My Darling Clementine

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

A neighbor of mine loves Hollywood Westerns and that inspired me to write a post on one of director John Ford’s most famous films, My Darling Clementine (1946).

The title of the movie refers to the character Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs). The song that shares the same title, and which plays in the film, is about loss, and that sets a tone of sadness for this story.

Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) is herding cattle to California with his brothers, Virgil (Tim Holt), Morgan (Ward Bond, who would star in the TV series Wagon Train), and James (Don Garner). Wyatt runs into the elderly Clanton (Walter Brennan, three-time supporting Oscar winner and later star of the TV show The Real McCoys) and his son Ike (Grant Withers). Clanton tries to buy the scrawny animals, but Wyatt doesn’t want to sell, although he acknowledges the roughness of the land that is depriving his herd of food. That dire observation fits in with the feel of the movie, and so does the name of the nearby town, Tombstone. Despite the welcoming comments by Clanton, the look on his face and that of his son are hostile as they watch the departing Wyatt.

Young James, who is to marry soon, stays with the herd as the other brothers go into Tombstone, which is quite rowdy in the evening. Wyatt goes to get a shave. The barber (Ben Hall) calls his place a “tonsorial parlor,” for which Wyatt needs a translation. When the barber lowers the back of the customer chair, Wyatt nearly topples backward, showing how he is in a precarious position since the chair is a newly acquired acquisition from metropolitan Chicago, an invader from the settled East. Later he is not sure about the city-slicker hair styling he gets and the cologne the barber sprays on him. He may be allowing himself a different look for his attempt to attract Clementine as the story progresses, but this social space is not an area in which he is adept at navigating.

The threatening nature of the locale becomes very immediate as random gunshots bring bullets into what is supposed to be a safe place for male grooming. Indeed, the town of Tombstone is still on the frontier with only a few civilized elements. Wyatt shouts, “What kind of town is this?” and that phrase is repeated by Wyatt when the marshal doesn’t want to confront the drunk man firing his weapon. Wyatt goes into the saloon, punches out the inebriated Native American and kicks him out of the place. The Mayor (Roy Roberts) offers Wyatt the job of Marshal, but Wyatt refuses. The people discover Wyatt’s name and realize he was the marshal of Dodge City, but Wyatt makes it clear that he left that life behind.

But, it appears that past life will not leave him. When the Earps return to their camp they find their cattle gone and their brother, James, dead, shot in a cowardly manner in the back. Wyatt visits the Mayor and says he will be Marshal as long as his brothers are his deputies. He learns from the Mayor that Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) runs the gambling and that Clanton and his sons deal with the cattle business. The film has set the stage for a battle between families, making the conflict very personal. The Clantons arrive in town and Wyatt confronts them, saying his cattle were stolen. Wyatt knows it was the Clantons who are guilty and tells them he is now Marshal. Clanton’s bemused attitude changes when he hears Wyatt’s name, and it’s obvious that Wyatt’s accomplished reputation has preceded him. The darkness of the time of the day and the pouring rain add to the feeling of gloom shrouding the events.

Alone at the grave of his eighteen-year-old brother, James, Wyatt says to his departed sibling that he will be staying there for a while, and “maybe when we leave this country young kids like you will be able to grow up and live safe.” Wyatt hopes that he can achieve that goal, but the filmmakers may be commenting that it is a futile wish since violence has continued into the future.

While at the saloon playing cards, Wyatt avoids the attentions of the saloon showgirl Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), who is the girlfriend of the currently absent Holliday. In retaliation, she sings lines from the title song, stressing the loss of cattle and money, while Wyatt, fittingly, throws in his winless cards. She has helped a gambler discover Wyatt’s hands. Wyatt realizes that, takes Chihuahua outside, and after she slaps him, he dumps her in the horse trowel. The scene shows that Wyatt is no fool and is smart enough to know that a pleasant surface may hide unethical intentions beneath.

