The Cowboys
Tags: realism, revenge, cult, murder

Plot synopsis:
When his ranch hands abandon him to join a gold rush, aging rancher Wil Andersen (John Wayne) is forced to find replacement drovers for his upcoming 400-mile (640 km) long cattle drive. He rides into deserted Bozeman, Montana. There, Anse Peterson (Slim Pickens) suggests using local schoolboys. Andersen visits the school but departs unconvinced. The next morning, a group of the boys show up at Andersen's ranch to volunteer for the drive. Andersen tests the boys' ability to stay on a bucking horse. As the boys successfully take turns, Cimarron (A Martinez), another young man slightly older than the others, rides up. After successfully subduing and riding the test horse, Cimarron gets into a fight with Slim (Robert Carradine), the oldest of the boys. Andersen, though impressed by Cimarron's abilities, has misgivings because of his angry nature and sends him away. Andersen reluctantly decides to hire the boys.
While Andersen and the boys prepare for the cattle drive, a group of mysterious men led by "Long Hair" Asa Watts (Bruce Dern) show up asking for work. Andersen catches Watts in a lie about his past, and refuses to hire them. Jebediah "Jeb" Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne), a Black camp cook arrives with a chuck wagon, making Anderson's trail crew complete.
Under Andersen's continued tutelage, the boys learn to rope, brand and herd the cattle and horses. Much to Andersen's concern, Cimarron follows the drive from afar. However, while crossing a river, Slim slips off his horse and, unable to swim, starts to drown. Although Slim is saved by Cimarron, Andersen berates one of the boys for his stuttering problem which nearly caused Slim's death. The stuttering boy swears at Andersen repeatedly, losing his stutter in the process. Satisfied, Andersen decides to let Cimarron stay. During another episode, the boys steal Nightlinger's whiskey and drink it, all of them getting severely drunk. Afterwards, one of the boys, Charlie, falls off his horse and is trampled to death by the herd. Slowly, the boys learn under Andersen's tutelage and become rather good cowhands, impressing both Andersen and Nightlinger.
Soon after, Mr. Nightlinger's chuck wagon throws a wheel. As the cowboys continue to drive the herd, Mr. Nightlinger stays behind to fix the wagon. The rustlers led by Watts begin paralleling the herd, and that night, surprise Andersen and the cowboys in their camp. Watts announces his intention to steal the herd and taunts the boys, but Andersen intervenes and tells Watts it's between the two of them. A brutal fistfight then begins between Andersen and Watts in which Andersen ultimately gains the upper hand. An infuriated Watts grabs a gun, shoots the unarmed Andersen multiple times, and steals the herd.
The following day, Nightlinger catches up to the group to find the boys tending to the dying Andersen. Before succumbing to his wounds, Andersen tells the boys how proud he is of all of them, that every man wants his children to be better than he was, and that they have become so. Following Andersen's burial and on a prearranged signal, the boys overpower and bind Nightlinger, seizing the weapons stored in his chuck wagon and vowing to re-take the herd and finish the trail drive. When the group catches up to the herd and the rustlers, Nightlinger offers to help the boys make a plan to overcome the outlaws. Using ruses, trickery, and ambush, the boys kill the rustlers to a man, including Watts, who is tangled in a horse's harness. Cimarron shoots a gun in the air that spooks the horse and carries Watts to his death.
After the boys complete the drive to Belle Fourche and sell the cattle, they use some of the proceeds to pay a stonemason to carve a marker with Andersen's name and the legend "Beloved Husband and Father," in clear reference to the position that Andersen had earned in their lives. They place the marker in the approximate location of Andersen's grave and head for home.

Review: The Cowboys is directed by Mark Rydell and adapted from the novel written by William Dale Jennings; who co-writes the screenplay with Irving Ravetch & Harriet Frank Jr. It stars John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern and Colleen Dewhurst.
It's a journey of some distinction, for Wil, the boys and the villains who lurk on the edges of the frame.If ever there was a John Wayne picture that was in need of serious critical reevaluation, both as a measure of his acting ability-and quality in film narrative, then The Cowboys is the one.
The complaints come from not enough screen time for Colleen Dewhurst, who playing a bordello madame positively threatens to send the film's rating thru the roof (and the male viewers temperature's), while the running time is simply too long-too episodic-and quite frankly, unnecessary.The Cowboys is not a perceived John Wayne macho based fantasy movie, it has meaning, depth, bravery and a first class performance from the Duke himself.
In this movie, that works wonderfully well.He plays Wil Anderson, a man in his 60s with little else he can do but hire a classroom of boys to help with a cattle drive.
