By Bradley Towle
WEST FULTON & HOLLYWOOD — There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that when the famed character and West Fulton resident John McGiver read the script for 1969's Midnight Cowboy, he tossed it in the trash, apparently uninterested in the opportunity for the role he was offered in the film as Mr. O'Daniel. According to the legend, when his wife asked him what it was, he dismissed it as not something he wanted to do. She lifted it from the garbage and reminded him he had mouths to feed, so he better take the job. Legends and rumors morph with the years, and I have no idea how accurate the anecdote of McGiver's reaction to the script for Midnight Cowboy might be. Still, it is conceivable that the seasoned actor, whose career began in earnest in the mid-1950s within a well-oiled studio system working under the strict censorship guidelines of the Hays Code and the threat of McCarthyism, would not have understood how the film script that just crossed his desk could have the possibility of success. But by the late 1960s, the Hollywood McGiver had been working in had become confused and out of touch with the counter-culture, the Hays Code was gone, and McCarthy's influence had thankfully come to an end. McGiver, like many others involved, may not have understood the New Hollywood just yet.
When British director John Schlesinger brought the idea of turning James Leo Herlihy's 1965 novel into a film to United Artists and producer Jerome Hellman, it could not have been made. The Hays Code was still in place (although dying a slow death), and as film historian and journalist Mark Harris points out in his essay about Midnight Cowboy, an argument was ongoing at Warner Bros. about exactly what the acceptable number of times "goddamn" could be used in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? — hardly a welcoming environment for a film about down-and-out hustlers and male sex workers on the fringes in New York City. But things were on the cusp of change, and to his credit, Schlesinger, a rare-for-the-time openly gay filmmaker, on the heels of an Oscar nomination for 1965's Darling gambled that the writing was on the wall, and along with Hellman, committed to bringing Midnight Cowboy to life.
The radical shift that occurred in the late 1960s in Hollywood is a well-documented phenomenon (for a deeper dive, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood and Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood are revered explorations of the subject). In a nutshell, Hollywood studio heads were out of touch and confused by the counter-culture. Like many of their generation, they could not understand the youth of the 1960s, which also meant they could not sell a product to this new audience. Easy Rider, an independently produced film that was a success without traditional studio backing (Columbia Pictures did distribute the film but had no role or say in its creation), did its part to briefly upend the entire business model— the studios now needed the artists more than the artists needed the studios. The implication was that if studios wanted a hit—wanted their money—they would have to loosen the reins and allow a new generation of filmmakers, writers, and actors to run wild. The world had cracked open, and the walls of the studios were not strong enough to withstand the tectonic shifts of the late 1960s.
Schlesinger hired the wonderfully named Waldo Salt to create a screenplay for Midnight Cowboy while he worked on another film (1967's Far from The Madding Crowd). Salt had been blacklisted in 1951 for refusing to testify before McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities and, like many other screenwriters, had struggled to find work ever since. By 1968, the Hays Code was officially gone, and that Spring, filming for Midnight Cowboy began. Their gamble had paid off, and the door was open for Schlesinger's film. (Salt would go on to win an Academy Award for Midnight Cowboy. Take that, McCarthy.)
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) replaced the Hays Code with an internal rating system in 1968, a self-regulatory effort designed by MPAA president Jack Valenti to ward off external censorship. When Midnight Cowboy opened in May 1969, the rating system had four ratings: G, M (for "mature audiences"), R, and X. Initially, the MPAA gave Midnight Cowboy an R, but after consulting with a psychologist, they gave the film an X-rating. The psychologist had cited a "homosexual frame of reference" and its "possible influence on youngsters" as the reason for their recommendation— remember, homosexuality was still officially considered a mental illness in 1969. United Artists opted to lean into the controversy and slapped an enticing tagline —"Whatever you hear about Midnight Cowboy is true"—on the promotional campaign. When the film went on to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, the only X-rated film to ever do so, an embarrassed MPAA re-rated it an R.
Even the film's main backdrop, New York City, would have been an unlikely possibility only a few years earlier. In the Spring of 1966, newly elected Mayor John Lindsay signed Executive Order Number 10, establishing The Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting. It may be difficult to imagine now, but the Big Apple had hardly been depicted in film since the early 1930s. There were, of course, exceptions (1951's The Model and The Marriage Broker, another movie with Schoharie County connections, shot scenes in the city). Still, it was rare, and Hollywood sets and Californian cities were stand-ins when needed. Lindsay's order changed all of that. By the time filming began for Midnight Cowboy in 1968, the world had bent in its favor. The gritty depiction of a long-extinct Times Square riddled with peep shows, grifters, and condemned buildings that Schlesinger utilized could only be depicted and preserved on film through a rather radical proposal by Lindsay.
At its heart, Midnight Cowboy is a buddy movie about two lonely people pleasers with no healthy way of attaining the affirmation they so desire. Jon Voight's Joe Buck looks so lost at times that it's easy to forget that an actor with enough confidence to star in a film is actively portraying him. There's also something comedic about Buck, a naïve rube with the world's worst idea for making it big, wandering the streets of Manhattan in his Western wear. I can't help but think that Will Ferrel walking the streets of the city in Elf upon his arrival owes something to these scenes in Midnight Cowboy. In an example of just how disconnected the studio heads were from the zeitgeist, one producer suggested that Elvis play Joe Buck and sing songs throughout the film. Given Elvis' willingness to be a "narc for Nixon," it's hard to imagine The King would have been interested in the role.
Dustin Hoffman was eager to play Enrique "Ratso" Rizzo, but it required shaking off a bit of the clean-cut kid image he'd cultivated (or rather, that was cultivated for him) after the success of The Graduate in 1967. He reportedly told a skeptical producer at United Artists to meet him on a street corner to chat. The producer waited, not seeing Hoffman, who had dressed as a vagrant, hovering around the producer, asking passersby for change. Hoffman eventually revealed himself, and the rest is history. Joe Buck and "Ratso" Rizzo remain an iconic and unlikely duo, as two lost souls in need of more humanity than New York's cruel and seedy underbelly could offer.
Whether the story about John McGiver tossing the script in the trash is apocryphal or not, he was a professional, and the seasoned character actor brought his A-game for his role as the wild-eyed religious zealot Mr. O'Daniel. It is entirely understandable why the actor would not have understood or seen the vision in the script for Midnight Cowboy or even thought the production possible. Fortunately for us, he had mouths to feed.
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