The Electric Horseman
The Electric Horseman is a 1979 American western comedy-drama film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda and directed by Sydney Pollack. The film is about a former rodeo champion who is hired by a cereal company to become its spokesperson and then runs away on a $12 million electric-lit horse and costume he is given to promote it in Las Vegas after he finds that the horse has been abused.
For the soundtrack, see The Electric Horseman (album).The Electric Horseman
- Paul Gaer
- Robert Garland
Shelly Burton
- Universal Pictures
- Columbia Pictures
- Wildwood Enterprises
- Rastar Films[1]
- Columbia Pictures (United States)[1][2]
- Universal Pictures (through Cinema International Corporation; International)
- December 21, 1979
121 minutes
United States
English
$12.5 million[3]
$61.8 million[2]
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Casting for The Electric Horseman either continued or led to many reoccurring collaborations between cast and crew members. On November 28, 1978, Robert Redford was announced to star in the film,[4] becoming the fifth film in which Sydney Pollack directed Redford following This Property Is Condemned (1966), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). This director-actor relationship would continue with two more films: Out of Africa (1985) and Havana (1990). Pollack had also previously directed Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), whereas Redford and Fonda previously teamed on The Chase (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967).
The Electric Horseman is noted as being the debut acting performance of long-time country and western singer Willie Nelson, who plays the role of Wendell Hickson. According to Pollack, Nelson improvised most of his dialogue in the film. Pollack would later be executive producer for Nelson's 1980 starring vehicle Honeysuckle Rose. The film was also only the second film performance of character actor Wilford Brimley, who would later team with Redford in The Natural (1984).
Release and reception[edit]
The Electric Horseman was released theatrically in the United States on December 21, 1979. Even with the budget escalating to $12.5 million,[3] the film was a box office success, becoming the eleventh highest grossing film of 1979[12] after grossing a domestic total of nearly $62 million.[2] While the film was co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures, and distributed by Columbia domestically and Universal internationally, the US film rights would later revert to Universal.[13] It has since been released on CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) Videodiscs, VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray by Universal Studios, although current home video releases have replaced "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" with a generic instrumental sound-alike recording in the opening title sequence. A 2019 North American Universal Blu-ray edition returns the music removed on many past video releases.
While the film was a commercial success, it received mixed reviews upon release. Film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 64% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 22 reviews with a "Fresh" rating, with an average score of 5.83/10.[14] The film was also nominated for an Academy Award in 1980 for Best Sound (Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Michael Minkler and Al Overton Jr.).[15] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune called the film "a nicely polished piece of entertainment from director Sydney Pollack, who regularly works with the biggest of stars and rarely lets his camera get in the way of those stars." Siskel, who gave the film three stars, highlighted what he detected to be genuine chemistry between Redford and Fonda. He also lauded the movie's "outstanding secondary cast," including Saxon, Coster and Nelson.[16] Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and called it "the kind of movie they used to make. It's an oddball love story about a guy and a girl and a prize racehorse, and it has a chase scene and some smooching and a happy ending. It could have starred Tracy and Hepburn, or Gable and Colbert, but it doesn't need to because this time it stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda."[17]