The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Dir. Sam Peckinpah (1970)

Read the plot here.

Read the cowboy's prayer here.


Sam Peckinpah was my first 'favourite' director, but I only saw The Ballad of Cable Hogue for the first time today. It is an absolute delight.

Cable Hogue is man. Cable's cathedral is the desert under the blue sky. As the Rev. Joshua Douglas Sloan says at Hogue's funeral - that Hogue insists is begun whilst he's still alive to hear what people say - Cable Hogue was not a good man. He was not a bad man. But he was a man.

And that is the spirit of this film. Peckinpah is famed for much violence - here we are treated to Peckinpah being very funny and tender. Tender, for Pekinpah. But one of the most moving things about this film is highlighted in the film poster here. Do unto others.. that's what this film is about. And when Cable falls in love with the the whore from the nearest town we see unfurled a lovely and touching relationship; and an equal one. Hildy scrubs a pound of dirt off Cable, and later Cable tenderly scrubs Hildy. A simple glowing beauty.

This is offset by the fantastically naughty Rev. Joshua Douglas Sloan. He sees a woman in distress;
Reverend Joshua Sloan: Come child, together we shall purge this grief from your soul and release your true spirit as we search a path to righteousness.
...and he comforts her by fondling her breasts and laying her on the bed... it seems to work very well, then her husband comes in and Rev. Joshua Douglas Sloan runs face-first into the backdoor (in sped-up film!) and the woman asks the Reverend: 'Won't you comfort my husband the same way that you done comfort me?'

Rev. Joshua Douglas Sloan is a nomadic minister of the church of his own revelation. He brings with him great themes of theology and religion, but it is all made wonderfully enjoyable by his bawdy thoughts getting the better of him. For example:

Reverend Joshua Sloan: Did it ever occur to you, Cable, how wise and bountiful God was to put breasts on a woman? Just the right number in just the right place. Did you ever notice that, Cable?
Cable Hogue: Well, where in the hell would he put 'em? On their backside?
Reverend Joshua Sloan: It's a thought.

This is a film about the passing of times - as many Peckinpah films are. The stagecoach is about to be replaced by the automobile and Cable knows it. That's for the next man to deal with, he thinks. In the end he is literally killed by the inevitable and unstoppable changing of the times : an automobile's breaks are knocked off and he jumps in front of it to save the life of one of the men who had left him to die in the desert. He lays his hands on the grill and tries to halt the automobile, but the machine rolls forward - no one man strong enough to stop it.

Cable Hogue isn't yellow, he can and does kill. But he honours a code that is as simple as they come, and yet... perhaps the most wise ethical test the ancient world gave to the world of human beings: Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.

Hildy: You've been awful nice to me, Hogue. Never bothered you none what I am?
Cable Hogue: Hell no, it never bothered me. I enjoyed it. Now, what the hell are you? Human being. Try the best you can. We all got our own ways of living.
Hildy: And loving?
Cable Hogue: Gets mighty lonesome without it.

Score: 3.3