Doc shows up and kicks the cheating gambler out of the saloon, which shows that he runs a straight-up game. Wyatt and Doc have a tense conversation which reveals they know about each other’s pasts. Wyatt mentions that Doc has left a trail of graveyards behind him. Doc counters with the observation that there is the largest one right there in Tombstone, and adds, “Marshalls and I get along much better when we understand that right away.” The implication is that there will not be any trouble if the law leaves Doc alone. Wyatt notes Doc has already broken the law by usurping Wyatt’s authority in the town. Doc says they are in “separate camps,” and pulls out his gun, showing how fast he is with the weapon. Wyatt points out his two deputized brothers who are already at the bar with their guns. Wyatt doesn’t arrest Doc, so, it seems there is an understanding, and they seal the deal with a celebratory drink of champagne. But beyond this agreement, Doc’s deadly tuberculosis (symbolically representing the corruption of his soul?), the highlighting of graveyards, and possibly the suggestion that west of the Rocky Mountains can be one huge graveyard, add to the atmosphere of death and loss looming over everything.

That stress on death continues when the visiting drunkard actor, Granville Thorndyke (Alan Mowbray), delivers the “To be, or not to be,” soliloquy from Hamlet. The words ponder the hardships of life, and the possibility of even suicide to escape them, along with the questions of what may follow the end of one’s life. One of the cowboys even addresses the actor as Yorick, Hamlet’s dead court jester, which points to the absurd combination of laughter and loss inherent in mortal life. Thorndyke can’t finish the speech, and the educated Doc completes Hamlet’s words, followed by a coughing fit, reminding us, as does Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven, that “we’ve all got it coming.”

Wyatt is there to acquire the actor for the show at the theater, but the Clanton boys try to stop the Marshal. Wyatt cracks a bottle over the head of one and shoots the gun out of the hand of another. Clanton shows up, and after Wyatt leaves, he beats his boys, telling them if you pull a gun, then you better kill the other guy. There is always a threat to one’s life here.

Clementine arrives on the stagecoach. She is Doc’s former love interest, but he is out of town. The relaxing Wyatt jumps up from his porch chair when he sees Clementine, as if struck by a love lightening bolt. According to Tag Gallagher in his essay, he resides in a different “sphere” than Clementine. That separation is stressed at their first meeting, as he is on one side of a post and she stands behind a rail, the physical objects suggesting how they inhabit different worlds. Wyatt is in black since his road is a dark one that must combat evil. Ford’s heroes are passing through the places they visit, so Wyatt is a wanderer, because he can’t have the comfort of a settled existence as he fights his antagonists.

Gallagher says Ford stops the plot to let us soak in the images of the characters, how they use their eyes, how they walk. Wyatt escorts Clementine to a room opposite Doc’s. She enters the absent man’s place, and the scene is like a nostalgic trip. There is a picture of Doc with a mustache and there is a photo of her there, too. She asks if Wyatt thinks Doc is a good surgeon, but Wyatt says he wouldn’t know. It’s as if they are looking at a photo album of a life that no longer exists.

That idea flows into the scene where Clementine goes to see Doc when he is again in town. She searched for him for a long time after he left Boston. He is coughing and she believes he fled from her because of his ill health. But he says he is no longer the man she once knew. She thinks he is being self-destructive, and she appears to be right, as he is moving away from those who care about him and engaging in dangerous activity. He later looks in a mirror and then smashes it (once again I’ll mention that mirrors can reflect another part of ourselves, mostly negative). Doc goes to the bar and acts surly with Wyatt and the barkeeper, who tells him that drinking will kill him as he grabs a bottle from him. Doc rejects Chihuahua’s attempt to change his mood with a song and a kiss. He tells her to go away, further isolating himself.

Wyatt tells Doc he is a fool for rejecting someone as wonderful as Clementine, and his complimentary statements show that Wyatt is attracted to the young woman. Wyatt also points out Doc’s dangerous drinking habits given his TB. Doc pulls out his gun to indulge his self-destructive tendencies by challenging anyone who confronts him. Wyatt basically accuses him of attempting suicide by attracting those who would boast of killing the infamous Doc Holliday, which would, he says, be easy given his drunken state. Doc shoots down a candle chandelier which starts a small fire. Wyatt knocks Doc out, at least temporarily preventing his demise.

