"We All Got Our Own Ways Of Livin'"

One of my favorite movies is Sam Peckinpah’s “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” from 1970. It’s not a very famous movie by any means, but I love it. It’s a quirky revenge-Western that has musical and comedy elements as well as a very touching love story, and it’s all loosely based on elements of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

It tells the story of Cable Hogue, a down on his luck tramp who is left to die by his former partners in the desert. Upon asking for the Lords help, he ends up stumbling upon a spring on the main road between two far away towns. Eventhough he’s not the sharpest cookie in the deck, he becomes an entrepreneur, setting up the only waystation between the two towns, providing water and food for passing stagecoaches. From there, the story just gets better. He falls in love with a prostitute, partners up with a preacher with adulterous predilections, and comes to find out who he really is as a person.

This was Sam Peckinpah’s first movie to follow his groundbreaking “The Wild Bunch”, and it was a commercial and critical flop because it strayed so far away from the violence and bravado that he was known for. Peckinpah had pigeonholed himself into being a violent director, so to follow up his biggest hit with a romantic comedy seemed like career suicide. Regardless of its reception, it’s definitely my favorite Peckinpah film, and Peckinpah himself frequently referred to it as his favorite as well.

What’s interesting to me about this film is that it has apparently influenced a suprising number of musicians over the years. Not only did Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval cover the films centerpiece song “Butterfly Mornings”, but John Cale did a song called “Cable Hogue”, and the band Calexico did a great song called “The Ballad of Cable Hogue”. I have linked both here, and have also linked the “Butterfly Mornings” scene from the original film.

Calexico “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” – While not directly related to the movie in any way, they do an awesome spaghetti Western video for this song:


John Cale “Cable Hogue” – This song also has nothing to do with the original film, but it is about two bandits/bank robbers who are in love with each other. I absolutely love this song:


“Butterfly Mornings” by Jason Robards (one of my favorite actors) and Stella Stevens – Imagine walking into the theater in 1970 to see Peckinpah’s next big violent shoot-em-up, and seeing this: