Urban Cowboy Reviewed by Mashmont. A Simple Movie For Simpletons.

[Mashmont]

I was lucky enough to go to Gilley's before it was shut down.
The place is massive!!!

I read where it burned down. Some accused Gilley's partner who was stealing money from the place and letting it get run down.

 

[Mashmont]

Have you been to Bill Bob's in Ft. Worth?

I think I had frog legs there in 1976 as a teen. I could be mistaken.

 

[basquebromance]

Mickey Gilley, who helped inspire 'Urban Cowboy,' dies at 86

Country star Mickey Gilley has died. He was 86. He was known for such hits as “Window Up Above" and for the Texas honky-tonk he owned that inspired the hit film “Urban Cowboy."

apnews.com

 

[Mashmont]

Mickey Gilley, who helped inspire 'Urban Cowboy,' dies at 86

Country star Mickey Gilley has died. He was 86. He was known for such hits as “Window Up Above" and for the Texas honky-tonk he owned that inspired the hit film “Urban Cowboy."

apnews.com

Good get, and appropriate timing. Thanks for thinking to post it.

 

[bodecea]

Urban Cowboy could be renamed “Redneck Saturday Night Fever”. 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 Cowboy’s 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 Gilley’s, which was a real live Honky Tonk before it burned in 1990. The movie might also be named “100 Minute Ad for Gilley’s Bar”.

Bud meets Sissy (Debra Winger) at Gilley’s one night. They dance, get along well, start dating, and soon marry (at Gilley’s, 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 Bud’s first visit to Gilley’s 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 wasn’t 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.

You have a crush on Debra Winger or something?

 

[Mashmont]

You have a crush on Debra Winger or something?

She was cute in Urban Cowboy. Less so in Terms of Endearment.

 

[bodecea]

I never tried nor did I want to ride real animals like my relatives.

It hurt afterwards, but I did manage the 8 secs. at the Yellow Rose in Corpus Christi (a Gilley's knock-off)

 

[bodecea]

I was lucky enough to go to Gilley's before it was shut down.
The place is massive!!!

Yeah...went on a week day and it was mostly empty but it was big. They slapped a Gilley's sticker on my car over my "I NY" sticker.

 

[bodecea]

She was cute in Urban Cowboy. Less so in Terms of Endearment.

So, you DID have a crush on her. Will you review "An Officer and a Gentleman" next? That movie was laughable for those of us who went thru Naval Flight Training.

 

[Mashmont]

So, you DID have a crush on her. Will you review "An Officer and a Gentleman" next? That movie was laughable for those of us who went thru Naval Flight Training.

I just saw part of that last night.

 

[Mashmont]

My favorite scene is their first meeting and "Two Step". She's cute here, all right.