly call to mind; it seems less overtly "Hollywooden" than that film, too.

Westerns that stand in stature alongside Josey Wales: The Searchers, One Eyed Jacks, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Beyond that, I draw a blank. The Boetticher and Mann '50s westerns with James Stewart and Randolph Scott are probably the real spiritual predecessors of this film, although, stylistically, Eastwood has clearly studied his Ford and paid close attention to Leone. (Those who've seen Jimmy Stewart break down in tears of moral anguish in one of the aforementioned films-- or watched Randolph Scott use up all his ammo in a standoff on some matter of principal so imperative that he cannot move until the thing plays itself out, however that may be-- know exactly what I mean.)

Another thing I like: Whenever you get too comfy within the environment of this film --as you did, say, in the late John Wayne westerns, after he had become such a franchise-- along comes some major shock or disappointment or unbearably poignant bit to remind you that the model of this film is, after all, real life, where these kinds of thing happens all the time.

-----------------------

May I add a spoiler at this point? I said "A SPOILER??" What happens to Terrill, the chief red leg, at the end of this film is more in line with the fate I envisioned early in the going for Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York. It is spectacular, painful to watch and more than a touch grisly. But it is not so overblown and RoboCopesque that you can't imagine such a pivotal moment actually happening that way. The ending of The Outlaw Josey Wales is, in a word, what the ending of Gangs would have been if the focus groups and script doctors and the Great Scorcese had gotten the thing right.

Ten stars.See it.