DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger
BOTTOM LINE: John Schlesinger’s American debut is the only X-rated movie to win Best Picture. Dated now, it still boasts two great performances courtesy of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffmann. The gay thing is a bit primitive, with tortured souls getting killed by their tricks and numerous queer types from The Village in small parts, so the audience will not clue into the more basic details of the Joe Buck/Ratso Rizzo relationship. And like “Darling,” “Midnight Cowboy” is almost ruined by that long Warhol-inspired psychedelic party scene. The haunting score by John Barry does not receive screen credit since it’s his music from “You Only Live Twice” rearranged for harmonica. With Bob Balaban, Bernard Hughes, and Sylvia Myles, who received an Oscar nomination for a few minutes of work. The movie is based on the novel by gay writer James Leo Herlihy, who took his own life with an overdose of sleeping tablets in Los Angeles in 1993. He was sixty-six.
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