The other night I was looking around for the new Velvet Underground box set at my local mall's Record (yeah, right) Town. "Velvet who?" the young woman working the floor asked.
In disgust I thought I'd be better off just looking at their poorly stocked video section than telling her that Lou Reed actually has more songs than "Take a Walk on the Wild Side."
I was trying to stick to the "Under $10" section in the event that I might find something worthwhile. Well, there was Monte Hellman's Gunfire (aka China 9, Liberty 37) for $8 ($10 less than I paid for it when I ordered it at Blockbuster). Great.
I'm glad my eyes strayed over to the Adventure section where they immediately focused on a video box with a big picture of Warren Oates on the cover.
Born to Kill, hmmm... I wonder what this is? I started reading the back:
"Take a dark and eerie walk deep into the Georgia backwoods, where those who aren't welcome don't always come out! Warren Oates wants to be 'king of the roost' in the rough and dangerous southern underground, where moonshine, cock fights, hard luck, and wild nights are all part of the game! This ain't no place for the timid, and Oates uses his fists, knives, and whatever else it takes to get what he wants, and hold onto what he's got! The plot thickens when Oates crosses the wrong guys and learns about mountain-style justice, the hard way! A riveting look at a side of life most civilized people can't even imagine! Ain't but one law in these parts,... and they don't care who lives or dies!"
Now, the only similarity between what you just read and the movie in the box are the words "cock fighting" and "Warren Oates." That's it! This movie isn't about rednecks and Deliverance rejects. I don't recall Warren Oates using a knife at any time other than when he's eating supper. And no one drinks moonshine!
The scary thing about this movie is how "normal" most of these people were! I thought that cock-fighting only took place in the shady backwoods and attracted droves of toothless overall-wearin' hicks. Sure, the hicks sent their representatives to the games and a few of them were spotted in the audience but most of these folk seemed like they'd be working at the bank or Piggly Wiggly. The only thing strange about some of these people was the way that they dressed, but with it being the seventies, they didn't really have much say in that.
Oates plays a man determined to win the cock-fighting medallion. In the first scene we see him setting up a fight and getting the stakes up high. To sweeten the pot he even takes a razor blade and scratches it along his bird's beak to make it look like it is cracked, thus raising the odds.
Hellman does a great job of showing us all the intricacies of a "sport" I thought only consisted of throwing two birds in a ring and letting one peck the other to death. Nope. The birds have to weigh the same—if they don't, a quick cutting away of some feathers remedies the situation. And, then there are the spurs. Either short or long, metal spikes are attached to the back of the cock's legs and are what does the most damage.
It took me a while to notice that Oates is completely silent in the film. Sure, we hear him in a scant few voice-overs explaining a few things or filling us in on people, but it's only after the initial fight between his cock and Harry Dean Stanton's that we learn why Oates is so silent.
By the end of the first ten minutes, Oates has lost his bird, his trailer, his car, and his girl to Stanton. Then there is a flashback that adds insult to injury.
We learn that Oates used to be a hard-drinking loud-mouth who spouts off to Stanton in a hotel party how sure he is that his bird is the best. Stanton takes this as a challenge and they have a fight right there in the room. (Rule #4—never leave your cock at home). Oates loses his bird and his chance to win the game-cock medal. "You've got two problems, Frank: you drink too much and you talk too much," Stanton tells him. As Oates leaves we hear him make a vow to himself that he won't ever say another word until he wins the medal.
The rest of the film is his struggle to do just that. Even though I watched this film at three in the morning I was totally into it. Hellman and Oates are a pretty unbeatable team. I didn't even care if Oates got his voice back since it was so interesting to see him in the world without it. Forget The Piano, if you only see one movie about mutes, see this one! Hellman is so much less flashy than Jane Campion and certainly tells a better story.
Along the way on the cock-fighting circuit, Oates encounters such screen luminaries as Steve Railsback and Ed Begley Jr. as men both a little too fond of their chickens. Oates' character is pretty much a loner by nature so his partnership with novice Richard B. Shull is unusual and really nice to see their friendship grow.
This is definitely a Hellman classic. It's similar to his Two Lane Blacktop in a lot of ways: the competition, the small amount of dialogue, the portrait of a subculture in America. I think I'd even put this above TLB if I was forced to rank his films. And, luckily, it's a lot easier to find and cheaper to boot! I would really enjoy seeing a better copy but for $8 you can't ask for more.
Addendum: A few days after I wrote this I loaned my copy of Born to Kill to Mike Thompson, the guy who got me into Hellman by loaning me his copy of Flight to Fury. Mike's verdict: it was totally cool, especially the cockfight scenes, which didn't look like Hellman directed them at all since they were so beautiful and well edited.
I had to tell Mike that just the day before I got a letter from Rich Osmond of Teenage Rampage who wrote, "There's some interesting stuff in Roger Corman's book (How I Made 100 Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime) about the making of Cockfighter: Monte was totally repulsed by the sport and wouldn't film any graphic scenes. So Corman got Lewis Teague (who hasn't done anything lately that I know of but directed two of my fave exploitation movies, Alligator and The Lady in Red—both written by John Sayles!) to go to real cockfights and film them. His stuff was so sick they had to cut a lot of it out."
Kind of funny, huh?