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The Culpepper Cattle Co.

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6.4/10 • 47

1972-04-151h 32m

Western

Working as an assistant on a long cattle drive, the young Ben Mockridge contends between his dream of being a cowboy and the harsh truth of the Old West.

Directors
Dick Richards
Editors
Desmond Marquette

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Gary Grimes

    Gary Grimes

    Ben Mockridge

  2. Billy Green Bush

    Billy Green Bush

    Frank Culpepper

  3. Luke Askew

    Luke Askew

    Luke

  4. Bo Hopkins

    Bo Hopkins

    Dixie Brick

  5. Geoffrey Lewis

    Geoffrey Lewis

    Russ

  6. Wayne Sutherlin

    Wayne Sutherlin

    Missoula

  7. John McLiam

    John McLiam

    Thorton Pierce

  8. Matt Clark

    Matt Clark

    Pete

  9. Raymond Guth

    Raymond Guth

    Cook

Reviews1

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John Chard Avatar

John Chard

Apr 8, 2015

9/10

When Little Mary Became A Man. The Culpepper Cattle Co. is a splinter of the Western genre that was tagged as revisionist. Often the makers of such Oaters went for a more grizzled look at the West, even demythologising the Hollywood Westerns that had proved so popular for decades. Directed by Dick Richards, The Culpepper Cattle Co. is one such picture. Young Ben Mockridge (Gary Grimes) wants to be a cowboy, to work on the drives and hone his gun play skills. When trail drive boss Frank Culpepper (Billy Green Bush) is in town, Ben begs him for work and is thrilled to be hired as the cook's Little Mary. What he isn't so thrilled about is actually what it's really like out there on a drive... And so it comes to pass, young Ben is at the bottom of the cowboy ladder and Richards and his writing team ensure there is no glamour to be found. The drive is beset with thievery and rustling, killings, stampedes, inner fighting and very hard work for very little pay. The men on the trail all look the same, they dress the same, they smell the same, they are all worked hard and understand the same weary banter. What camaraderie there is is kept to a minimum, they are a team in a working sense, but their loyalty only comes to the fore when they are tasked with fighting and killing' enemies. The bars are not all bright and sparkly, with a well suited man playing a piano, no these are dingy holes with dirty glasses. No bordello babes either, just a hapless lassie loaned out for services by a barkeep who has in his own mind some tenuous right to have her in his keep. This is purposely downbeat, with the photography by Lawrence Edward Williams and Ralph Woolsey emphasising this fact by stripping back the colours for authenticity. While Jerry Goldsmith and Ralph Woolsey's musical score is deftly restrained, perfectly so. The story moves to its final conclusion, a confrontation that excites and depresses equally so, for even in the whirl of bullets and thundering hooves, the realisation dawns on Ben, and us, that nothing changes the life of the cowboys out there on the drives. It's live, work and die. Cowboyin is something you do when you can't do nothing else - Indeed! 9/10

Media

  • The Culpepper Cattle Co. poster
  • The Culpepper Cattle Co. poster
  • The Culpepper Cattle Co. poster
  • The Culpepper Cattle Co. poster
  • The Culpepper Cattle Co. poster

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
coloradocoming of agecattlecowboycattle-rustler