Sydney Pollack’s The Electric Horseman is my sort of 70’s, honkytonk, pseudo-Western fun. You get a sloppy drunk Robert Redford in the opening act, all glammed-out in his garish light-up outfit atop his horse, making kissy-faces and stealing glances with a sexy Jane Fonda, while a fantastic supporting cast including Valerie Perrine, Wilford Brimley, Allan Arbus, John Saxon, Nicholas Coster, and Willie Nelson (who provided the country western score and lots of sly laughs) peppers the background with flavor. Redford is a past his prime rodeo champion who has resorted to a humiliating job as a promotional pitch-man for a breakfast cereal company, making appearances in a tacky Las Vegas show. He’s then tasked with performing alongside a $12 million horse, which he later discovers is being drugged so that it would be complacent, and he high-tails it into the desert, disgusted by what he’s witnessed. Meanwhile, Fonda, playing an eager TV reporter, hears about the incident, and pursues Redford, looking for her big story. The movie is a comment about big corporations, a satire on the conventions of the western, and a genial romance between Redford and Fonda with some action-adventure thrown in for good measure. The Electric Horseman has an old-fashioned atmosphere and tone (even for 1979!) and it sort of shambles on to its happy but still bittersweet finale. Pollack’s solid direction keeps this oddly charming film watchable all throughout, while the peppy and romantic score from Dave Grusin immediately set a playful mood. Great cinematography by Owen Roizman.
Podcasting Them Softly 