Lee Marvin is Monte Walsh and Jack Palance is his good buddy and fellow cowhand Chet Rollins.
They emerge from a winter manning a line camp in Arizona to discover that the harsh winter spelled an end for most of the ranches in the area.
And what ranches are left are now under the control of Eastern speculators.
Cal Brennan (Jim Davis) manages one of those ranches and hires Monte, Chet and a handful of other cowboys to work it.
But the good times aren’t coming back. And cowboys are finding work harder and harder to come by.
Chet decides to hang up his spurs and marry a hardware store widow named Mary Eagle.
Good friend Shorty Austin (Mitch Ryan) is dodging the law after gunning down a lawman without realizing he was a lawman.
And Monte faces decisions of his own when his longtime lover, prostitute Martine Bernand (Jeanne Moreau), is forced to move to a town 40 away to continue in her “profession of diminishing returns.”
Jeanne Moreau as Martine Bernard in Monte Walsh (1970)
Review:
If you’re looking for a pick-me-up film, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for an action-packed shoot-’em-up, look elsewhere.
But this is a magnificent, smartly scripted film about the final days of the cowboys on the Western range.
And it’s all the more impressive because it marked William Fraker’s directorial debut. And because it features subdued performances from Lee Marvin, who had won an Oscar for his over-the-top performance as a drunken gunfighter in “Cat Ballou” and from Jack Palance, the king of over-the-top performances.
Especially well-handled are the scenes featuring Jeanne Moreau and Marvin and those in which Marvin finds his future at a crossroads and ponders a job offer to join a Wild West show as Texas Jack Butler, “star cowboy, wild man of the West and famed bronc buster.”
The film was remade in 2003 as a TV movie with Tom Selleck and Isabella Rosellini in the starring roles.
Jack Palance as Chet Rollins in Monte Walsh (1970)
Mitch Ryan as Shorty Austin in Monte Walsh (1970)
Directed by:
William A. Fraker
Cast:
Lee Marvin … Monte Walsh
Jeanne Moreau … Martine Bernard
Jack Palance … Chet Rollins
Mitch Ryan … Shorty Austin
Jim Davis … Cal Brennan
G.D. Spradlin … Hal Henderson
John Hudkins … Sonny Jacobs
Raymond Guth … Sunfish Perkins
John McKee … Petey Williams
Michael Conrad … Dally Johnson
Tom Heaton … Sugar Wyman
Ted Gehring … Skimpy Eagans
Bo Hopkins … Jumpin’ Joe Joslin
John McLiam … Fightin’ Joe Hooker
Allyn Ann McLerie … Mary Eagle
Matt Clark … Rufus Brady
Billy Green Bush … Powder Kent
Eric Christmas … Col. Wilson
Charles Tyner … Doctor
Runtime: 108 min.
Song: “The Good Times Are Coming”
by Cass Elliot (as Mama Cass)
Matt Clark as Rufus Brady, a cowboy gone bad, in Monte Walsh (1970)
Billy Green Bush as Powder Kent, a cowboy gone bad, in Monte Walsh (1970)
Memorable lines:
Monte Walsh: “I ain’t doing nothing I can’t do from a horse.”
Fightin’ Joe Hooker, as he prepares to string more barbed wire: “I had a good life.”
Chet Rollins: “You’re gonna break a leg some day doin’ that.”
Monte Walsh: “I got two.”
Jim Davis as Cal Brennan, range manager, in Monte Walsh (1970)
Allyn Ann McLerie as Mary Eagle, the hardware widow, in Monte Walsh (1970)
Skimpy Eagens, after Fightin’ Joe rides off a cliff: “Think he felt anything?”
Monte Walsh: “Yeah. Surprise.”
Dally Johnson, after a fight ends in the bunkhouse: “Maybe I was wrong.”
Monte Walsh: “Ah, no, Dally, you weren’t wrong. It’s just that nothin’ ain’t been right these days.”
Martine Bernard: “I work in a profession of diminishing returns. I mean, at time goes by, we all have to take the best we can get. Perhaps, one day, you will find the same applies to you.”
Tom Heaton as Sugar Wyman in Monte Walsh (1970)
Ted Gehring as Skimpy Eagans in Monte Walsh (1970)
Monte Walsh, as Martine prepares to move 40 miles away: “It ain’t like I don’t have a horse.”
Monte Walsh: “Martine, were your mommy and daddy married?”
Martine: “Probably. I really don’t know.”
Monte: “How come we never got married.”
Martine: “You never asked me.”
Monte: “I never thought of it. Cowboys don’t get married. Unless they stop being cowboys.”
John McLiam as Fightin’ Joe Hooker in Monte Walsh (1970)
Bo Hopkins as Jumpin’ Joe Joslin in Monte Walsh (1970)
Chet Rollins: “Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever.”
Col. Wilson, when Monte turns down a job with a Wild West show: “What’s the matter son?”
Monte Walsh: “I ain’t spittin’ on my whole life.”
Lee Marvin as Monte Walsh with Jeanne Moreau as Martine Bernard in Monte Walsh (1970)
Lee Marvin as Monte Walsh in Monte Walsh (1970)
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