The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) If you want to talk about cinematic oddities, then The Ballad of Cable Hogue gets a minor mention, albeit one that has more to do with expectations rather than intrinsic qualities. It’s surprising because it’s a comedy from noted purveyor of violence Sam Peckinpah. It certainly doesn’t deviate all that much from his usual preoccupations—set at the twilight of the wild west when automobiles replaced the horses (a frequent setting in Peckinpah’s work), it’s clearly an off-beat western somewhat unlike most others. It starts as a prospector tempts fate and discovers a spring of fresh water in the desert in-between two major destinations. Transforming his good luck in good fortune, he monetizes the discovery, builds a stop for passing stagecoaches, and ends up being the civilizing factor taking away the wild west. Not that it lasts: There’s a romance with a prostitute, but also a surprising pall of melancholy that settles over the film in its final act—Peckinpah being unwilling to tell us the story of how the west was tamed, he settles for showing how the wildness died. As a “comedy,” The Ballad of Cable Hogue is nowhere near hilarious: but the absence of violence and overly disturbing content, compared to other Peckinpah films, sometimes makes it feel like a romp. Still, Peckinpah isn’t a comedian, and so the film will not settle for simple romantic comedy or a triumphant business-making epic—it ends on a decidedly dour note, celebrating the passing of the west in appropriately mournful tones.