Urban Cowboy could be renamed âRedneck Saturday Night Feverâ. Same actor. Same plot. John Travolta is cast uncredibly as a tough guy who sets out to win a contest, becomes involved with a woman, gets entangled in a triangle then emotionally matures in the process.
And like Saturday Night Fever, this movie spawned a slew of musical hits and introduced a huge fad. In Urban Cowboyâs case, it brought country music to the mainstream, and got a mechanical bull put in every dance lounge in the country.
Bud Davis (Travolta) moves to Houston from smalltown Texas, gets a job at the refinery, and spends all his free time at Gilleyâs, which was a real live Honky Tonk before it burned in 1990. The movie might also be named â100 Minute Ad for Gilleyâs Barâ.
Bud meets Sissy (Debra Winger) at Gilleyâs one night. They dance, get along well, start dating, and soon marry (at Gilleyâs, of course). Sissy , after being neglected by Bud, takes up with a chiseled country thug named Wes (Scott Glenn). Bud is enraged with jealousy and vows to win Cissy back by winning the big mechanical bull riding contest.
Like so many 1970s movies (UC was filmed in 1979), the one featured sexual depravity; one-night stands, threesomes, and infidelity. On Budâs first visit to Gilleyâs his Uncle Bob sets him up with two leggy women for a night of hanky panky. Exactly what a trusted relative would do, right?
This was a simple movie for simpletons. It showed that mass media can convince people to do about anything. I know in my little area in the mid-Atlantic, dozens of local guys bought cowboy hats and rode the mechanical bull they installed in the summer of 1980 at the Our Place Lounge. They thought they too could get into fights, bed some urban cowgirls, and maybe find a Sissy of their own. Note: This is the same mass media that can convince a good number of citizens that an unemployed Marxist ideologue knows more about running an economy than a self-made billionaire.
Anyhow, Travolta and Winger were both excellent in it. Incredibly, Winger was sent home and told she wasnât pretty enough to be cast as the leading lady. Thankfully, she was brought back. She looked quite good, I thought. The biggest implausibility imho was (SPOILER ALERT) when slender Travolta managed to beat up a very buff Wes (who in real life did 50 pull ups a day). But, hey, this is cinema, right? Anything can happen.
And like Saturday Night Fever, this movie spawned a slew of musical hits and introduced a huge fad. In Urban Cowboyâs case, it brought country music to the mainstream, and got a mechanical bull put in every dance lounge in the country.
Bud Davis (Travolta) moves to Houston from smalltown Texas, gets a job at the refinery, and spends all his free time at Gilleyâs, which was a real live Honky Tonk before it burned in 1990. The movie might also be named â100 Minute Ad for Gilleyâs Barâ.
Bud meets Sissy (Debra Winger) at Gilleyâs one night. They dance, get along well, start dating, and soon marry (at Gilleyâs, of course). Sissy , after being neglected by Bud, takes up with a chiseled country thug named Wes (Scott Glenn). Bud is enraged with jealousy and vows to win Cissy back by winning the big mechanical bull riding contest.
Like so many 1970s movies (UC was filmed in 1979), the one featured sexual depravity; one-night stands, threesomes, and infidelity. On Budâs first visit to Gilleyâs his Uncle Bob sets him up with two leggy women for a night of hanky panky. Exactly what a trusted relative would do, right?
This was a simple movie for simpletons. It showed that mass media can convince people to do about anything. I know in my little area in the mid-Atlantic, dozens of local guys bought cowboy hats and rode the mechanical bull they installed in the summer of 1980 at the Our Place Lounge. They thought they too could get into fights, bed some urban cowgirls, and maybe find a Sissy of their own. Note: This is the same mass media that can convince a good number of citizens that an unemployed Marxist ideologue knows more about running an economy than a self-made billionaire.
Anyhow, Travolta and Winger were both excellent in it. Incredibly, Winger was sent home and told she wasnât pretty enough to be cast as the leading lady. Thankfully, she was brought back. She looked quite good, I thought. The biggest implausibility imho was (SPOILER ALERT) when slender Travolta managed to beat up a very buff Wes (who in real life did 50 pull ups a day). But, hey, this is cinema, right? Anything can happen.