Later Doc is recuperating in bed, but still drinking, and seems to have changed his mind about Chihuahua, saying he’s going to Mexico for a while and is willing to have her come with him as his bride. He learns from her that Clementine is packing to leave and is most likely relieved that he will no longer inflict his current decrepit state on Clementine. The fact that he is willing to attach himself to Chihuahua shows he doesn’t have the same strong feelings toward her if he is willing to expose her to his decline.

Clementine is in the hotel lobby and Wyatt enters singing “My Darling Clementine.” The song is Wyatt’s “yearning,” for her, according to Gallagher, and his hopeless hope for an average prairie life. When he hears she is leaving he says she is giving up too quickly to get Doc back as her love interest. However, he most likely wants her to stick around for himself. He wasn’t planning on going to the church service, but he is happy when she asks him to go with her. (The church is in the process of being constructed, which may imply some hope for a peaceful life in the future). Wyatt tosses away his hat which symbolizes his discarding his detached lawman role, and dances with Clementine, to the surprise of his brothers. Wyatt even seems happy joining in on the supper that follows the church dedication, smiling while carving the meat. Doc interrupts Wyatt’s moment of social joy when Doc yells at Clementine, saying he told her that if she didn’t leave town, he would. Wyat, resuming his attachment to the law, confronts Doc, saying Doc doesn’t have the authority to run anybody out of town. Doc’s adversarial response is that Wyatt should start carrying his gun, which implies that Wyatt isn’t cut out for a peaceful social life. His words also imply the rivalry between the two concerning their feelings for Clementine. But they also remind Wyatt that he can’t escape his role as an agent of justice.

Doc leaves town in a hurry to escape his physical, and thus emotional, proximity to Clementine, throwing a bag of gold to Chihuahua as he darts by. She is devastated since she thought they would leave together after getting married. She runs off to confront Clementine, blaming her for Doc’s leaving. She doesn’t want to accept that Doc doesn’t really love her. As Chihuahua throws Clementine’s clothes out of the closet to ensure her departure, Wyatt arrives and realizes the medallion Chihuahua is wearing belonged to his dead brother James. She says Doc gave it to her.

 Wyatt leaves to confront Doc about his possible involvement in the death of the young Earp. It’s a furious chase as Doc’s extreme driving of the horses reveals his inner drive to escape his circumstances. The extended chase shows the large expanse of the western territory, the hugeness of the land that dwarfs the individuals trying to deal with it. Wyatt catches up with Doc, who refuses to return to the torment he feels in Tombstone. He draws his gun on Wyatt who shoots it out of his hand.

Wyatt and Doc go to confront Chihuahua, who has Billy Clanton ((John Ireland) in her room. After he slips outside, the other men enter, and Doc says he didn’t give her the jewelry that belonged to James Earp. Doc will be charged with James’s murder, so she is persuaded to say that Billy gave it to her after Doc left her lonely and vulnerable. After the divulging of his name, Billy shoots Chihuahua through the window. Wyatt urges Doc to operate on the woman. In a way, Doc is forced to try to revisit his past life before its decline, and is now called “Doctor,” referring to his profession, and not just as a nickname. After the surgery, Wyatt watches Clementine walking out of the saloon, and asks the bartender if he has ever been in love. Wyatt is, but he, like Doc, is clueless as to how to deal with that emotion.

Wyatt wounded Billy as he tried to escape, and he sent his brother, Virgil, to go after him. Virgil shoots Billy as they ride, and Billy dies just outside the Clanton ranch house. The Clantons bring Billy’s body inside and then invite Virgil in after he pulls up. Again, in a cowardly manner, Old Man Clanton shoots Virgil in the back, killing him.

The Clantons drop Virgil’s body in the town, and Clanton says to meet him and his boys at, you guessed it, the O.K. Corral (an ironic name given the situation). Although other townspeople are willing to help, Wyatt tells them, “This is strictly a family affair.” It’s personal, because a son and brothers are dead, and it is now a family feud. But not quite, since Chihuahua dies, and Doc wants his revenge, but he is also feeling like he’ll never revisit his past status as a respected physician. He may be suicidal going to the shootout, but, in a way, he becomes an adopted Earp brother.

