The Outlaw Josey Wales is a 1976 American
revisionist WesternThe Revisionist Western, Modern Western or Anti-Western traces to the mid 1960s and early 1970s as a sub-genre of the Western movie....
film set during and after the end of the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. It was directed by and starred
Clint EastwoodClinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
(as the eponymous
Josey WalesJosey Wales is a fictional character created by author Forrest Carter, for his novel The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales . Wales is portrayed in the 1976 western film The Outlaw Josey Wales by actor and director Clint Eastwood...
), with Chief Dan George,
Sondra LockeSondra Locke is an American actress, singer and film director.She made her film debut in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter , for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress...
,
Sam BottomsSamuel John "Sam" Bottoms was an American actor and producer.-Personal life:Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the third son of James "Bud" Bottoms and Betty , both of whom survive him...
, and
Geraldine KeamsGeraldine Keams is an American actress. She is best known for her work in numerous television series often playing a motherly role...
.
The film was adapted by Sonia Chernus and
Philip KaufmanPhilip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
from the novel
The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (republished in 1975 as
Gone to Texas) by
Forrest CarterAsa Earl Carter was an American political speechwriter and author. He was most notable for publishing novels and a best-selling, award-winning memoir under the name Forrest Carter, an identity as a Native American Cherokee...
. In 1996, the film was selected for preservation in the
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
of the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
Plot
Josey WalesJosey Wales is a fictional character created by author Forrest Carter, for his novel The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales . Wales is portrayed in the 1976 western film The Outlaw Josey Wales by actor and director Clint Eastwood...
, a peaceful
MissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
farmer, is driven to revenge by the brutal murder of his wife and son by a band of pro-
UnionDuring the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
JayhawkerJayhawkers is a term that came to prominence just before the American Civil War in Bleeding Kansas, where it was adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause. These bands, known as "Jayhawkers", were guerrilla fighters who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri known...
s — Senator James H. Lane's Redlegs from
KansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
.
Wales joins a group of pro-
ConfederateThe Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
Missouri
guerrillasGuerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
(
bushwhackerBushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common during the American Revolutionary War, American Civil War and other conflicts in which there are large areas of contested land and few Governmental Resources to control these tracts...
s or "border ruffians") led by
William T. AndersonWilliam T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson was a pro-Confederate guerrilla leader in the American Civil War.Anderson was known for his brutality towards Union soldiers, and pro Union partisans, who were called Jayhawkers. Anderson participated in Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863...
. At the conclusion of the war, Captain Fletcher persuades the guerrillas to surrender, saying they have been granted amnesty. Josey Wales, still holding a grudge, refuses to surrender. As a result, he survives the massacre of the men by Captain Terrill's Redlegs, who've now joined the Union Army.
Wales intervenes and guns down several Redlegs with a
Gatling gunThe Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...
. Senator Lane puts up a $5,000 bounty on Wales. Wales begins a life on the run from Union militia and bounty hunters while still seeking vengeance and a chance for a new beginning in Texas. Along the way, he unwillingly accumulates a diverse group of traveling companions despite all indications that he would rather be left alone. His companions include a wily old
CherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
named Lone Watie, a young
NavajoThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
woman, and an elderly Yankee woman from Kansas and her granddaughter rescued from a band of Comancheros.
In the final showdown, Josey and his companions are cornered in a ranch house which is fortified to withstand Indian raids. The Redlegs attack but are systematically gunned down or sent running by the defenders. Wales eventually runs out of ammunition and pursues the fleeing Captain Terrill on horseback. When he catches up to him, Josey confronts Terrill and
dry fireDry firing is the practice of "firing" a firearm without ammunition. That is, to pull the trigger and allow the hammer or striker to drop on an empty chamber....
s his pistols through all twenty–four empty chambers before stabbing the captain with his own cavalry sword.
At the bar in Santa Rio, Josey Wales, wounded from the fight with the soldiers, goes in to find Fletcher with two Texas Rangers and some of the locals tell them that Wales was gunned down by five pistoleros in Monterrey, Mexico. The Rangers accept this story and move on but Fletcher refuses to believe their story. Fletcher says that he will go to Mexico and look for Wales and says that he will give Wales the first move as he "owes him that." Wales rides off.
