Cockfighter Blues

Enjoyed the opportunity to chat with Mike White and Heather Drain about Monte Hellman's Cockfighter on this episode of The Projection Booth podcast. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford, it stars Warren Oates as Frank Mansfield the titular sporting man who lives by a strict code bound to a self-imposed oath of silence he's sworn to uphold until he is awarded the prestigious title, Cockfighter of the Year. The film follows Frank over the course of a cockfighting season working his way across the country, getting in scrapes, running scams and sacrificing everything for his goal, without ever uttering a word. 

The film famously was the first money-loser from producer Roger Corman and was supposedly re-cut with film scraps from other Corman productions inserted to include random nudity, explosions and car chases to be Frank's dreams and add some marketability to the commercial misfire. Though none of us have seen evidence of said producer's cut, Mike did read some amazingly misleading box copy from a vhs edition of Cockfighter released as Born to Kill.

Despite not being a money-maker Corman remained fond of the film, something Hellman was apparently not according to Kier-La Janisse, author of Cockfight: A Fable of Failure, a book worth a look if you're interested in Willeford, Hellman, Corman, Oates or cinematic explorations of masculinity, the American rural South and obsession. Also worth checking out; Cockfighter Journal, Willeford's journal during production of the film. 

Onscreen Oates is supported by Harry Dean Stanton, Richard B. Shull, Ed Begley Jr., Steve Railsback, Robert Earl Jones, Laurie Bird, Millie Perkins and Charles Willeford himself in the roll of Ed Middleton, described in his novel as "in his early sixties...he is a big man with a big voice and a big paunch. Except for a bumpy bulbous nose with a few broken blood vessels here and there on its bright red surface, his face is smooth and white, with the shiny licked look of a dog's favorite bone," leading me wonder if he wrote it aspiring to play the role himself a decade later.

Willeford more than holds his own among the stacked cast of character actors and personally I think it's a shame we didn't get more screen roles from him outside of a blink and you'll miss it appearance three years later in Corey Allen's David Carradine starring above average quality hixsploitation cinematic shit-kicker Thunder and Lightning.

The novel, narrated by mute Frank, gives the reader plenty of his thoughts and observations, but the film has no narration and relies on Oates' soulful eyes, impish grin and exaggerated body language to carry conversations while I relied on Heather and Mike to carry ours. I was comfortable doing so because it wasn't our first conversation around an adaptation of a great novel. 

Many episodes earlier we had our first discussion about John Huston's film of Leonard Gardner's Fat City starring Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges and Susan Tyrell. (Check that out here)

For more from Heather be sure to follow her @mondoheather on Twitter and you can pick up The Bizarro Encyclopedia of Film Vol. 1 right here.

For more on Cockfighter, here's me and Johnny Shaw in conversation about Willeford and the films made from his books (Cockfighter, Miami Blues and The Woman Chaser - The Burnt Orange Heresy was not yet made).