The sky has threatening, black clouds, fitting in with the dark deeds happening in Tombstone. Ford builds suspense as the opponents maneuver for position. Wyatt tries the legal way, telling Clanton he has a warrant for his arrest, and asks him to surrender. Clanton admits that he killed the Wyatt brothers, and vows to kill the remaining sibling. Wyatt, his brother, Morgan, and Doc shoot and kill the rest of the Clanton sons. Doc is betrayed by his current disease as he coughs, causing him to drop his guard, and is shot. Clanton surrenders, voicing his pain at the loss of his sons. Wyatt will not kill him, or spare Clanton the relief of an execution. Instead, he says, “I hope you live a hundred years, so you’ll feel just a little what my pa’s gonna feel. Now get out of town, start wandering.” Wyatt knows first-hand about the emptiness of being a wanderer. He wants to condemn Clanton to a childless, homeless existence. But not Morgan. He shoots and kills Clanton as the old man slowly rides away. The clouds are now white, possibly reflecting the eradication of the evil that had infested the town. However, Gallagher says Wyatt’s victory here comes at the price of a high body count, so justice is not triumphant.

Morgan and Wyatt are no longer lawmen, and they begin to ride out to tell their father what has happened. Wyatt encounters Clementine, who will stay on as a schoolteacher. She symbolizes putting down roots. He says he may return and resume his original plan of owning some cattle. He kisses her on the cheek (originally a handshake, which producer Darryl F. Zanuck discarded after a negative response from a test audience) before riding away, suggesting some hope for an eventual happy ending, at least for these two, which he underscores by saying how much he likes the name, Clementine. It is an ironic ending because they can’t be together given their separate worlds. His statement is followed by the words of the title song, bookending the film, which declare eternal love. The feeling of love may be everlasting, but it will not be consummated here.

The next film is Foreign Correspondent.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

This 1969 film, directed by George Roy Hill and nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, addresses a theme writers have wrestled with in a great deal of American literature, including The Great Gatsby, which is the vanishing western frontier, and the idealistic romanticism associated with it.

We see the opening credits next to old footage of the real Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang which included the Sundance Kid, with the notation that these outlaws once ruled the West. This sequence immediately makes the point that these men existed long ago, at the beginning of the twentieth century, and they are now a part of history, faded projections on a wall. The entire movie shows the two main characters caught between either dealing with or denying how modern times was eclipsing their world. The first scene has Butch (Paul Newman) checking out a bank, which has been modernized with new reinforced bars and shutters, state-of-the-art vault, and numerous guards. We hear the cold metallic sound of the sealing up of the building as it closes for the day. Butch wants to know what happened to the old bank. After being told it kept getting robbed, Butch’s response is that it is a “small price to pay for beauty.” Whatever historic character that existed in the bank has been replaced by modern inartistic practicality.

Butch is the central character in that he is the one caught in the tension between the world of the past and the one of the future. He keeps coming up with ideas to keep his and Sundance’s outlaw life rolling forward. He realizes that the uncivilized American frontier, which the cinematography shows in its untouched beauty, is threatened, so he suggests that he and Sundance (Robert Redford) head for a new type of “West” in Bolivia, despite the fact that he knows nothing about this land, and isn’t sure if the country is in Central of South America. Sundance laughs at his outlandish schemes, saying sarcastically, “You keep thinkin’ Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” Butch’s response is that, “I’ve got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.” Butch seems to be trying to move ahead so he does not become obsolete. He voices to Sundance that he may be over the hill and it could happen to the Kid, too. Sundance on the one hand wants to dismiss this notion so he can live in denial of change. After all, his shooting is still amazing at the card game after a player asks how fast he is, which leads to Butch jokingly repeating the “over the hill” comment. But, Sundance’s attitude may also indicate that he is more resigned to his lot in life than is his partner.