Cast
- Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
as Josey Wales
- Chief Dan George as Lone Watie
- Sondra Locke
Sondra Locke is an American actress, singer and film director.She made her film debut in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter , for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress...
as Laura Lee
- Bill McKinney
Bill McKinney is an American character actor whose most famous role was the sadistic mountain man in the movie Deliverance...
as Terrill
- John Vernon
John Keith Vernon was a Canadian actor. He made a career in Hollywood after achieving initial television stardom in Canada.-Early life:...
as Fletcher
- Paula Trueman
Paula Trueman was an American film, television, and theater actress.-Life and career:...
as Grandma Sarah
- Sam Bottoms
Samuel John "Sam" Bottoms was an American actor and producer.-Personal life:Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the third son of James "Bud" Bottoms and Betty , both of whom survive him...
as Jamie
- Geraldine Keams
Geraldine Keams is an American actress. She is best known for her work in numerous television series often playing a motherly role...
as Little Moonlight
- Woodrow Parfrey
Woodrow Parfrey was an American film and television actor from the 1950s to the early 1980s. e appeared on Broadway in Advise and Consent .-Biography:...
as Carpetbagger
- Joyce Jameson
Joyce Jameson was an American actress best remembered for her blonde bimbo roles during the Marilyn Monroe period...
as Rose
- Sheb Wooley
Shelby F. "Sheb" Wooley was a character actor and singer, best known for his 1958 novelty song "Purple People Eater"...
as Travis Cobb
- Royal Dano
Royal Edward Dano was an American film and television character actor.-Early life:Dano was born in New York City to Mary Josephine , an Irish immigrant, and Caleb Edward Dano, a printer for newspapers. He reportedly left home at the age of twelve and at various intervals, lived in Florida, Texas...
as Ten Spot
- Matt Clark
Matt Clark is an American actor and director with credits in both film and television. Clark has played diverse character roles in Westerns, comedies, and dramas....
as Kelly
- Will Sampson
Will Sampson was an American actor and artist.-Life and career:Sampson, a Native American Muscogee , was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Sampson's most notable roles were as "Chief Bromden" in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and as "Taylor the Medicine Man" in the horror film Poltergeist II...
as Ten Bears
- John Quade
John William Saunders , better known by the stage name John Quade, was an American character actor who starred in film and in television...
as Comanchero Leader
- Richard Farnsworth
Richard W. Farnsworth was an American actor and stuntman. His film career began in 1937; however, he achieved his greatest success for his performances in The Grey Fox and The Straight Story , for which he received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor.- Early life :Farnsworth was born...
as one of the Comancheros
- Kyle Eastwood
Kyle Eastwood is an American jazz musician. He studied film at the University of Southern California for two years before embarking on a music career. After becoming a session player in the early '90s and leading his own quartet, he released his first solo album, From There to Here, in 1998...
as Josey's son
- Len Lesser
Leonard King "Len" Lesser was an American actor. He was known for a key role in the Clint Eastwood movie Kelly's Heroes and his recurring role as Uncle Leo in Seinfeld, which began during the show's second season in "The Pony Remark" episode.-Early life:Lesser was born in The Bronx in 1922...
as Abe
- Doug McGrath
Doug McGrath, born in Nova Scotia, Canada on Aug 21,1939 is a Canadian actor whose most notable role was of "Peter" in the acclaimed Canadian film Goin' Down the Road. He also played in acclaimed Canadian films Wedding in White, The Hard Part Begins and Black Christmas...
as Lige
- John Russell
John Lawrence Russell was an American actor, and World War II veteran, most noted for playing Marshal Dan Troop in the successful ABC western television series Lawman from 1958 to 1962....
as Bloody Bill Anderson
- John Chandler
John Davis Chandler was an American actor. He portrayed the gangster Vincent Coll in the sensationalized and factually inaccurate 1962 movie Mad Dog Coll. Chandler also appeared in several of Sam Peckinpah's Western films...
as first bounty hunter
Production
The Outlaw Josey Wales was inspired by a 1972 novel by Forrest Carter, originally titled
The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales and later retitled
Gone to Texas. The script was worked on by Sonia Chernus and producer Bob Daley at Malpaso and Eastwood himself paid some of the money to obtain the screen rights.
