The Long Riders

The Long Riders
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Walter Hill
Produced by Tim Zinnemann
Stacy Keach
James Keach
Written by Bill Bryden
Steven Phillip Smith
Stacy Keach
James Keach
Starring James Keach
Stacy Keach
David Carradine
Robert Carradine
Keith Carradine
Dennis Quaid
Randy Quaid
Christopher Guest
Nicholas Guest
Savannah Smith Boucher
Music by Ry Cooder
Cinematography Ric Waite
Edited by Freeman A. Davies
David Holden
Production
company
Huka Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • May 16, 1980 (1980-05-16)
Running time
 99 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $8 million[1]
Box office $15,795,189[2]
241,290 admissions (France)[3]

The Long Riders is a 1980 American western film directed by Walter Hill. It was produced by James Keach, Stacy Keach and Tim Zinnemann and featured an original soundtrack by Ry Cooder. Cooder won the Best Music award in 1980 from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for this soundtrack. The film was entered into the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.[4]

Plot

During the years following the Civil War, banks and trains become the targets of the James-Younger gang, outlaws who terrorize the Midwestern United States. The band of robbers is led by Jesse James and Cole Younger, along with several of their brothers.

A detective, Mr. Rixley from the Pinkerton's agency, is assigned to capture the outlaws. Leading his own large team of men, Rixley doggedly remains on their trail, killing several innocent relatives of the gang in the process. By the time, at Clell Miller's suggestion, the James-Younger Gang rides far north in September 1876 to rob a bank belonging to "squareheads" in Northfield, Minnesota, word is out about them and the town has been warned by the Pinkertons.

The holdup goes wrong in every way. The bank's vault has been set on a timer and cannot be opened. A cashier and another citizen are shot and killed. While trying to escape, the gang is fired upon by the townspeople, who, setting a trap, have barricaded both ends of the main street. Two outlaws, both recently recruited by Jesse, are killed, Clell is fatally gutshot, Frank is hit in the arm, and all of the Youngers are badly wounded.

Finally escaping Northfield, the surviving gang members temporarily make camp in some woods. Clell Miller is dying. Jim Younger, sporting more than several wounds, cannot speak due to a bullet piercing his cheek. Bob Younger, flat on his back, moans pitifully, shot multiple times. Cole Younger, seeming the most mobile of his siblings, has (as later reported by a physician) been hit by no less than eleven bullets. Frank James has only one minor injury. Jesse James appears to have escaped unscathed.

Hard decisions have to be made. A posse will be soon coming for the outlaws. Miller is on his last breaths. The three Younger brothers are so injured that they are unable to continue. Only Jesse and Frank James are in any condition to ride further. Even though it is his gang, and they follow his commands, Jesse elects to leave all the badly wounded behind. Frank reluctantly agrees. Cole objects, implying that it is disloyal to abandon them, but Jesse ignores him, while Frank declares that he has to abide by his brother's decision.

The James brothers return home to Missouri. An attempt is made by Pinkerton Rixley to make the Youngers, now in a prison hospital, reveal where the Jameses can be found. Rixley states that the Youngers will face life in prison (the state of Minnesota does not have the death penalty), but he offers them a more lenient sentence if they betray the James brothers. The Youngers, despite their abandonment, refuse to inform on the Jameses.

Jesse, not terribly affected by the disastrous Northfield raid, chooses to recruit a new gang. Bob and Charlie Ford, previously spurned in their efforts to join Jesse's outfit, are now invited to Jesse's home for dinner. The expectation is that Jesse will ask the two brothers to join him in further robberies. However, having made a prior deal with Rixley for a lucrative reward, Bob and Charlie shoot an unsuspecting Jesse James in the back while he straightens a picture frame.

Upon learning of his brother's assassination, Frank James surrenders his gun and turns himself in to Rixley, but only on the condition that he can first attend his brother's funeral. Rixley suggests that he might not agree to such terms, whereupon Frank declares that he will kill him if he refuses.

A train transports a wooden coffin bearing the body of Jesse James. Frank James, handcuffed to Rixley, stands at the railcar door, looking out, noting the people beside the tracks, paying their final respects to his brother, as the train passes by.

Cast

The Long Riders is a notable film in part due to the decision to cast four sets of actor brothers as the real-life sets of brothers:

It also features an uncredited appearance by Ever Carradine, daughter of Robert Carradine and niece to David and Keith Carradine. Additionally James Keach's son, Kalen Keach, is cast as Jesse James's son Jesse E. James. Savannah Smith Boucher played Jesse James' wife, Zee.

Production

Development

In 1971 James and Stacy Keach played the Wright brothers in a television film called The Wright Brothers. This gave James the idea they should play Jesse and Frank James in a film together. James wrote the play which Stacy financed and produced. The played it at the Bucks County Playhouse and then toured schools in New Jersey. Then the play was adapted into a country musical and performed off-Broadway at the Bowery Lane Theatre. James Keach produced (for $10,000), directed and starred as Jesse. The Keaches then decided to turn the musical into a feature film screenplay in which both could star.[1][5]

In 1974 James Keach was acting opposite Robert Carradine in the television film The Hatfields and the McCoys and mentioned the project to him; Carradine suggested he and his brothers play the Younger brothers. The idea that all the brothers in the story would be played by real-life brothers expanded, and Dennis and Randy Quaid also became attached to the project to play the Miller brothers.[6]

James Keach later recalled, "Everyone told me, 'You can't get all these guys together; family devotion is one thing, but this is Hollywood.' We decided to prove how serious we were by having a group picture taken. We did it at midnight in a recording studio where Keith was cutting some numbers. We sent limousines for everyone; it was quite a production."[5]

