Hearts of the West (1975)

• Directed by Howard Zieff.

• Written by Rob Thompson.

• Once upon a time, a 20-something aspiring writer called Lewis Tater (Jeff Bridges) decides his skills and ambition rate too highly to participate in a ‘Western Writing’ course just by mail, and sets off via train (from Iowa) to Titan, Nevada to attend the course’s source university in person.

Only…here’s the thing. The correspondence course is a scam, operated by two small-time crooks (played by Richard B. Shull and Anthony James) out of a few Post Office boxes (boxes 17 through 24, to be exact) and a semi-permanently rented room at Titan’s Rose Hotel.

• The Rose Hotel’s proprietress is played by…Marie Windsor (!!!). Sadly, this character does not seem to play a major role in the narrative – however, she does drive a disappointed Tater from the Titan train station to the hotel, and – given that the last time we saw Windsor was aboard a TRAIN in THE NARROW MARGIN (1952) – her appearing this way feels satisfyingly appropriate.

• This film is set in the early 1930s, and from the start, it’s clear that the filmmakers did their homework. The sets look like they were plucked straight from a genuine, made-in-the-’30s movie, and I mean…yeah, I should definitely know. (The film also begins with some sort of…imagined Silent Film scene, perhaps taking place in Tater’s mind – in which he’s starring in an action-scenario similar to the one he’s currently writing – and it is very believably shot/crafted, down to the dramatic makeup with which Bridges is adorned. Bravo, team!)

(Director of Photography: Mario Tosi, Art Director: Robert Luthardt, Set Decorator: Charles Pierce, Makeup Artist: Bob Stein.)

• Two scenes early on demonstrate how perfect the decision was to cast Jeff Bridges in this part, as he is so obviously, delightfully in his element here – the first being the scene in which Tater think-paces across the floor of the Rose Hotel’s lobby, twirling an invisible whip above his head and narrating the scene as he extemporaneously births it, while a sleepily bewildered fellow guest looks on wordlessly from a chair in the corner…the second taking place after Tater has fled into the desert (after stealing the scam-ist crooks’ car…to escape said scam-ist crooks, after one attempts to rob him during the night) and emerges amidst some dunes, mumbling to himself and wearing a pair of his underdrawers on his head, as some sort of bandage-hat.

The image of a so-costumed Bridges, traipsing atop a sand dune, backed by a gorgeously bright-blue sky is…in short, a blissfully magnificent movie image.

• It is right around this time when Wandering Tater is almost trampled to death by a roving herd of horsebacked movie cowboys, led by Howard Pike (Andy Griffith).

• Bit o’ Wisdom, as relayed to “non MD,” “tincture”-procuring Production Assistant Miss Trout (aka: “Troutie”)(played by Blythe Danner) by head-wounded Tater:

“Wounds suffered in tropical climates can all too swiftly become nasty infections.”

Baha! ‘Tis true, Tater. ‘Tis true.

• Oh my God, this movie’s cast is a fucking blast-riot. The film director accompanying the Tumbleweed Productions crew in the desert – a hat-wearing shouter called Kessler – is played by Alan Arkin.

A fantastic, could-be-real direction from Kessler, several scenes later:

“Keep it simple – but make me believe it.”

A+, no additional notes.

• Outside the Rio Cafe – where Tater temporarily works as a dishwasher, until he is hired into Andy Griffith’s gang of merry MovieWorld Stunt-Cowboys – is a great big wall mural advertising “GARBO TALK”ing in ANNA CHRISTIE (1930).

Sensational!

• When Tumbleweed Productions’ usual…*cough*…dude has a pay dispute with Kessler, Tater the Eager and Accommodating is tapped to fill his spot, under the new name/persona “Neddy Wales: the Cowboy Prince.”

• Lewis, lying to Troutie about being from Nevada (while helping carry her “probably very well-made” hula-dancer-based lamp-radio up the steps near her apartment):

“Well…you’ve got your…Indians. Your, uh…mesquite, and precious metals. Your Indians.”

• One of Howard’s living room end tables is a rough-edged boulder he obtained after it “fell on [him] during a climbing stunt up in Vasquez.” As a piece of narrative-incorporated set decoration, I find this marvelous.

• Bit o’ Wisdom, from Howard, regarding Tater’s career aspirations:

“When someone else says you’re a writer – that’s when you’re a writer. Not before.”

(Also, I love the warmly hope-eyed expression Bridges gives Lewis during this scene. So solidly acted! So adorable!)

• (It should be noted that in the above-described scene, Lewis has gone to Howard’s to deliver his 2 1/2 pound (Tater: “I weighed it”) novel manuscript titled (what else?) “Hearts of the West,” for (purportedly wise) Howard’s review.)
• Turns out, however (as Lewis soon learns): A) The much-heralded Billy Pueblo is not a successful, richling silk-pajama-ed Weasel Rancher – – he is Howard, B) the $150 per week contract-negotiating advice Howard has given the Tater is absolute garbage…and C) it is Turncoat Howard’s greedy-ass intention to sell “Hearts of the West” to en vogue pulp-publisher A.J. Nietz (Donald Pleasence), passing it off as his own and reaping any/all of the book’s resultant reward-acclaim.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.You can’t trust anyone in this town!

• Well, except Troutie. Troutie’s the best. Also: Blythe Danner looks so much like her daughter in this movie, you guys. Some of these shots…I find the resemblance to be equal parts frightening and amazing.

• “What is brunch?” — Lewis Tater

• When the scam-ist crooks finally track down Lewis, he’s taking a bath at Wally (Raymond Guth)’s house, wearing a black fedora and reading the latest issue of Dime Western Magazine. He (Tater) promptly gets “tired of this whole thing,” steps out of the tub, clothing himself in light grey bathrobe, as he does.

Y’all, this entire scene screams THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998). There is a negative 150% chance that the Coen Brothers have not seen (and enjoyed) this movie.

• “Jesus,” whimper-states Lewis after he’s been shot by one of the money-hunting scam-ists. “There’s a hole in my leg. A round hole. Well, it isn’t…really round, but it’s a hole.”

• Conclusion #1 (the button of an exchange which takes place as shot-twice-by-“bandits” Tater – but saved by a regretful and redeemed Howard – is being loaded into the ambulance outside of Shirley’s Gower Vista)(aka: the site of Wally’s bungalow):

Howard: “That’s independent wealth for you.”

Tater: “Weasels and silk pajamas.”

• Conclusion #2 (as narrated by writer (yes, Billy Pueblo Howard has just declared it to be so) Lewis, from the back of the aforementioned ambulance):

“The slightest smile broke across the kid’s face as the barking revolvers became nothing but a memory. Secure in his knowledge of his friendship with the old trapper and the girl, he sped along. He’d done his job.”

• THE END.

• This movie is so much fun and I’m so glad that it found me. It is expertly shot and production-designed, with a consistently, endearingly quirky screenplay enacted by a glorious collection of committed, funny people.

• You could easily fool people into believing Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner are the same people, using certain clips from this movie.

• If ever I find myself on the West Coast again, visiting the ocean, I will try my damnedest to remember to – as a tribute to Lewis – look out over the water and exclaim-observe “The vast Pacific!”

• I suppose, though, in ultimate summary, all I can really say is:

…the Tater abides, man.