A Year: Day to Day Men: 25th of May
Afternoon in the Bayou
May 25, 1969 was the release date for the film “Midnight Cowboy”.
“Midnight Cowboy” is a drama film based on the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy with the screenplay written by Waldo Salt. It was directed by the English film and stage director John Schlesinger and starred Jon Voight as the young Joe Buck alongside Dustin Hoffman playing the con man Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo.
Jon Voight was paid “scale”, or the Screen Actor Guild minimum wage, for his portrayal of Joe Buck, a concession he willingly made to obtain the part. The director John Schlesinger was reluctant to hire Dustin Hoffman because Hoffman was associated by the public with the clean-cut image of Benjamin Braddock in “The Graduate”. Schlesinger checked out Hoffman in an Off-Broadway play in which he was performing. He saw Hoffman in a scruffy beard, disheveled clothes and speaking with a Bowery accent; he gave Hoffman the role of Ratso Rizzo.
The famous scene in which Joe and Ratso attempt to walk across the street and almost get hit by a cab was filmed guerilla-style, with a camera in a van across the street. The scene was a difficult shoot, logistically, because those were real pedestrians and there was real traffic. Director Schlesinger also wanted to do it in one shot—he didn’t want to cut the scene. After several attempts, the two actors figured out how to properly time the walk but then almost got run over by a cab. Dustin Hoffman yelled the line ‘I’m walking here’ at the cab meaning, ‘We’re shooting a scene here, and this is the first time we ever got it right.” That improvised, out-of-script, now famous yell remained in the film.
Upon initial review by the Motion Picture Association of America, “Midnight Cowboy” received a “Restricted” (“R”) rating. However, after consulting with a psychologist, executives at the United Artists studio were told to accept an “X” rating, due to the “homosexual frame of reference” and its “possible influence upon youngsters”. The studio refused to edit anything out; so the film was released with an “X” rating. The MPAA later broadened the requirements for the “R” rating to allow more content and raised the age restriction from sixteen to seventeen. The film was later rated “R” for a reissue in 1971. The film today retains its “R” rating.
The film won three Academy Awards in 1970: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first gay-related Best Picture winner and the only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture, although such a classification no longer exists. At the British Academy Film Awards it won in six categories: Best Film, Best Direction, Best Leading Actor – Dustin Hoffman, Best New Leading Newcomer – Jon Voight, Best Screenplay and Best Editing.