Urban Cowboy (1980)

Urban Cowboy, released in 1980, is a movie in which a large part of the action takes place in a honky tonk. Not just a honky tonk, but the world’s biggest honky tonk. It’s Gilley’s in Pasadena Texas and it really existed and it really was the world’s biggest honky tonk.

In fact it’s a movie about the honky tonk. The original idea came from a magazine article about Gilley’s. Somehow or other paramount were persuaded to back such a movie. And it was shot on location at Gilley’s in Pasadena Texas.

It’s also a movie about a mechanical bull.

It’s the story about a cowboy who moves to the Big Smoke. Bud Davis (John Travolta) gets a job in a huge chemical plant. It’s dirty grimy factory work. Pasadena is a grimy industrial city. It’s a long way from home for a young cowpoke. The work is hard but at night there’s Gilley’s. Bud feels at home in Gilley’s. They play great country music. And it’s packed with cowboys (and cowgals) for whom it’s a taste of the world they really love, the world they really understand, the world of wide open spaces and horses and steers.

And there’s the mechanical bull. Which really was the thing that made the real life Gilley’s famous. Bud knows he has to ride that bull.

He meets Sissy (Debra Winger). She’s the kind of girl a cowboy dreams of marrying, a unspoilt down-home country girl, sweet but feisty. They fall in love and get married.

There’s a touching scene which could have been played for cruel mockery but it isn’t. Bud blindfolds Sissy and takes her to see the surprise he’s got for her. It’s a trailer. He’s made a downpayment on it. This will be their dream home. Sissy is over the moon. OK, it’s a trailer home, but it’s their home.

There’s a fly in the ointment, in the person of Wes Hightower (Scott Glenn). This movie is a kind of urban-set western and Wes is the equivalent of the sinister gunslinger who’s going to try to take Bud’s girl from him.

There are traumatic relationship dramas, with not just Sissy cheating on Bud with Wes but Bud cheating on her with Pam (Madolyn Smith Osborne). She’s a spoilt rich girl. Her daddy is a rich oil man but in a western she’d have been the daughter of a rich rancher.

And there’s the bull. Bud is obsessed by the bull. Sissy is obsessed by it as well. And there’s a mechanical bull riding contest with a prize of $5,000, a huge fortune for guys like Bud and Wes. In a western we’d be waiting for the climactic shootout but in this case it will be a climactic showdown in the form of this bull-riding contest.

The sexual connotations are very very obvious, with both Bud and Wes having to prove their manhood. And very obvious sexual connotations to Sissy’s obsession with riding the bull - she doesn’t do it to prove she’s as good as a man she does it because it turns her on.

John Travolta’s performance is the film’s biggest asset. Bud does some bad things but they’re comprehensible and Travolta ensures that Bud never loses our sympathy.

This was made not long after his star-making turn in Saturday Night Fever and the two movies have a lot in common - they’re sleazy and grungy and there’s plenty of despair and bleakness. Urban Cowboy is visually depressing but it’s deliberate. Pasadena Texas is not exactly picturesque. It’s a harsh mean urban landscape.

Debra Winger is very good also. The romantic dramas are believable. Bud and Sissy love each other but they’re too proud and stubborn to ask for forgiveness and we really do believe that that’s the kind of people they are.

The script resists the temptation to make Pam a straightforward Bad Girl. She has her character flaws as well but she’s a decent person and she does love Bud. But is her love as strong as Sissy’s?

If you love country music you’ll be in a state of bliss. There’s lots and lots of country music with performances by genuine country music greats like Bonnie Raitt and the Charlie Daniels Band.

Urban Cowboy was a moderate box office hit. It has some bleakness but some quirkiness as well and it has an engaging love story. Highly recommended.