When the two return to the hiding place of their gang, Butch at first wants to keep to the old ways of robbing banks, instead of stealing from the railroad. As he says, banks are easier because they don’t move, which may signify his desire to stay put in time. But his alternate wanting to adapt to change to survive allows him to accept the new plan. After the first train robbery, Butch and Sundance are at the town’s bordello and talk of the Spanish-American War. Butch raises the possibility of joining the military and says, “I always thought I’d grow up to be a hero.” To which Sundance immediately responds, “Well, it’s too late now.” Butch is upset how his partner quickly deflates this ideal dream of his with the truth of his current illegal life.

They look down from the balcony and there is a man trying to sell a bicycle, which he says represents “the future.” We then see Butch riding one at the home of Sundance’s girlfriend, the schoolteacher, Etta (Katharine Ross). The sequence that follows is visual and musical, and it contains facets of the main theme. Butch is quite adept at riding the bike at the beginning, which implies he is capable of dealing with the “future” as represented by the bicycle. However, he rides backwards on it, and crashes it into the fence, illustrating that in the end he may not be able to handle the symbol’s implications. Also, the camera shoots Butch riding with Etta sitting on the handlebars through slats in a fence, simulating the look, like the opening, of an old film strip. This choice again emphasizes that Butch’s world is over and all we have are pictures of this era. Also, from a literary perspective, the West was thought of as the new Eden. But, Etta plucks an apple off of a tree while riding with Butch, suggesting that this new Garden of Paradise is already fallen, and the bicycle is the serpent. We have B. J. Thomas singing “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” which implies that despite adversity, Butch maintains a sense of optimism, or is he just being in denial?

At the second train robbery they have to deal with a more modern, fortified safe. Butch uses way too much dynamite, exploding the entire car, causing the money to float into the sky, as if the riches of the future are out of reach. Butch’s overuse of the explosive also stresses his inability to cope with the new changes thwarting his outdated outlaw style. After the explosion another railroad engine and car approach. We see quick shots of the metallic machine, emphasizing its inhuman heft and power, the steam billowing out of its smokestack. When the whistle blows, it is a warning signal for Butch and his gang that they won’t be able to escape their future demises. A posse of men on horses emerge from the car, and Butch and Sundance immediately sense the danger to them. The hunters immediately shoot a few of their gang. Butch uses all sorts of strategies to thwart those looking for them: traveling over water; riding over rock; splitting up. They all fail. They make it back to town, but even the amazingly deceptive Sweetface who Butch admits is so good a liar, he says, “I swear if old Sweetface told me that I rode out of town ten minutes ago, I’d believe him,” can’t save them. The posse’s horses show no typical behavior as they don’t run away when Butch yells at them. They visit an old friend, Sheriff Bledsoe (Jeff Corey), to say they will give themselves up and enlist and fight the Spanish. Bledsoe is astonished at Butch’s lack of insight into the outlaw’s situation. He lectures them about how stupid they are to think the government will forget all about their thievery. He sees Sundance looking out the window, and says to him there’s something out there that scares him. It is the end of their way of life, and they are overdue for giving it up. Bledsoe sums up Butch and Sundance’s plight when he says, “You should have let yourself get killed long ago when you had the chance … It’s over, don’t you get that? Your times is over and your gonna die bloody, and all you can do is choose where.” No matter how far they run they can’t stop being overtaken by their eventual extinction.

Despite all the gloom and doom surrounding this pair, William Goldman’s Oscar-winning script is full of humor ironically delivered in the midst of danger. For instance, when they are cornered by the posse and Butch considers their hunters’ options, Sundance adds, “They could surrender to us, but I wouldn’t count on that.” When Sundance asks Butch which way they should go to avoid their pursuers, Butch says, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know where we’ve been and I’ve just been there.” The humor is an attempt to deal with their fear of this group of men who seem supernatural. They are individuals that have been bought out by the corrupt East, which is run by companies plundering the land for profit. Even the Native American tracker is called Lord Baltimore, to show how he has sold out his western heritage. The lawman, who we only know by an object, his straw hat, not by any human attributes, is called Lefors, which sounds like “The Force,” suggesting a power that is beyond human limitations. Butch comments on the posse’s Industrial Age mechanistic qualities: “Don’t they get tired? Don’t they get hungry? … Why don’t they slow up? Hell, they could even go faster, at least that’d be a change. They don’t even break formation.” They keep asking, “Who are those guys?” For Butch and Sundance, this group represents the inexorable march of time bent on obliterating the past.

