Little slice of heaven

[banjomike]

Heaven's Gate grew on me.
The first time I watched it I thought it was a mess, too. I saw the shortened release that was the only one available for a long time. When the director's cut came out, it was definitely better, but all my criticisms still remain. I enjoy it now for the majestic scenery and the historic details, but every time I watch it, the flaws always become more apparent.

I've often wondered what another director would have done, given the same budget and freedom. A director who knew how to make a Western. John Ford, William Wyler, or even the Cohen brothers would have delivered a much better picture.

The biggest thing that's always bugged me are the immigrants. Eastern-Europeans didn't move out here en masse to homestead. The homesteaders of the period were Scandinavians, Germans, and Southerners, not Slavs. Many arrived by train, but didn't come out here pulling pushcarts.

Cimino was born in NYC, a city boy to the core, and while he was a good screenwriter, he never had any real feel for the Old West.
The class struggle out here was real back then, and his portrayal of the wealthy land and livestock barons was accurate enough, but the homesteaders were totally wrong. Ironically, the places where the Slavs did migrate to were the mining towns like Wallace.

Cimino tried to graft what was going on in the big cities into his story, and that's a big part of why the picture failed. A decade later, the movie Tom Horn made a much better portrayal of the class tensions of the period, and was one of Steve McQueen's best movies.

A lot of the incidents that seem to be the most fictional are also true. Ned Champion's stand-off to the death actually happened just as it was in the movie. He really did write a running account of the battle as it went on, and the account was found in his shirt pocket after his death. I read it long before the movie was ever made.

Another part of the movie, the portrayal of the madam and her prostitutes, was also accurate. There were a lot of young Slavic immigrant women who drifted west, and prostitution was legal in all the intermountain territories at that time. In Idaho, like it was in Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana, it was a county option until ca. 1969; Wallace had a couple of brothels, as did Kellogg, as they were a way of keeping the peace.
A town's respectable women were often the ones who wanted a brothel the most, as they weren't accosted on the streets when a brothel existed, and street fights didn't break out so often.

In the late 1880s, prostitution was a way a young woman could find a husband with better financial prospects than another immigrant. Most eventually married and led most of their lives very respectably afterward.

The brothels were seen as a civilizing influence, and they were also a business opportunity for an ambitious young woman. Many women who started out as prostitutes, then became madams, often became the first town bankers as time went on. A madam was often the wealthiest person in a town, and some went on to become local and state political leaders later on.

Others went on to buy out the land barons from the east after a few hard winters and the end of open range bankrupted them. There were many wealthy second sons who knew nothing of what it took to ranch out here, and lure of the far west then was even stronger then than it is now to them.
The movie showed their arrogance and hubris, for sure, and the territorial governments were in their pockets. Not all of them were Americans, either; many were British and Italians, nobles or rich commoners, who used their fortunes to buy land empires, a thing no one could buy in Europe as easily.

They didn't go to shooting at the squatters, though, as it was in the movie. They hired guys like Ned Champion and Tom Horn to do that work for them instead, along with outfits like the Pinkertons and other mercenary 'agencies' of the time.

The roller rink was also accurate. Roller skating was a huge fad, brand new then, as were bicycles. Both were extremely popular out here, as a roller rink was a good, respectable way a young girl could meet a young man. Bicycle races were held in them, and during the winter, the rinks became dance hall/social clubs. As civic centers, they often were used for shelter for those trapped in town after a blizzard as well, and for voting and town meetings.

The rinks often had no-alcohol days, and some forbade any alcohol. The prohibitionist movement began in the 1880s, and gained strength rapidly in the west as the early camps became settled communities. Whiskey Row was always at the edge of town at that time, so the trouble moved outward, not toward the population center.

[redwood66]

You are great to post all your insight into the time Mike. I have to say that I did hear quite a bit of German being spoken in the several town crowd scenes in the roller rink. Especially at the end when they decide to attack. Tom Horn is an excellent movie and definitely a look into that world of the vigilantes and mercenaries.

Another series that we think is good if you can stand all the bad language is Deadwood. It is filled with the F-word though. And other lovely language.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Tom Horn is one of my top Westerns, too! I forgot to put it on my list. I went to a Tom Horn (the real Tom Horn, not Steve McQueen) conference in Buffalo, WY in 2005--it was amazing to be in the company of hundreds of passionate people who were (also ) convinced that he got a raw deal. McQueen himself also had a passion for the Tom Horn story--he bought the rights to the Tom Horn script, and was instrumental in getting the movie made. Nobody really paid attention to it at the time, but it has become one of those sleeper classics that is recognized for its excellence and authentic flavor (although McQueen doesn't look anything like the real Horn).

The Idaho relevance? Of course McQueen owned a ranch in Ketchum, and was planning on opening an honest-to-goodness general store. He'd hoped to come back to Idaho and spend the rest of his life in Ketchum with his collections of cars and Western memorabilia, but he lost his battle with cancer in 1980. He was only 50. I went to an auction in Los Angeles about 10 years ago where his personal collections were being sold, and I bid on his annotated copy of the Tom Horn screenplay, but it went for hundreds of dollars more than I could afford. Ironically, one of his beautiful cars went for no more than anybody's used car would cost--but his sunglasses from The Thomas Crown Affair netted over $70,000! I had to look it up, and sure enough:

Steve McQueen's Sunglasses Net Over $70,000 in Auction of His Property | Fox News

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Clark Fork Fantast

Tom Horn is one of my top Westerns, too! I forgot to put it on my list. I went to a Tom Horn (the real Tom Horn, not Steve McQueen) conference in Buffalo, WY in 2005--it was amazing to be in the company of hundreds of passionate people who were (also ) convinced that he got a raw deal. McQueen himself also had a passion for the Tom Horn story--he bought the rights to the Tom Horn script, and was instrumental in getting the movie made. Nobody really paid attention to it at the time, but it has become one of those sleeper classics that is recognized for its excellence and authentic flavor (although McQueen doesn't look anything like the real Horn).

The Idaho relevance? Of course McQueen owned a ranch in Ketchum, and was planning on opening an honest-to-goodness general store. He'd hoped to come back to Idaho and spend the rest of his life in Ketchum with his collections of cars and Western memorabilia, but he lost his battle with cancer in 1980. He was only 50. I went to an auction in Los Angeles about 10 years ago where his personal collections were being sold, and I bid on his annotated copy of the Tom Horn screenplay, but it went for hundreds of dollars more than I could afford. Ironically, one of his beautiful cars went for no more than anybody's used car would cost--but his sunglasses from The Thomas Crown Affair netted over $70,000! I had to look it up, and sure enough:

Steve McQueen's Sunglasses Net Over $70,000 in Auction of His Property | Fox News

Yup. Steve loved Idaho.
Ironically, when he moved here, he gave up driving all the fast cars he loved so much; after he settled in here, his favorite wheels was an old Chevy pickup. He blended right in with all the cowboy hippies in Ketchum un-noticed when he was driving it, and it probably got him to places where none of his fast cars could.

The place he bought is pretty un-prepossessing; while it's nice and all, it's nothing special, especially when compared to the whopping luxury of the trophy houses and cabins that litter the Wood River valley.

I always though McQueen was one of the very best Western actors, right from his first big roles in TV westerns.