Midnight Cowboy

''Midnight Cowboy'' is a 1969 American drama film, based on the 1965 novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. The film was written by Waldo Salt, directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with notable smaller roles being filled by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt, and Barnard Hughes. Set in New York City, ''Midnight Cowboy'' depicts the unlikely friendship between two hustlers: naïve sex worker Joe Buck (Voight), and ailing con man Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Hoffman).

At the 42nd Academy Awards, the film won three awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. ''Midnight Cowboy'' is the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture. It has since been placed 36th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and 43rd on its 2007 updated version.

In 1994, ''Midnight Cowboy'' was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Plot

Joe Buck, a young Texan working as a dishwasher, quits his job and heads to New York City to become a male prostitute. Initially unsuccessful, he manages to bed a middle-aged woman, Cass, in her posh Park Avenue apartment. The encounter ends badly as he gives ''her'' money after she is insulted when he requests payment and it is implied that she is a high class prostitute herself.

Joe meets Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo, a con man with a limp who takes $20 from him for introducing him to a pimp. After discovering that the alleged pimp is actually an unhinged religious fanatic, Joe flees in pursuit of Ratso but cannot find him. Joe spends his days wandering the city and sitting in his hotel room. Soon broke, he is locked out of his hotel room and his belongings are impounded.

Joe tries to make money by receiving oral sex from a young man in a movie theater, but learns after the act that the young man has no money. Joe threatens him and asks for his watch, but eventually lets him go unharmed. The next day, Joe spots Ratso and angrily shakes him down. Ratso offers to share the apartment in a condemned building where he is squatting. Joe reluctantly accepts his offer, and they begin a "business relationship" as hustlers. As they develop a friendship, Ratso's health grows steadily worse.

In a series of flashbacks, Joe's grandmother raises him after his mother abandons him. He also has a tragic relationship with a girl named Annie. The film has successive flashbacks to an experience in which he and Annie were jumped while naked in a parked car and raped by a gang of cowboys. The rape affects Annie's mental stability to the point that she becomes insane and is driven away in the back of an ambulance taking her to a psychiatric institution. The viewer gains more information about the experience as the flashbacks accumulate.

Ratso tells Joe his father was an illiterate Italian immigrant shoeshiner whose job led to a bad back and lung damage from long-term exposure to shoe polish. Ratso learned shoeshining from his father but considers it degrading and generally refuses to do it, although he does shine Joe's cowboy boots to help him attract clients. Ratso harbors hopes of moving to Miami, shown in daydreams in which he and Joe frolic carefree on a beach and are surrounded by dozens of adoring middle-aged women.

A Warhol-like filmmaker and an extrovert female artist approach Joe in a diner, taking his Polaroid photograph and handing him an invitation to a Warhol-esque art event (which incorporates actual Warhol superstars, including Viva, Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Joe Dallesandro and the Warhol-related filmmaker Paul Morrissey). Joe and Ratso attend, but Ratso's poor health and hygiene attract unwanted attention from several guests. Joe mistakes a joint for a cigarette and starts to hallucinate after taking several puffs, along with "uppers" he is offered. He leaves the party with Shirley, a socialite who agrees to pay him $20 for spending the night, but Joe cannot perform sexually. They play ''Scribbage'' together and the resulting wordplay leads Shirley to suggest that Joe may be gay; suddenly he is able to perform. The next morning, she sets up her female friend as Joe's next client and it appears that his career is finally taking off.

When Joe returns home, Ratso is bedridden and feverish. He refuses medical help and begs Joe to put him on a bus to Florida. Desperate, Joe picks up a man in an amusement arcade and robs him during a violent encounter in the man's hotel room where Joe brutally beats the man. Joe buys bus tickets with the money he robbed from the man so he and Ratso can board a bus to Florida. During the trip, Ratso's health deteriorates further as he becomes incontinent and sweat-drenched.

At a rest stop, Joe buys new clothing for Ratso and himself and discards his cowboy outfit. On the bus, Joe muses that there must be easier ways to earn a living than hustling, and tells Ratso he plans to get a regular job in Florida. When Ratso fails to respond, Joe realizes that he has died. The driver tells Joe there is nothing to do but continue to Miami and asks Joe to close Ratso's eyelids. Joe, with tears welling in his eyes, sits with his arm around his dead friend, alone.

Cast

* Dustin Hoffman as Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo
* Jon Voight as Joe Buck
* Sylvia Miles as Cass
* John McGiver as Mr. O'Daniel
* Brenda Vaccaro as Shirley
* Barnard Hughes as Towny
* Ruth White as Sally Buck
* Jennifer Salt as Annie
* Gilman Rankin as Woodsy Niles
* Georgann Johnson as Rich Lady
* Anthony Holland as TV Bishop
* Bob Balaban as Young Student
* Viva as Gretel McAlbertson, the Warhol-like The Factory party/happening giver
* Paul Rossilli (aka Gastone Rossilli) as Hansel McAlbertson, The Factory party/happening filmmaker
* Craig Carrington as Charlie Dealer

Production

The opening scenes were filmed in Big Spring, Texas in 1968. A roadside billboard, stating "If you don't have an oil well...get one!" was shown as the New York-bound bus carrying Joe Buck rolled through Texas. Such advertisements, common in the Southwestern United States in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, promoted Eddie Chiles's Western Company of North America. In the film, Joe stays at the Hotel Claridge, at the southeast corner of Broadway and West 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan. His room overlooked the northern half of Times Square. The building, designed by D. H. Burnham & Company and opened in 1911, was demolished in 1972. A motif featured three times throughout the New York scenes was the sign at the top of the facade of the Mutual of New York (MONY) Building at 1740 Broadway. It was extended into the ''Scribbage'' scene with Shirley the socialite, when Joe's incorrect spelling of the word "money" matched that of the sign.

Dustin Hoffman, who played a grizzled veteran of New York's streets, is from Los Angeles. Despite his portrayal of Joe Buck, a character hopelessly out of his element in New York, Jon Voight is a native New Yorker, hailing from Yonkers. Voight was paid "scale", or the Screen Actors Guild minimum wage, for his portrayal of Joe Buck, a concession he willingly made to obtain the part. Harrison Ford auditioned for the role of Joe Buck. Michael Sarrazin