Wil Anderson (John Wayne), a 60 year old cattle rancher is ready to herd his stock to Belle Fouche, but "gold fever" has struck the able-bodied men in his community, so Anderson is left with three choices: Herd the cattle alone; fore-go until next year and leave himself and his wife pauperized; or whip 11 boys from ages 9 through 15 into ridin', ropin' and ranchin' cattle-hands to get his livestock to market.
And as the youngsters become men, Wil Anderson, in his own rough and awkward way, is able to become the father he failed to achieve with his own sons.There is a quaint and delicately restrained scene involving two of the boys stumbling upon a traveling troupe of prostitutes, headed up by Kate, an older Madam seamlessly played by the late, great Colleen Dewhurst.
Wil Andersen (John Wayne) is an aging rancher who traveled 30 miles that day and didn't find a single hand that could throw in with himAnse Petersen (Slim Pickens) suggests to his best friend to hire local teenagers as cowboys for his 400-mile cattle drive So, in the morning the children came very early to put in for the job Obviously, nobody of them has been on a cattle drive For a cook, Wil hires a black man, Jedediah Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne), who asked to be paid $125 knowing he should be got flooded out, stampeded out, frozen out or scalped by wild Red Indians However, a group of rustlers led by Asa Watts (Bruce Dern), the man with the long hair, came looking for work But they were lying  They were after Andersen's 1,500 head of cattleOne day, Andersen knew that Watts and his gang have been paralleling him for the herd He also knew as soon as it's dark they'll be coming in He doesn't know how rough they'll get But right now they think they're one man and a bunch of kids When Jedediah falls behind with a broken wheel on the chuck wagon, Asa makes his move for the herd, engaging Wil in vicious fight There is a funny scene when two of the children meet on the trail a traveling bordello madam led by Colleen Dewhurst And a touching scene where all the boys steal a whiskey bottle and have a little party, discussing the various attributes of their cooker, and his pretty independent character Filled with exciting adventure, gentle amusement, visually stunning photography, but most importantly how to want to see these children growing up so quickly, "The Cowboys" stands simply as one of John Wayne's best Westerns.
"The Cowboys" gives a solid performance by John Wayne, with excellent support from Roscoe Lee Browne and especially Bruce Dern.John Wayne plays his role well as the aging rancher who needs to get his herd on the trail and has trouble finding help.
When the film gets under way, the boys make you think you are in for a relatively smooth ride, but some of the later scenes get pretty intense.Browne has the somewhat trite role of a wisdom-dispensing African-American, but he does have some good lines that he does well with.
Whereas many films today might downplay the issue of his skin color, "The Cowboys" has fairly realistic reactions from a variety of people to a black man working in the West.Bruce Dern comes off as one of the creepiest bad guys in a Western.
He has an especially frightening confrontation with one of the boys, and a wild-eyed showdown with John Wayne that really cements him as one of the worst bad guys ever played in a Western.The story is pretty much by the book, with only one big surprise in a fight near the end.
John Wayne led many a cattle drive, but there's something especially satisfying about this final turn on the trail, alongside ten young boys for what turns out to be a hardnosed yet winning salute to the Duke's legacy of manly comportment."It's not how you're buried, it's how they remember you," Wayne's Wil Andersen tells one of his charges, the half-breed Cimarron (A Martinez), and "The Cowboys" is a two-hour rumination on that theme, of how Andersen, a man whose hard-bitten ways cost him two sons, finds a sort of redemption with these boys who come to help him take his cattle 400 miles to Belle Fourche while the only menfolk are either off panning for gold or else aiming to get their fortune in seedier ways.John Wayne in his post-Oscar years didn't have much to prove, and many of his movies from that time play today as little more than agreeable trips to the well.
I can't figure it out." Seen through that prism, everything Andersen does with his young cowboys makes a lot of sense, right down to the famously grim finale with Bruce Dern, whose memorable "Long Hair" is one of the great Wayne-movie villains.But there's a lot of joy in "The Cowboys", too.
Hard as it is to imagine "The Cowboys" without Wayne, it's harder to imagine it without Roscoe Lee Browne, whose every utterance has a quality of burnished bronze.Director Mark Rydell finds the right tempo and look for his film, aided by John Williams' stirring score and Robert Surtees' camera work.
Despite the long time we spend with them, many of the Cowboys themselves lack for individuality, an exception being Robert Carradine, who plays Slim the de facto leader of the kids, and is the real-life son of Wayne's "Stagecoach" co-star John Carradine."The Cowboys" wasn't Wayne's swansong, yet it's a stirring valedictory effort all the same, a chance to see an enduring screen legend at his late and glorious apex, showing a new generation, and generations yet unborn, a thing or two about getting it done..