They temporarily escape their hunters by making an almost suicidal jump from a cliff into a river’s rapids. They pack up for Bolivia and leave with Etta. This decision to look for a new frontier is sort of an escape, a running away from their destiny’s inevitability. Butch’s hope is to reverse time to find a place where their outside-the-law ways once flourished. Before they leave, he ditches the bicycle, showing his desire for the good old days by saying, “The future’s all yours, you lousy bicycle.” Director Hill then gives us another series of no dialogue, music accompanied pictures, this time still, aged shots of the trio on their trip first to New York and then on the cruise to South America. This sequence has the same effect as the previous ones of emphasizing we are watching scenes from long ago resembling fading memories.

The difficulty the outlaws have with the Spanish language at first shows an initial rejection by the new host country to these transplanted Americans. But, they start to adapt, and are successful robbing several banks. Of course, their overzealous notoriety draws attention, and they believe they see Lefors’ straw hat in a crowd. He has no jurisdiction to arrest them in Bolivia, so they assume he is just there to kill them. Butch says they will go straight, since the lawman would have to catch them in the act of robbery. The two become payroll guards. The ex-thieves themselves are robbed by Bolivian outlaws. Butch and Sundance get the drop on them after the duo give up the payroll. They must shoot these men to retrieve the money. In a strange loss of innocence, it is the first time Butch, although an outlaw, has ever killed another person. It is ironic that the first act of violence we see from Butch and Sundance occurs while they are enforcing the law. Sundance says, “Well, we’ve gone straight. What do we try now?” They return to their old ways, being outlaws.

Despite their attempts to avoid their situation, they know things can’t end well for them. Etta said before leaving for Bolivia that she would not stick around to watch them die. She offers other ways of going straight such as farming or raising cattle, but Butch and Sundance dismiss these options since they either don’t have the expertise or that they are too laborious. In a way they seal their own destiny. She now says she will be leaving for home, which is the sign that she knows that the end is near. Soon after, Butch and Sundance attack a payroll mule train. When they enter the town of San Vicente, a boy recognizes the brand on the duo’s stolen mule. What follows is an extended gunfight, but the Bolivians bring to bear not only numerous policemen but also the military. Butch and Sundance are at first only wounded and take shelter in an empty building. The depth of the denial of the gravity of their situation is shown as Butch says their next stop is Australia, where the people at least speak English, and there is plenty of land in which to hide out. They pretend that things will work out right up until their end when Butch asks if Sundance saw Lefors outside. When the Kid answers in the negative, Butch says, “Oh good. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.”

They run out and amid volleys of gunfire, the picture freezes, and we get a still shot of the two outlaws, their action now ended, as we, the audience, return to our time, as Butch and Sundance, and their time in American history, transform into a sepia photographic memory.

The next film is Fargo.

Easy Rider

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

Those who may think this groundbreaking film is simply a celebration of the 1960’s hippie culture as a newly found prescription for living should reconsider their position. As director Dennis Hopper said, he primarily saw this movie as a western, and that it was a road picture with John Ford’s vistas as the backdrop. In many ways this motion picture, despite its modern found music soundtrack, is about a nostalgia for America’s past, and a critique of its present.

