“The Outlaw Josey Wales” was Clint Eastwood’s fourth film that he
both starred in and directed. The three before it were “Play Misty for Me”
(1971), “High Plains Drifter” (1973), and “The Eiger Sanction” (1975). Eastwood
took over the directorial chores from Philip Kaufman early in production
because he was too slow. Kaufman co-scripted the film. Eastwood went on to
direct several more of his own starring role films with moderate success. His
most acclaimed, however, being the 1992 Best Picture winning “Unforgiven,” in
which he played the aging Will Munny, a man who takes up a job returning to
bounty hunting for the money to provide for himself and his kids, mistakenly
believing he can return to his peaceful ways when it is over.
In “The Outlaw Josey Wales,”
Eastwood plays a Confederate farmer whose family is murdered right before his
eyes by Union soldiers, as he was helpless to save them. This as his motive for
revenge, Josey Wales joins a few Confederates who fight the Union even after
the Confederacy has been beaten. Wales is betrayed, and hunted for years…he
kills whoever he has to in order to survive. Throughout all, Wales is justified
(in his mind at least) in his ways—he kills because he has “nothing better to
do” now that his family is gone. When he lost his family he was angry and his
rage was tempered by his need for family and friends. Josey Wales desires the
family, friends, and companionship inside himself that the Union soldiers took
away from him. This was what compelled him to kill.
“The Outlaw Josey Wales” was
adapted from the book “Gone To Texas,” by Forest Carter, and the film version
is considered one of the last great Westerns. It is interesting to compare the
film with the 1992 Unforgiven, as there are some similarities in the main
character. The film also co-stars Chief Dan George as “Ten Bears,” who adds a
bit of quieted humor to the film. Two hours and fifteen minutes long.
Related
Links:
Quotes from The Outlaw Josey
Wales:
Lone Watie: Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast.
Josey Wales: Now remember, things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb mad dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.
Chief Dan George: All I have is a piece of hard candy. But it's not for eating. It's for lookin through.
[After a shootout in town in
which four men were killed]
Josey Wales: Seems like whenever I get to likin’ someone, they ain’t around long.
Lone Watie: I notice when you get to DISlikin' someone they ain’t around for long neither!
Josey Wales: Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?
Lone Watie: We thought about it for a long time, “Endeavor to persevere.” And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union.
Lone Watie: I didn't surrender, but they took my horse and made him surrender. They have him pulling a wagon up in Kansas I bet.
Jamie: Too bad we don't have time to bury those fellas proper like.
Josey Wales: Hell with them fellas. Buzzards have to eat, same as the worms.
Ten Bears: These things you say we will have, we already have.
Josey Wales: That’s true. I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
Ten Bears: It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life...and death. It shall be life.
Senator: There's a saying, Fletcher: To the victor belongs the spoils.
Fletcher: There's another saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.
Josey Wales: You a bounty hunter?
Bounty Hunter: A man has to do something these days to earn a living.
Josey Wales: Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’ boy.
[Fletcher knows he's talking to
Josey Wales.]
Fletcher: I think I’ll go down Mexico and find him.
Josey Wales: And then?
Fletcher: I’ll give him the first move. I owe him that much. I think I’ll tell him the war is over. What do you say...Mr. Wilson?
Josey Wales: Reckon so. We all died a little in that damn war.
Cast
overview, first billed only:
Clint Eastwood .... Josey Wales
Chief Dan George .... Lone Watie
Sondra Locke .... Laura Lee
Bill McKinney .... Terrill
John Vernon .... Fletcher
Paula Trueman .... Grandma Sarah
Sam Bottoms .... Jamie
Geraldine Keams .... Little Moonlight
Woodrow Parfrey .... Carpetbagger
Joyce Jameson .... Rose
Sheb Wooley .... Travis Cobb
Royal Dano .... Ten Spot
Matt Clark ....
Kelly
John Verros .... Chato
Will Sampson .... Ten Bears
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