The Electric Horseman

The Electric Horseman is a 1979 American western comedy-drama film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda and directed by Sydney Pollack. The film is about a former rodeo champion who is hired by a cereal company to become its spokesperson and then runs away on a $12 million electric-lit horse and costume he is given to promote it in Las Vegas after he finds that the horse has been abused.

The Electric Horseman
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySydney Pollack
Written byPaul Gaer
Robert Garland
Story byShelly Burton
Produced byRay Stark
StarringRobert Redford
Jane Fonda
CinematographyOwen Roizman
Edited bySheldon Kahn
Music byDave Grusin
Production
companies
Distributed byColumbia Pictures (United States)[1][2]
Universal Pictures (through Cinema International Corporation; International)
Release date
  • December 21, 1979 (1979-12-21)
Running time
121 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$12.5 million[3]
Box office$61.8 million[2]

Plot

Norman "Sonny" Steele is a former championship rodeo rider who has sold out to a business conglomerate and is now reduced to making public appearances to sell a brand of breakfast cereal. Prior to making a Las Vegas promotional appearance to ride the $12 million champion thoroughbred race horse who responds to the name of Rising Star, Sonny discovers to his horror that the horse has been drugged and is injured.

Identifying with the plight of the horse and disillusioned with the present state of his life, Sonny decides to abscond with Rising Star and travel cross-country in order to release him in a remote canyon where herds of wild horses roam. Hallie Martin, a television reporter eager to be the first to break the Rising Star story, locates Sonny and follows him on his unusual quest through the countryside. While en route, the unlikely pair have a romance as they avoid the pursuing authorities.

Cast

Production

Development

Casting for The Electric Horseman either continued or led to many reoccurring collaborations between cast and crew members. On November 28, 1978, Robert Redford was announced to star in the film,[4] becoming the fifth film in which Sydney Pollack directed Redford following This Property Is Condemned (1966), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). This director-actor relationship would continue with two more films: Out of Africa (1985) and Havana (1990). Pollack had also previously directed Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), whereas Redford and Fonda previously teamed on The Chase (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967).

The Electric Horseman is noted as being the debut acting performance of long-time country and western singer Willie Nelson, who plays the role of Wendell Hickson. According to Pollack, Nelson improvised most of his dialogue in the film. Pollack would later be executive producer for Nelson's 1980 starring vehicle Honeysuckle Rose. The film was also only the second film performance of character actor Wilford Brimley, who would later team with Redford in The Natural (1984).

Filming

"For Electric Horseman, I literally ended up writing half of every night before we would shoot. We make jokes now about my saying, 'Let's pick the longest location cause I have time to write the scene by the time we get there.' And that's literally true. There were yellow pads all over the place; we're writing out to work in the morning."

—Sydney Pollack, describing script troubles.[5]

Principal photography for The Electric Horseman took place during late 1978 and early 1979 throughout Nevada and Utah. While the film was prominently shot on location in Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area,[6][7] additional filming took place in various locations across the state of Utah, including Grafton, St. George, and Zion National Park.[8][9]

While filming generally went smoothly, Pollack struggled with revising the script while filming was underway.[5] In addition, there was one particular day in which production was continuously delayed due to traveling thunderstorms that interrupted the 20-second kissing scene between Redford and Fonda. Ultimately, the scene ended up requiring 48 takes that pushed costs to $280,000.[10] The film went over budget by $1.3 million, spending a total of $12.5 million.[3]

Music
Main article: The Electric Horseman (album)

The musical score to The Electric Horseman was composed by Dave Grusin. In addition to co-starring, Willie Nelson contributed significantly to the film's soundtrack, singing five songs including "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys", "Midnight Rider," "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," "So You Think You're a Cowboy" and "Hands on the Wheel." Coinciding with the film's release, a soundtrack album was released featuring both Nelson's songs and Grusin's score.[11]

Release and reception

The Electric Horseman was released theatrically in the United States on December 21, 1979. Even with the budget escalating to $12.5 million,[3] the film was a box office success, becoming the eleventh highest grossing film of 1979[12] after grossing a domestic total of nearly $62 million.[2] While the film was co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures, and distributed by Columbia domestically and Universal internationally, the US film rights would later revert to Universal.[13] It has since been released on CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) Videodiscs, VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray by Universal Studios, although current home video releases have replaced "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" with a generic instrumental sound-alike recording in the opening title sequence. A 2019 North American Universal Blu-ray edition returns the music removed on many past video releases.

While the film was a commercial success, it received mixed reviews upon release. Film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 64% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 22 reviews with a "Fresh" rating, with an average score of 5.83/10.[14] The film was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1980 for Best Sound (Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Michael Minkler and Al Overton Jr.).[15] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a nicely polished piece of entertainment from director Sydney Pollack, who regularly works with the biggest of stars and rarely lets his camera get in the way of those stars." Siskel, who gave the film three stars, highlighted what he detected to be genuine chemistry between Redford and Fonda. He also lauded the movie's "outstanding secondary cast," including Saxon, Coster and Nelson.[16] Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and called it "the kind of movie they used to make. It's an oddball love story about a guy and a girl and a prize racehorse, and it has a chase scene and some smooching and a happy ending. It could have starred Tracy and Hepburn, or Gable and Colbert, but it doesn't need to because this time it stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda."[17]

References
  1. "The Electric Horseman (1979)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  2. "The Electric Horseman (1979)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  3. Electric Horseman: A movie charges into the box office. Lawrence Journal-World, Bob Thomas (21 Dec 1979). Retrieved May 23, 2014.
  4. "Redford joins cast". The Beaver County Times. United Press International. November 26, 1978. p. 16. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  5. Gallagher, John (Interviewer). The Director's Series (Videotape). New York City: TVDays.com. Event occurs at 0:11. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  6. Katsilometes, John (December 14, 2006). "John Katsilometes gets Frank Gehry's succinct opinion of architecture in Las Vegas". Las Vegas Sun. The Greenspun Corporation. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  7. Block, Marcelline (2012). World Film Locations: Las Vegas. Intellect Ltd. p. 47. ISBN 978-1841505886.
  8. Harmer, Katie (July 10, 2013). "50 movies filmed in Utah: 'The Sandlot,' 'Hulk' and more". Deseret News. Deseret News Publishing Company. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  9. D'Arc, James (2010). When Hollywood Came to Town: A History of Movie Making in Utah. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. p. 110. ISBN 978-1423605874.
  10. Schoell, William; Lawrence J. Quirk (2006). The Sundance Kid: A Biography of Robert Redford. Lanham, Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing. p. 133. ISBN 1589792971.
  11. "Willie Nelson / Dave Grusin – The Electric Horseman (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". Discogs. December 1979. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  12. Top Grossing Films of 1979. Listal. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  13. "Company credits for The Electric Horseman". The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-09-15.
  14. "The Electric Horseman – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  15. "The 52nd Academy Awards (1980) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  16. Siskel, Gene (December 21, 1979). "Romancing of Redford and Fonda supplies the highest voltage in Pollack's 'Electric Horseman'". Chicago Tribune. p. C1.
  17. "The Electric Horseman movie review (1979) | Roger Ebert".
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