If there is any doubt about the non-glorification of the story’s two main characters, just watch the beginning. They are, as producer, co-writer, and star Peter Fonda described it, “scoring junk in a junk yard,” in Mexico. They buy what appears to be a large quantity of cocaine from Mexicans and then sell it to a rich guy (played by music producer Phil Spector) who drives up in a Rolls Royce. In the background we hear the rock group Steppenwolf singing the indicting words, “God damn the pusher man.” So these guys are really capitalists making a huge profit in a transaction with another well-to-do businessman. There is no altruistic idealist activity going on here. They immediately do what most modern day Americans do when they come into money – they upgrade, in this case by buying two new motorcycles. One of them has a gas tank with the American flag painted on it. Their cash is rolled up, inserted into a tube, and shoved into the tank. This symbol of intercourse implies, as Fonda said, that they were “f…… America.” (Hopper said the title of the movie refers to a man who takes the earnings of a prostitute who loves him. Basically business people have pimped out America for profit. He also said by the time the movie was made that “The Summer of Love” was over, and that the dealing of hard drugs killed the counter-culture). So the above noted scene is emblematic of the degradation of what the United States once stood for. The tear drop shape of the tank may signify the sorrow felt for what the country has become.

But let’s not dismiss these two men as totally negative. Fonda’s character has two names. One is Captain America, referencing the hero of the comics who fought for all that is good about his country. He also has a jacket and a helmet depicting the nation’s flag. These items could be seen as ironic. But many in the counter-culture era in which the film was made mockingly wore clothing with the flag on it to demonstrate how the symbol had lost its meaning in a country that waged an unjustifiable war in Vietnam and allowed the violation of civil rights. The Captain America name may imply that Fonda’s character longs for a past where the country’s ideals were cherished. The character’s other name is Wyatt (we don’t hear this name until the end), which refers to Wyatt Earp. It fits the character’s personality. Earp was lawman, but he also was a gunfighter, arrested many times, and may have been involved in fixing a prize fight. In the film, Wyatt appears to be the more complex one. Despite his dope-dealing, he has more sympathy for others, admiring farmers, escorting girls at a commune, and, in a sense, freeing the prostitutes from the brothel toward the end of the movie. Hopper’s character is Billy. The director said that in a country that carries out unjust actions, the only alternative is to become outlaws. So, his name conjures up Billy the Kid. He also constantly wears what appears to be a buckskin outfit, a cowboy’s clothes. Both characters’ names conjure up that nostalgia for the Old West and the idealized individuality it represents.

The two men do symbolize the 1960’s desire to recapture the desire for individual freedom that was the primary goal of the Founding Fathers. At the beginning of the movie, Wyatt takes off his watch and throws it away, obviously signifying the desire to be free of time’s restraints which are inextricably tied to a life dominated by obligation and mortality. Fonda said he wore the unorthodox leather pants he dons in the movie while immersing himself in water, so that the material would cling to him, appearing like a second skin. In a way, it shows his very nature is one of rebellion against external restraints. At one point he says that he never wanted to be anybody else, which points to his strong sense of individuality, and his imperviousness to being subservient to the will of others to remake him into their image of what they think he should be. The scene where the cowboys replace the shoe on a horse as the men fix a flat on a bike shows the motorcycle as a mechanistic equine replacement. One can see the shot as nostalgia for the older form of transportation, but it also can indicate that we still yearn for that exhilaration we feel as we fly unrestricted through the nation’s expanse as its wind washes over us. 

Wyatt and Billy give the Stranger on the Highway (Luke Askew) a ride and they go to the commune where he resides. The people there could also be considered outlaws from the modern materialistic society, wanting to, again, return to the past by having “simple food for simple tastes,” which they acquire by living off of the land. As the Stranger says, he is from the city, and wants to be “a long way from the city,” which represents modern corruption. This yearning for the frontier places this film squarely in the realm of literature that idealizes the unspoiled frontier as the Garden of Eden before the Fall. The Stranger offers Wyatt a wafer of supposedly the hallucinogen LSD to be shared with the right people at the right place. He says that this could be the right pace. He also says, ominously, to Wyatt, “The time’s running out.” This scene is a pivotal one in the story. Billy is all about time, wanting to rush Wyatt to the next place. Here, he wants to get to the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. He is sort of a dark force dragging them to their demise. Unfortunately, Wyatt says he has to go.

