Midnight Cowboy (1969) United Artists 📢 Director: John Schlesinger 💰 Producer: Jerome Hellman 👫 Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Brenda Vaccaro, John McGiver, Ruth White, Sylvia Miles, Barnard Hughes. 🏆 Awards ceremony: -42nd Academy Awards: April 7, 1970. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California. 🎭 Other films nominated for Best Picture this year: -Anne Of The Thousand Days. -Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. -Hello, Dolly! -Z. 📕 Plot summary: Joe Buck (JON VOIGHT) is a naïve hustler who travels from Texas to New York in order to try and make some fast money as a male prostitute but quickly learns that things don't go according to plan. In a downtown bar he meets Rizzo (DUSTIN HOFFMAN), a con man with a terminal illness. The two men become acquaintances when Rizzo invites Joe to shelter with him in Rizzo's run-down New York apartment. Joe's ideas of being a male-whore become a secondary notion when he works to raise money to help Rizzo get to the sandy beaches of Florida before Rizzo dies. 💥 Standout scene: Dustin Hoffman's famous ad-libbed line: "I'm walkin' here!" 🔑 Facts: -The 42nd Academy Awards. -Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, it won 3: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (adapted). -The first Best Picture to be rated "X" (later reclassified 18). -Male nudity inside the first minute of the film. -Top billed Dustin Hoffman doesn't show up until 25 minutes into the film. 🙂 Personal opinion: The main song in the film is Harry Nilsson's 'Everybody's Talkin', which is good until it gets played incessantly and becomes boring. Dustin Hoffman's appearance after 25 minutes steps up the interest in an already-flagging film which at the best of times is only ever mediocre. Then there is that long sequence later on which looks as though it was written and directed by somebody under the influence of some very illegal substances and the whole thing goes into experimental mode. Hoffman is still in the early stages of what would become a long and successful film career here and puts in a memorable performance, whereas Jon Voight looks good but doesn't shine with the same degree of brightness as his co-star. Overall I though this was underwhelming. Shame, because I love Dustin Hoffman as an actor. Did it deserve the Oscar? ❌NO. I just don't think it's that good! ⭐️5/10

Review date: 17 March 2025