The photograph helped convince NBC to finance Long Riders as a six-hour mini-series. But then Fred Silverman became president of NBC and cancelled all mini-series ordered by his predecessors.[5]

"It was all happening while I was on Bora Bora making The Hurricane," said James. "I spent a lot of time fishing with Tim Zinnemann, who was producing the picture. We became good friends and I told him about Long Riders.[5]

Walter Hill

Zinnemann took the project to United Artists, who were interested in funding the film if a suitable director could be found. Zinnemann showed it to Walter Hill who agreed to direct. Hill had been working on another film which had fallen over "I'd been dying to do a Western for years," he said. "I just like 'em There's a kind of an idyllic quality that surrounds the shooting of them, it seems like a more fundamental film process, more to me what movies are about than clearing crowds off a city street."[7]

Hill called the film a "strange piece";

Instead of the logical conclusion being at Northfield, it then goes on to another phase of a spiral downward, and ends with Jesse's death. It's very hard material to give the proper dramatic curve to. It doesn't lay out in a classic three-act structure. It's almost a four-act piece with Northfield and the aftermath being the culmination of the third act. The fourth act is almost epilogue: How They Went Down... There's a line from a Jean-Luc Godard film: "The jokes are funny but the bullets are real." That's really what this movie is about. These were big, reckless, high-spirited guys that were unaware of the ripples they caused.[8]

By this time the Bridges brothers had become unavailable. Joseph Bottoms had discussed the project with James Keach but wanted himself and his brothers to play the Youngers - parts already reserved for the Carradines.[6] Eventually Randy and Dennis Quaid were signed to play the Miller brothers, and Nicholas and Chris Guest played the Ford brothers.[1]

"The use of all the brothers can be perceived as a gimmick but I wanted a family feeling to the movie," said Hill.[9]

In order to make the film, David Carradine forfeited his customary profit participation; the Keach brothers gave up the extra profit percentages they were entitled to as executive producer in order that the Carradine brothers got the same amount of profits. When the film went over its original $7.5 million budget, the Keaches forfeited their executive producer fees. "The Long Riders has been made on faith and idealism," said Keach.[1]

Walter Hill later said his "code" for the film was to keep "the jokes funny and the bullets real. It is about moral choices. I think people who object to violence shouldn't go to the movies."[9]

Walter Hill later argued that the best film that had been made about the Younger-James brothers prior to this was The Return of Frank James. "In the historical sense it was also the least accurate, but it had a real sense of character truth," he said.[8]

Shooting

Some of the film, especially the Northfield scene, was shot in Parrott, Georgia.[10]

Hill says the most difficult sequence was the one where horses jumped through glass. "We trained them for three weeks, making them do the jump without the glass. Once we conditioned them to that, we put the glass in. It's a big surprise to the horses, and they'll only do it once. We had to use a different set of horses for the second jump."[7]

Hill shot the sequence in slow motion, a technique associated with the Westerns of Sam Peckinpah. Hill believes "the way Sam used slow motion was almost directly opposite to mine. What Sam was doing was making individual moments more real by extending them, kind of underlining the horrible moment of being shot. The Long Riders is meant to be almost dream-like to have the reality of a nightmare, where everything is going wrong but there's no focus to it, you don't know where you are or how you got there."[7]

Reception

The film currently has a 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[11][12][13][14]

Soundtrack

The music for the film was composed, arranged, and performed by Ry Cooder. Other performers on the soundtrack were multi-instramentalist David Lindley and percussionist Milt Holland.[15] Some of the songs were released as an album, The Long Riders. It was the first of several soundtracks Cooder would write for Walter Hill.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 BROTHERS 9 IN 'RIDERS': 'WE'RE FAMILY': BROTHERS NINE IN 'LONG RIDERS' Greco, Mike. Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 21 Oct 1979: n28.
  2. ↑ "The Long Riders (1980)". Box Office Mojo. 1982-01-01. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  3. ↑ Box office figures for Walter Hill films in France at Box Office Story
  4. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: The Long Riders". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-28.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Keach's grit is grease for film's wheels". The Globe and Mail. 17 Aug 1979. p. 13.
  6. 1 2 SCHREGER, CHARLES (2 July 1979). "A Brother Act a la Carradines, Keaches and Quaids". Los Angeles Times. p. e7.
  7. 1 2 3 Turan, Kenneth (May 25, 1980). "Hollywood's Hill -- A Long Ride Up". Washington Post.
  8. 1 2 "Hard Riding", Greco, Mike, Film Comment 16.3 (May/Jun 1980): 13-19,80.
  9. 1 2 'THE LONG RIDERS' IS LONG ON BROTHERS: 'THE LONG RIDERS' Lee, Grant. Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 08 May 1980: h1.
  10. ↑ At the Movies: 'Yanks' stirs memories for its makers. Buckley, Tom. New York Times 28 Sep 1979: C14.
  11. ↑ "The Long Riders". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  12. ↑ Philip French. "The Long Riders | Film | The Observer". Theguardian.com. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  13. ↑ "The Long Riders". Variety. 1979-12-31. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  14. ↑ Schickel, Richard (1980-06-16). "Cinema: Hard Traveling - TIME". Content.time.com. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  15. ↑ The Long Riders, DVD, Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Studios Inc. 2001, credits
  16. ↑ Ry Cooder's Long Ride BY PATRICK ERCOLANO. The Washington Post (1974-Current file) [Washington, D.C] 11 July 1980: PAGE39.
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