The two men join in a parade in a small town in the south with their bikes. They are arrested for parading without a permit. This action signifies that one has to comply with the rules of society, whether or not they are fair, to travel in the mainstream, to be part of the community. They go to jail not really because they do not have a permit, but because they have long hair and dress differently, rebelling against the established norms by refusing to blend in and accept standardized modes of appearance. Luckily, they befriend a local lawyer, George Hanson (Jack Nicholson, in an Oscar-nominated, star-making performance), who is, in his own way a rebel - a drunk, and representative for the ACLU - but who is from an influential family, and gets the two men off by greasing palms with cash. In a sense Wyatt and Billy liberate him, too, by allowing George to join them on the way to Mardi Gras, a life-long desire of the lawyer’s.

Along the way, they stop at a local restaurant where locals harass the three visitors. One of the town’s residents warn that they won’t make it to the county line. They leave without getting any service. They camp out, and George basically voices the desire for the way the country used to be, and how freedom in America is now at risk. He says, “this used to be a helluva good country.” Billy says that people seem to be scared of them. George says, “They’re scared of what you represent to ‘em.” He says they fear their freedom, which Billy questions, since freedom is “what it’s all about.” George replies, “Oh yeah, that’s right. That’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you’re bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ‘cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they’re gonna’ talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But, they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare em.’” And, that reminder that they have compromised their freedom for monetary gain, warns George, makes them dangerous.

 George’s foreboding words come to pass. The three are ambushed while they sleep, and the attackers beat George to death. Hopper said that it would have been too straightforward if George was an African American, because it would have showed the murder as a limited act of bigotry. By killing not only a white person, but a Southerner, it showed that America was capable of killing any one of its citizens, even one of its own local residents.  It showed that the killers were sending a message that a traitor of the accepted area’s culture received his just punishment. And, Wyatt and Billy can’t disclose the act of violence, since the sheriff was one of the harassers, and the two would probably be held as the prime suspects.

They do travel on to New Orleans, and Billy wants to go the bordello that George hoped to visit. There are a number of religious paintings and icons at this place, sort of reversing the usual association of sex with sin, and in keeping with the film’s desire to return to a Garden of Eden type of innocence. It is at this point that Wyatt has a premonition of his own death, his bike in flames on a road. The name of the prostitute who is paired with Wyatt is named Mary (Toni Basil), emphasizing the pre-apple eating lack of needing to distinguish good from evil. The other prostitute is played by Karen Black. The four share the psychedelic wafer Wyatt received at the commune, and which Fonda later compared to participating in a sort of hippie holy communion (the similarity between “commune” and “communion” was, I am sure, intended). They wind up, again ominously, in a cemetery. We hear The Lord’s Prayer recited, but the words are undercut with the sounds of a money-making oil drill in the background. We see Wyatt sitting in the lap of a statue featuring Liberty. The point, according to Fonda, was to question whether freedom was real in fact, or now just an illusion. Hopper said that the man reading a book and then wandering off brandishing an open umbrella was a reference to a symbol of death used by Cocteau, another bad omen.

After Wyatt and Billy head out on the road again, we then see the two camped out. Billy says, “We did it, we did it. We’re rich man. We’re retirin’ in Florida now, mister.” To which Wyatt responds, “You know Billy, we blew it.” The idea of making your fortune and then retiring to Florida is the clichéd goal of modern American materialism. Fonda said that he hated the idea of retirement, when there was so much work to be done to fix what’s wrong with the country. Wyatt realizes that the road on which they have been traveling is the wrong one after all. They missed the opportunity to do something that was unselfish and beneficial to others.

The dangerous prediction of George and the other forebodings become realized when two rednecks in a pick-up shoot Billy on a road after he flips them the finger after their abusive comments. Wyatt goes to him and significantly covers him with his flag-designed jacket, a sort of bestowal of a countercultural shroud. He rides off for help, but the two in the truck shoot at him, too, and we see his bike fly into the air as it disintegrates, like his freedom, and bursts into flames. We then get an aerial shot. Fonda said the camera shows the audience the man-made road with man-made violence, and then pans to show a river next to it, which is God’s road. We have the contrasting beauty of that natural, unspoiled path made long ago from which the country has strayed.

The next film is Citizen Kane.