Urban Cowboy (1980) and the earlier John Travolta super hit Saturday Night Fever (1977) have several things in common: they're both based on magazine articles about an urban nightlife phenomenon, in this case the two-steppin', mechanical-bull-ridin' megaclubs of Texas rather than the discos of New York's outer boroughs; they both featured Travolta as a callow young man whose experiences bring him to question his "club kid" pose. Although Urban Cowboy did not receive the critical acclaim or achieve the box office success of its predecessor, it did spawn a brief national music, dance and fashion craze that, like the earlier film, ranged farther than its regional roots (even to the point of having mechanical bulls turn up in bars in Belgium, Sweden, South Africa and on a US Navy aircraft carrier).
What was different this time around was its star. John Travolta had experienced a phenomenal rise from the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter to an Academy Award nomination for Saturday Night Fever to the blockbuster success of the musical Grease (1978). Then, like so many others whose career trajectory has been meteoric, the young star felt the backlash of critics and columnists after the box office bomb, Moment by Moment (1978). In it, he played a sensitive young stud with the ludicrous name "Strip Harrison," who gives pleasure to a bored SoCal housewife played by Lily Tomlin. Suddenly, the 24-year-old was being portrayed as a has-been, and he told one interviewer it was as if he woke up every morning to a world where everything, dreams and reality, had been reversed. "I would be going along just fine," he said. "Then I'd see an article about me or hear something bad on the radio, and then I'd be brought back down again."
Luckily, producers and directors weren't quite so convinced Travolta was washed up, recognizing the reaction he still got from fans and his continued status as an international sex symbol. He was offered - and turned down - the lead in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo (1980), which like the role he also rejected in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978), went to Richard Gere. He opted instead to travel to Houston for location shooting at Gilley's, then the largest-capacity nightclub in the world, for what would be the first of his many "comebacks." He prepared for the role by spending three weeks on a $3000 mechanical bull he installed in his Santa Barbara home and learning the dances necessary for the movie's setting from Patsy Swayze, mother of dancer-actor Patrick Swayze. Nevertheless, Travolta showed up for shooting more withdrawn and cautious than people expected. He insisted on no media and no publicity, and the set was closed at his request to all but a privileged few, such as personal friend Jane Fonda, who stopped by on a 30-city anti-nuke tour.
The movie's centerpiece was the mechanical bull contest that becomes the focus of rivalry between Travolta's character, Bud, and Scott Glenn's Wes for the affections of Sissy (Debra Winger, in her first big mainstream role), a spunky young woman who learns to ride the bulls herself. Like the film's star, Winger and Glenn braved the threat of spinal injury by mastering the technique so well they were able to do their own stunt work. Their feat, in fact, was especially remarkable in that they risked even more danger than the run-of-the-mill Gilley's crowd. In order to place the cameras properly, the mattresses that usually surrounded the bull to cushion falls were removed.
That wasn't the biggest danger during production, however. In the last two weeks, the shoot moved to Los Angeles where an East L.A. trailer park subbed for Bud's Houston digs. One day, gunfire suddenly peppered the set. According to a security guard, six men with sawed-off rifles came over an embankment on the set's perimeter, firing away. It was believed, though never proved, that the assailants were members of a local street gang. No one was injured, but Travolta was badly shaken, and the remainder of filming was done on a soundstage.
The part of Sissy was a toss-up between Debra Winger and Michelle Pfeiffer, both relative unknowns at the time. It would be another few years before Pfeiffer got her big screen break with Scarface (1983), but Winger shot to stardom after this role. Of the entire cast of
Director: James Bridges
Producer: Irving Azoff
Screenplay: James Bridges and Aaron Latham, based on a story by Latham
Cinematography: John Toll, Ray Villalobos
Editing: David Rawlins
Art Direction: W. Stewart Campbell
Original Music: Ralph Burns
Cast: John Travolta (Bud Davis), Debra Winger (Sissy Davis), Scott Glenn (Wes Hightower), Madolyn Smith (Pam), Barry Corbin (Bob Davis).
C-135m. Letterboxed.
by Rob Nixon
