Jay Rohr
In 1975, Hearts of the West rode onto the silver screen expressing the sentimental hope that dreams can be reality. Directed by Howard Zieff, best known at the time for Alka-Seltzer ads and the comedy thriller Slither (1973), it presented a lighthearted romcom about Hollywood Westerns. Starring Jeff Bridges as a charmingly naïve fool and Andy Griffith in an uncommonly cynical role, there’s a bittersweet quality to the film. The joy in watching mostly comes from exploring how real the unreal can be and by extension, more meaningful than actual existence.
The plot follows Lewis Tater, played by Bridges (The Big Lebowski). Aspiring to be a writer like Zane Grey who penned Riders of the Purple Sage, he goes west to attend a university detailed in a correspondence course letter. Upon arrival, he discovers the whole thing is a scam, runs afoul of the criminal perpetrators, and flees into the Nevada desert. Half dead, he stumbles onto the location shoot for a low budget “B” western. The cowboy extras and stuntmen take the foolish kid under their wing, especially their leader Howard Pike (Andy Griffith). It isn’t long before Lewis is bumbling towards stardom, unaware the criminals he encountered are searching for him, since he unwittingly escaped in their car with all their ill-gotten gains.
Hearts of the West is the fourth remake of a film adaptation loosely based on Harry Leon Wilson’s Merton of the Movies. Gertrude Stein regarded the novel as “the best book about the twentieth-century American youth that has yet been done.” Published in1922, it was made into a silent film in 1924, remade as Make Me a Star in 1932, then as Merton of the Movies again in 1947. The general premise is based on author Wilson’s experiences during a temporary time in Hollywood. One could almost call it an early Get Shorty (1995).
The book centers on bumpkin Merton Gill, who, after taking correspondence acting courses, travels to Hollywood. His comical misadventures there mainly result in two things: his disillusionment regarding silver screen icons after witnessing their failings, and his ascendency to comedy superstar. In a cruel twist of fate, his poor acting is regarded as gold for funny pictures, and it isn’t until the end of the novel that Merton is even aware that his work isn’t the brilliant drama he believed.
Lewis Tater, on the other hand, eventually embraces his ironic circumstances. He came to tinsel town to be a serious performer only to find solace in a cloak of pretentions since success on the silver screen is better than anything else. Strangely, it echoes an attitude seen throughout influencer culture today where people will do anything to be the center of attention, an idea explored in the darkly comedic Norwegian flick Syk pike (Sick of Myself (2022) about “a sad, lonely woman who’ll do anything to feel seen.” That desire to be acknowledged as genius and glamorous is a longstanding skewer which has been used to impale Hollywood pretentions for years.
The horror of working in tinsel town’s dream factories comes up in any variety of features. The noirish tale Sunset Boulevard (1950) leads the way to cynical thrillers like The Player (1992). Comedy has always mocked the movie business with surreal takes such as Barton Fink (1991) to straightforward jabs at indie flicks like Living in Oblivion (1995). As for the pretentions of performers look no farther than State and Main (2000) or Tropic Thunder (2008). Even the aspirations of amateurs, desperate to enter the industry, are wonderfully satirized in flicks like For Your Consideration (2006) and The Amateurs (2005). That skewering even works in musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain (1952).
Such an impaling insight may seem too vicious for a lighthearted romantic comedy. Yet, Hearts of the West utilizes it by focusing on the revitalizing aspect of its main character’s charming naivety. It forces everyone around him to reflect on what cracked their own optimistic outlook, consequently inspiring the cynical to find their idealism again, even if only briefly. There’s a refreshing sense that sullied as the dream may be, it isn’t above redemption.
This can be seen in the redemptive arc for Howard Pike. Andy Griffith, in a rarely seen sardonic role (with all due respect to A Face in the Crowd (1957)) captures a former silver screen superstar who has fallen so far, his only remaining roles are as background extra. In addition, he penned successful Western novels which Lewis loved. It’s a shattering moment when he discovers that Pike is a hero of his who went by the name Billy Pueblo; that all the tales Howard tells about Pueblo’s immense success are lies. Even worse, there’s a sense the old man, seen as a mentor, has actually been giving the kid lousy advice, perhaps on purpose, and has even gone so far as to steal the fledgling writer’s first novel, publishing it as his own work to regain the limelight.
Of course, Howard does the right thing in the end, but only because of Miss Trout. Played by Blythe Danner (Futureworld), she’s the script supervisor on the various flicks Lewis films. Pursued by every man around her, she rebuffs them all, only taking a romantic interest in Lewis because of his charming innocence. When everyone else looks at him they see a rube to exploit, while she perceives a heartwarming idealism that refreshes her optimistic embers.