Michael CiminoMichael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
and
Philip KaufmanPhilip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
later oversaw the writing of the script, aiding Chernus. Kaufman wanted the film to stay as close to the novel as possible and retained many of the mannerisms in Wales's character which Eastwood would display on screen, such as his distinctive lingo with words like "reckon", "hoss" (instead of "horse") and "ye" (instead of "you") and spitting tobacco juice on animals and victims. The characters of Wales, the
CherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
chief,
NavajoThe Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
squaw and the old settler woman and her daughter all appeared in the novel.
Cinematographer
Bruce SurteesBruce Mohr Powell Surtees is an American cinematographer, the son of Robert L. Surtees. He is best known for his extensive work in Clint Eastwood films, mostly westerns of the 1970s and early 1980s...
,
James FargoJames Fargo is an American film director. He directed numerous films from 1976 to 1998. After serving as assistant director on many movies starring Clint Eastwood, he was then given the chance to direct the third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer, in 1976. Later he also directed Eastwood in 1978's...
, and Fritz Manes scouted for locations and eventually found sites in
UtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
,
ArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
,
WyomingWyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
, and
Oroville, CaliforniaOroville is the county seat of Butte County, California. The population was 15,506 at the 2010 census, up from 13,004 at the 2000 census...
even before they saw the final script. Kaufman cast Chief Dan George, who had been nominated for an Academy Award for Supporting Actor in
Little Big Man as the old Cherokee Lone Watie.
Sondra LockeSondra Locke is an American actress, singer and film director.She made her film debut in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter , for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress...
, also a previous Academy Award nominee was cast by Eastwood against Kaufman's wishes, as the granddaughter of the old settler woman, Laura Lee. This marked the beginning of a close relationship between Eastwood and Locke that would last six films and the beginning of a romance that would last into the late 1980s. The film also featured his real-life seven-year old son
Kyle EastwoodKyle Eastwood is an American jazz musician. He studied film at the University of Southern California for two years before embarking on a music career. After becoming a session player in the early '90s and leading his own quartet, he released his first solo album, From There to Here, in 1998...
, with
Ferris WebsterFerris Webster was an American film editor with about seventy-two film credits. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his work on Blackboard Jungle , The Manchurian Candidate , and The Great Escape .Webster was raised in the state of Washington, and was a student at the University of Southern...
hired as editor and
Jerry FieldingJerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...
as musical composer.
Principal photography began in mid-October 1975. A rift between Eastwood and Kaufman developed during the filming. Kaufman insisted on filming with a meticulous attention to detail which caused disagreements with Eastwood, not to mention the attraction the two shared towards Locke and apparent jealousy on Kaufman's part in regards to their emerging relationship. One evening Kaufman insisted on finding a beer can as a prop to be used in a scene but whilst he was absent, Eastwood ordered Surtees to quickly shoot the scene as light was fading and then drove away, leaving Kaufman before he had returned. Soon after filming moved to Kanab, Utah on October 24, 1975, Kaufman was fired at Eastwood's command by producer Bob Daley. The sacking caused an outrage amongst the
Directors Guild of AmericaDirectors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
and other important Hollywood executives, since the director had already worked hard on the film, including completing all of the pre-production. Pressure mounted on Warner Brothers and Eastwood to back down, but their refusal to do so resulted in a fine, reported to be around $60,000 for the violation. This resulted in the Director's Guild passing new legislation, known as 'the Clint Eastwood Rule' in which they reserved the right to impose a major fine on a producer for discharging a director and replacing that director with himself. From then on the film was directed by Eastwood himself with Daley second in command, but with Kaufman's planning already in place, the team were able to finish making the film efficiently.
Reception
Upon release in August 1976,
The Outlaw Josey Wales was widely acclaimed by critics. Many critics and viewers saw Eastwood's role as an iconic one, relating it with much of America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War. The film was pre-screened at the
Sun ValleySun Valley is the name of several places in the United States of America:*Sun Valley, Idaho, a ski area and resort community in central Idaho*Sun Valley, Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley*Sun Valley, Nevada, a suburb north of Reno...
