THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO (DUST, SWEAT AND GUNPOWDER)

US, 1972, 92 minutes, Colour.
Gary Grimes, Billy "Green" Bush, Luke Askew, Bo Hopkins, Geoffrey Lewis.
Directed by Dick Richards.

The young hero of this film, played by Gary Grimes, wants to be a cowboy more than anything. By the end of the film he has gone on a cattle trek, been a cowboy and experienced the dust, sweat, gunpowder, isolation, ugliness and death of the west.

This is that kind of Western. As such, it should provide satisfying enough entertainment for the fans who are now used to anti-western westerns. However, the film tries to have the best of both worlds, showing us gunfights, confrontations and myriad tough cowboy poses for the expected audience response and then goes on to disillusion the hero about it all.

1. The original title of the film was 'The Culpepper Cattle Company'. Is the present title a better one? Why?

2. Was this a good Western? Why?

3. Comment on the nostalgia of the photos used during the credits and the music used during the film.

4. The film was made from the perspective of a boy. How well was this done? How was this illustrated in the initial sequence? The boy's ambitions?

5. The film also showed the cowboy perspective. How was this done? The conventions of the cowboy's life. the cowboy phrases and poses? The Culpepper cowboys? The gun-fighters?

6. The film was made from the perspective of the cattle trek. Was the reality of the trek well shown? Did the Culpepper Company make sense in this perspective?

7. How did the hero fit into the cattle trek? Why did he have to start as a kitchen boy? How did he make friends with people? How was a boy meant to learn how to be a cowboy?

8. How good an adventure was this: - the trek itself. the difficulties of the trek. cattle being stolen, robberies and violence, the possbillities of death?

9. How did the film show a boy proving himself in the West? How did he have to learn to grow up? Was this a worthwhile way of growing up?

10. What impression did the gun-fighters make, their violence, their rather stupid poses? Their belief in themselves? Their taking justice and law into their own hands? Were they in any way admirable?

11. How was the West ugly, especially in terms of dust, sweat and gunpowder?

12. How did the geographical changes of the trek correspond to the growing harshness of the West and the disillusionment with the West?

13. What did the film show about the large property owners and their owning of the towns and their cruelty?

14. What impression did the religious brethren make? Why were they there? How sane were they? what made them this way? Why did their plight appeal to the boy?

15. The impact of the shootout? Why did the men come to the boy's aid? Did they expect to die? Was there something fatalistic in their expectations that they would be shot? were you surprised at the reaction of the brethren when they left this place?

16. How disillusioning was this experience for the boy? Why? What future would he have had - a cowboy?

17. This film showed disillusion with the West. nevertheless it used all the conventions of posses and violence. Did it try to be both for and against Westerns at the same time? Was it successful?