Hearts of the West finds a lot of its comedy in the collision of expectation versus reality. Lewis really believes in the mythologized version of the US established by the Western genre in film and print. In that respect, there is a metafiction kinship with another flick from 1975 also starring Jeff Bridges called Rancho Deluxe. There he plays a modern cattle rustler alongside Sam Waterson (Law & Order), both of whom aspire to live an outlaw life modeled on the code of cowboys codified by the western genre. One could argue the pair of pictures are revisionist westerns in their own way, highlighting how the west was never like the legends painted by John Ford and certainly not near the many starring John Wayne.
In a way, this can be seen in the use of familiar settings. According to the AFI catalogue, “most of the film’s story is set in the area of Hollywood around Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard known as ‘Gower Gulch,’ where many Westerns were produced in the early 1930s” at the same time, “production notes also stated that many outdoor sequences were shot at Vasquez Rocks, an often-used location site for hundreds of Westerns, science fiction films and television shows.” Furthermore, Hearts of the West contains several familiar faces from the western genre including the Queen of the B’s Marie Windsor (The Killing), Dub Taylor (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot), and Burton Gilliam (Blazing Saddles).
These elements lend a strange authenticity to the film. Hearts of the West includes aspects reminiscent of other motion pictures to stir up nostalgia, while presenting them as reused movie sets and performers, thereby highlighting their theatrical elements. This accentuates the fictional nature of the western genre, while showing the reality of motion picture production behind the mythology. The truth is made plain by emphasizing the artifice. Then within that notion emerges the importance of escapism.
Schopenhauer wrote in The World as Will and Representation that “if the whole world as idea is only the visibility of the will, then art is the elucidation of this visibility… which shows the objects more purely, and enables us to survey and comprehend them better. It is the play within the play, the stage on the stage in Hamlet.” In that respect, Hearts of the West echoes a sentiment expressed in Sullivan’s Travel’s (1941), the notion that audiences don’t need a reminder of the horrors of existence, they’re already living them. Films, arts in general, are meant to provide escape from soul sucking banality by providing the heightened reality no one inhabits.
This can be seen in a running gag regarding Lewis’s writing. He frequently narrates aloud, spouting hokey purple prose clearly inspired by his immediate circumstances. There’s a similar notion seen in Wonder Boys (2000), where a deeper truth about reality is more obvious when wrapped up in fiction. Hearts of the West uses Lewis’s writing to highlight ideas about honor and the American Dream as well as a certain heroic determination against all odds.
Set during the Great Depression, the film exists in an era when the national ethos seemed doomed, specifically as defined by James Truslow Adams in The Epic of America, “a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” Yet, the protagonist in Hearts of the West still believes in rugged individualism; that honest hard work is all one needs to succeed. Meanwhile, Miss Trout and Howard portray folks who have acquired too many calluses to be so optimistic. Especially in the movie business, that golden dream is hard to pan out.
The movie captures the hope that lives in so many, wherein success is a matter of effort. At the same time, it shows how unmeritocratic the world is. Yet, the audience can see there’s a solace to be found in the company of people similarly crushed. This may be a dog-eat-dog reality populated by grifters, greedy schemers, and untrustworthy backstabbers, but that pain can be shared, endured easily among the right comrades.
The ethos of the flick can be summed up by two events in the movie. After being cast as an extra, Lewis gets so excited during a shot he improvises a bit of action. His extremely over the top death is so comical it ruins the shootout. To make up for his ridiculous gunplay, he later offers to do a stunt for free. Leaping from a rooftop onto a horse, he lands the stunt perfectly but crushes his man bag painfully. All of which culminates in the crew finding him endearing.
The same is true for the audience. As Roger Ebert observed, “The movie’s no great shakes, I suppose, but I liked it… there are a few big laughs in the movie, but not too many, and most of the time, what we’re feeling is affection.” The National Board of Review considered it one of the top ten films of the year, among such gems as Barry Lyndon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Dog Day Afternoon. Meanwhile, co-star Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine), who plays a frustrated director, received an award for best supporting actor from the New York Film Critics Circle.
Unfortunately, such praise didn’t translate to box office success. Hearts of the West lost money, pulling in $1.6 million on a $2 million dollar budget. Perhaps it was a bit ahead of its time. Consider what Gene Seymour wrote, “forget the movies when searching for contemporary tonal equivalents… look instead to cable television and such sitcoms of intimate humiliation as Veep or Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Still, it remains in the memory of anyone who ever gave it a chance. Splendid performances combine with a brilliantly subtle script, while a director known for Alka-Seltzer commercials captured the laidback atmosphere of people resigned to despair juxtaposed against a zany kid’s coming-of-age. Hearts of the West soft sells its ideas about Hollywood, society, and how growing up can mean pulling your head out of your ass. However, the lack of in-your-face humor makes it inviting and memorable.
Hearts of the West is the kind of movie that reminds an audience why people go to the movies. At the same time, it shows us why that escape is only temporary. As the kid’s own adventure reveals, the only real cure for the thousand cuts existence produces is quality companionship. Still, it doesn’t hurt to revel in a little fantasy if only for a short while.
