At a party in the early 1960s someone handed Kirk Douglas a copy of Ed Abbey’s novel The Brave Cowboy
It’s a sweet movie that could never be made today for a number of reasons, probably chief among them the root idealism of the flawed main character Jack Burns. The ending is an ambiguous downer. A significant subplot involves the principled stand one of the major characters takes to aid undocumented border-crossers. The one cop possessed of any competence or virtue (played by Walter Matthau) is hamstrung by the thugs and buffoons that make up his subordinates. Modern audiences unaccustomed to points of view that don’t include smirks might find the movie a bit naive. Burns, a character who appeared in several of Abbey’s subsequent novels, rides into “Duke City” (a thinly veiled Albuquerque) to help a friend who’s been arrested for helping “illegals.” (That was Trumbo’s idea: in the novel, the crime was draft resistance.) Burns’ plan is to get himself arrested, find his friend in the lockup, then bust both of them out and head for the hills. The conflict between Burns and his friend over whether that’s at all a good idea is a mirror of the through-story: Burns is a man a hundred years out of date, unfit for the 20th Century urban West.
It’s one of my favorite films, and I’m looking forward to the day it’s released in Region 1 DVD
I just this evening found a YouTube interview with Kirk Douglas discussing Lonely Are The Brave, which Douglas still calls one of his best movies. It’s an interesting interview, with one major spoiler and a few behind-the-scenes anecdotes, basically a good teaser for the movie.
The first installment is below. If you want more, follow the links to parts two, three, four, five, six and seven. If you want to avoid the spoiler you can skip part five.
1 comment on "Kirk Douglas Talks About Lonely Are The Brave"
hey cool, thanks for this info. i have to pick this up.