Warren Oates tries to get his life back on track in Monte Hellman’s COCKFIGHTER

COCKFIGHTER (Monte Hellman, 1974)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Sunday, July 3, 9:00, and Wednesday, July 6, 5:15
Festival runs through July 7
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.org

Director Monte Hellman and star Warren Oates enter “the mystic realm of the great cock” in the 1974 cult film Cockfighter. Alternately known as Born to Kill and Gamblin’ Man, the film is set in the world of cockfighting, where Frank Mansfield (Oates) is trying to capture the Cockfighter of the Year award following a devastating loss that cost him his money, car, trailer, girlfriend, and voice — he took a vow of silence until he wins the coveted medal. Mansfield communicates with others via his own made-up sign language and by writing on a small pad; in addition, he delivers brief internal monologues in occasional voiceovers. He teams up with moneyman Omar Baradansky (Richard B. Shull) as he attempts to regain his footing in the illegal cockfighting world, taking on such challengers as Junior (Steve Railsback), Tom (Ed Begley Jr.), and archnemesis Jack Burke (Harry Dean Stanton); his drive for success is also fueled by his desire to finally marry his much-put-upon fiancée, Mary Elizabeth (Patricia Pearcy). The cast also includes Laurie Bird as Mansfield’s old girlfriend, Troy Donahue as his brother, Millie Perkins as his sister-in-law, Warren Finnerty as Sanders, Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts as a masked robber, and Charles Willeford, who wrote the screenplay based on his novel, as Ed Middleton.

Shot in a mere four weeks, Cockfighter is not a very easy movie to watch. The cockfighting scenes are real, filmed in a documentary style by master cinematographer Néstor Almendros, who had previously worked with Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut and would go on to lens such films as Days of Heaven, Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, and The Blue Lagoon. However, Almendros was hampered by a less-than-stellar staff and a low budget courtesy of producer Roger Corman, who wanted more blood and sex and did not allow Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop, The Shooting) to rewrite the script the way he wanted to. Corman even had coeditor Lewis Teague (Cujo, The Jewel of the Nile) film some additional scenes to increase the lurid factor. (Hellman, who was inspired by A Place in the Sun and Shoot the Piano Player, has noted that the versions that are not called Cockfighter are not his director’s cut.) Even the music, by jazz singer-songwriter Michael Franks, feels out of place. But the film ultimately works because of Oates’s scorching performance as Frank, another in a long line of luckless, lovable losers that would fill his resume (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Race with the Devil, The Wild Bunch). Oates ambles from scene to scene with an infectious relish; you can’t wait to see what Frank will do next, and how Oates will play it. Hellman also doesn’t glorify the “sport” of cockfighting but instead presents it as pretty much what it is, a vile and despicable business populated by low-grade chumps. Cockfighter is screening July 3 and 6 in the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Warren Oates: Hired Hand,” in a poor print that is emblematic of all the problems associated with the making of the movie. “I don’t care if they release it or not,” Oates said about Cockfighter. “It ain’t bitterness but just an insight.” The series is being held in conjunction with the release of the restored version of Leslie Stevens’s little-seen 1960 thriller, Private Property, starring Oates, Corey Allen, and Kate Manx. The tribute to Oates, who died in 1982 at the age of fifty-three, continues through July 7 with such other Oates films as Dillinger, 92 in the Shade, The Hired Hand, The Brink’s Job, and the inimitable Stripes.