As the pre-teenaged boys in New Mexico Territory fight off grownup cattle rustlers under the tutelage of rancher Wil (John Wayne who strides the flick like a dinosaur) and his helper Jebediah Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne) .
With Wil Andersen and ranch-hand Mr. Nightlinger as father figures , as they wet-nursing an entire crew of sub-teenagers on a cattle drive , as the boys learn to become men through hard work , discipline and the usual Western battles with robbers .Nice and agreeable western with a great cast and a sensational John Wayne against his nemesis magnificently played by Bruce Dern in one of his meatiest roles as the villain .
Wayne unmistakeably a legendary figure of the West and by that time he would go playing good Westerns , as he triumphantly survived his own era with titles as ¨True grit¨ in which he won an Academy Award ,¨Big Jake¨, ¨Train robbers¨ , ¨Rooster Cogburn¨ , his last film ¨The Shootist¨, and ,of course , this ¨The cowboys ¨ .
The interaction between the rancher, the boys, the cook (excellently played by Roscoe Lee Brown) and the villains all fit together well and quite believable.This is one of the best movies I have ever seen.
One such occurrence is early in the film when Will Anderson explains the struggle between two bulls in the cattle herd.This is a well done movie topped off with a great John Williams score.
this is a terrific John Wayne western epic.it's the story of Wil Andersen(John Wayne)and the 11 school age boys he ends up hiring for a 400 mile cattle drive.it seems the cattle drivers he was going to use,left for green pasture.well,actually the chance for gold.anyway,Andersen and the boys encounter danger,excitement and adventure along the way.once again,i'm struck by the screen presence Wayne has,though i shouldn't be.this is Wayne in his mid sixties and he still commands the screen.i've seen a few of Wayne's westerns and have enjoyed each one so far.this movie is about 135 minutes,but i was glued to the screen the whole time.for me,The Cowboys is easily a 9/10.
John Wayne plays the role of rancher Wil Anderson, Rosco Lee Browne plays the role of the chuck wagon cook and Bruce Dern plays the role as the ex con Asa Watts.
John Wayne was in many good movies and this film has to rank up there with the best of them.I can remember seeing this epic on the big screen and felt like I was being swept back to a different time in the history of the of our country and realizing how difficult things could be in that time.
With no better options, he reluctantly hires boys from the local schoolhouse (including Robert Carradine in his screen debut), and an experienced, worldly-wise cook named Nightlinger (played to perfection by Roscoe Lee Browne) joins the cattle drive--the first black man the boys have ever seen.
THE COWBOYS is a terrific western with a twist--the "boys" are indeed boys, teen-aged lads fresh out of a country schoolhouse but able to serve as the cowboys JOHN WAYNE needs to drive a herd of cattle 400 miles away to market.
Wayne seems to be in the same position he was facing in RED RIVER, wherein finding the right cowboys for the long cattle drive was the main focus of the story.There's plenty of scenic splendor in vivid Technicolor, a rousing western score by John Williams, and the cast of youngsters all give solidly natural performances under Mark Rydell's direction.Outstanding work by ROSCOE LEE BROWNE as the black cook on the chuck wagon who knows how to deal with a bunch of rambunctious boys, and with an instinct for knowing when not to trust them with mischief.
He plays a key role in the story and he's terrific.Plenty of other good character roles are filled by BRUCE DERN, as the principal villain whose sadistic scene with a young boy is enough to curl your hair, and COLLEEN DEWHURST as the wise madame on the road with her girls.The story hooked me from the start, kept me interested all the way through and only veered into tougher territory during the last forty minutes or so with the brutal showdown between Wayne and Dern.
The odd idea to use kids instead the real cowboys no make sense at all,even if you didn't have these men ready to do a long journey,the premise is dangerous and didn't pay a single death whose will happen along the trip,the way that the teenagers are about to do is more than they really could delivery,so the movie didn't get the target to real life,a kid's life for a few dollars didn't seems a fair trade...but if you forget all this stupid idea the movie could be an easy entertainment for all....a singular performance of old and good Roscoe Lee Browne and some boys.Resume:First watch: 1992 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.