Center for the Arts and Humanities in
IdahoIdaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
in a six-day conference entitled
Western Movies: Myths and Images. Some two hundred esteemed film critics, academics and directors including critics
Jay CocksJay Cocks is a film critic and motion picture screenwriter.He is a graduate of Kenyon College. He was a critic for Time, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, among other magazines, before moving into film writing....
and
Arthur KnightArthur Knight was a movie critic, film historian, professor and TV host.His book The Liveliest Art, first published in 1957, is a history of the cinema used as a text book at colleges and universities throughout the world.-Early life:...
and directors such as
King VidorKing Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
,
William WylerWilliam Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
and
Howard HawksHoward Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
were invited to the screening. The film would later appear in
Time magazine's Top 10 films of the year. Roger Ebert compared the nature and vulnerability of Eastwood's portrayal of Josey Wales with his "
Man with No NameThe man with no name is a stock character in Western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy."...
" character in the
Dollars TrilogyThe "Dollars Trilogy" , also known as the "Man with No Name Trilogy", refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars , For a Few Dollars More , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .A Fistful of Dollars is an unofficial remake of...
and praised the atmosphere of the film.
The film is seen by many as a Western masterpiece and has been awarded a 97% rating on the critical website Rotten Tomatoes.
The Outlaw Josey Wales was nominated for the
Academy Award for Original Music ScoreThe Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
. In 1996, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and selected for preservation in their
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
. It was also one of the few Western films to receive critical and commercial success in the 1970s at a time when the Western was thought to be dying as a major genre in Hollywood.
Clint Eastwood says on the 1999 DVD release that the movie is "certainly one of the high points of my career... in the Western genre of filmmaking."
Meaning
Eastwood has called
The Outlaw Josey Wales an
anti-war filmAn anti-war film is a film that emphasizes the pain, horror, and human costs of armed conflict. While some films criticize armed conflicts in a general sense, others focus on acts within a specific war, such as the use of poison gas or the genocidal killing of civilians . Some anti-war films such...
. In an interview with the
Wall Street Journal, he said:
As for Josey Wales, I saw the parallels to the modern day at that time. Everybody gets tired of it, but it never ends. A war is a horrible thing, but it's also a unifier of countries. . . . Man becomes his most creative during war. Look at the amount of weaponry that was made in four short years of World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
—the amount of ships and guns and tanks and inventions and planes and P-38s and P-51s, and just the urgency and the camaraderie, and the unifying. But that's kind of a sad statement on mankind, if that's what it takes.
Historical basis
Josey Wales' circumstances somewhat mirror those of a notorious
bushwhackerBushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common during the American Revolutionary War, American Civil War and other conflicts in which there are large areas of contested land and few Governmental Resources to control these tracts...
named Bill Wilson, a folk hero in
PhelpsPhelps County is a county located in south-central Missouri in the United States.According to the U.S. Census Bureau, it includes the mean center of U.S. population in 2000. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the county's population was 39,825. A 2008 estimate, however, showed the population to be 42,205....
and
Maries counties in Missouri. During the war, loyalties in Missouri were divided. Bill Wilson maintained a neutral stance until a confrontation with Union soldiers on his farm on Corn Creek near
Edgar Springs, Missouri. Wilson became a wanted outlaw before leaving for Texas.
The character Fletcher is loosely based on Capt. Dave Poole, one of
Quantrill's RaidersQuantrill's Raiders were a loosely organized force of pro-Confederate Partisan rangers, "bushwhackers", who fought in the American Civil War under the leadership of William Clarke Quantrill...
. After the war, Poole assisted Federal authorities in convincing guerrillas to give up the fight and surrender.
This film is the first to confront the history of the Missourians who fell prey to Kansas-based Unionists who called themselves Redlegs (after their red-striped stockings and gaiters) and
JayhawkerJayhawkers is a term that came to prominence just before the American Civil War in Bleeding Kansas, where it was adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause. These bands, known as "Jayhawkers", were guerrilla fighters who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri known...
s. It is a revisionist film in that it abandons the standard presentations of the Unionists that characterized Hollywood productions up to that time, along with the dark depictions of the Missouri riders.
The Outlaw Josey Wales reverses these stereotypes.