Latter day John Wayne western,an unofficial reworking of the vastly superior RED RIVER(1948)only this time with a strong juvenile flavour.The basic story of Wayne recruiting naive schoolboys for an arduous Cattle Drive never really rings true,but it is pleasantly photographed and decently acted by Wayne,his 'cowboys',and most especially Roscoe Lee Browne.Browne's suave and witty countenance is easily the film's highlight,though Wayne's performance is almost as good.Off-screen,the two actors were poles apart politically(Wayne a right-wing hawk,Browne a left-leaning-liberal),but relations apparently were surprisingly cordial when the cameras weren't running,and this is evident in the fine chemistry between them on-screen.There is some effective comedy relief,but several points mitigate against the film.One is as mentioned,the plot;Bruce Dern,as he sometimes tended to do,goes somewhat over the top as the cowardly and sadistic villain Longhair,and several scenes have a dubious and queasy ambiance about them,especially involving a troupe of prostitutes (led by Colleen Dewhurst)and a finale which strains credulity to absolute snapping point,and is morally very questionable.Also,there's a nice character part for reliable Westerner Slim Pickens;his scenes with the Duke are very enjoyable,but they are all too brief and his role in the film is far too short.Still,also despite the presence of too much sentiment(evident as well in Wayne's CAHILL US MARSHAL the following year,inevitable with the inclusion of schoolboys),the Duke's sheer star quality carries it through;watch out for his visit to his son's graves for a superb piece of acting,not done with any speech but entirely with facial expressions;this touching scene is possibly the best moment in the film..
Sorry to momentarily diverge off the film at hand, but you too might be tempted, while watching THE COWBOYS, to believe John Wayne had suddenly 'discovered' how to act because the whole production is built around his acknowledgment of old age; don't you buy it.
Certainly not his first, second or even third choice but Will is left to recruit the young "whipper-snappers." Now Will must teach the boys the job of being a "cowboy."  The boys become men after many hard struggles along the drive especially bought on by rustler Asa Watts.John Wayne is excellent as Will Andersen.
It's a realistic tale of an aging rancher (John Wayne) who must bring a herd of cattle 400 miles through rough western territory to a town called Bellfush and all of his cowhands that worked for him have deserted him in pursuit of gold.
Then there's trouble when a group of bad men (led by Bruce Dern, in one of the most sadistic villain roles since Henry Fonda's performance in "Once Upon A Time In The West) see the perfect opportunity to make themselves rich by trying to steal the cattle from just "an old man and 11 little boys".
Released in 1972 and directed by Mark Rydell, "The Cowboys" stars John Wayne as an aging rancher who is forced to hire pubescent drovers for a 400-mile cattle drive from Bozeman, Montana, to Belle Fourche, South Dakota, after his ranch hands abandon him for a gold rush.
John Wayne plays a rancher in desperate need of cowboys for a cattle drive after his men quit to try their luck at mining gold.
The story is gullible but entertaining with a very good script and fine acting by all the actors especially the boys.Bruce Dern is chilling as the villain.The outdoor shooting is superb and the music lends to it.I have seen many of Wayne's movies and though his political leanings are evident there is something about his presence that appeals to common sense and being a MAN..
"The Cowboys" is an exception to this rule, however, as the acting of John Wayne, Bruce Dern, and the adolescent cast make this gritty Western stand the test of time.For a basic plot summary, "The Cowboys" sees rancher Wil Andersen (Wayne) deserted by his ranch hands just days before a big scheduled cattle drive.
He, the boys, and the cook Jebediah Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne) have to face obstacles including bandits led by Long Hair (Bruce Dern).It's late in the Duke's career, but he still has his swagger.
The Kids Are Alright.***** The Cowboys (1/13/72) Mark Rydell ~ John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern, Robert Carradine.
But where as THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO deconstructs myths THE COWBOYS is very much the traditional clichéd western with a lot of wish fufillment thrown in John Wayne plays The Duke and this time his name is Wil Anderson .
Movies about cattle drives are not my cup of tea, and this one is not exactly packed with exciting incidents, but nobody can deny that John Wayne is very good in it, and that Bruce Dern makes a pretty creepy villain.
In this film, a group of 14 year old boys are lead on a cross country cattle drive by THE DUKE, who is looking more than a little long in the saddle.
In THE COWBOYS, based on a popular novel, John Wayne plays aging rancher Wil Anderson who is forced to hire a group of youngsters to get his cattle to market.
The cast is so perfect and their acting is superb from the Cowboys themselves (many first time actors), support from Slim Pickens, Colleen Dewhurst and particularly Roscoe Lee Brown, one of the vilest villains ever in Bruce Dern and of course John Wayne in probably his best role ever.
As a result, the film manages to take a very simple idea and make it work--though some might be appalled at the film's ultimate message about guns and death and all that (though I sure thought it was pretty cool).Overall, it's a good later John Wayne flick, thanks to some excellent supporting performances by Roscoe Lee Browne and Bruce Dern---as well as the kids.
With rancher Wil Andersen's (John Wayne) hired hands going for the gold, he breaks down and hires a passel of young school kids to make a cattle drive.
The Cowboys is very well directed and produced, with two fantastic performances by John Wayne and Roscoe Lee Brown, along with some genuinely appealing kids.