Film Review: Lonesome Dove (miniseries)

[DagnyTaggert]

One other thing about this film: The scene where they try to get Gus' body across the river may be the most powerfull thing I have ever seen in a movie. As the vultures attack his remains, his friend fights them off with such inspired loyalty it forces every audience to wonder if, when they pass, anyone will care so fiercly for their legacy. I know this scene made me feel small.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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I can't believe I find a film review of this here along with that Duvall quote about this character being his favorite. I am not a big movie fan, but watched this series many years ago and loved it. Agustus may be my favorite character ever. If you watch one Western, make it this one. Great story, amazing actors, if you need anything else... great production, twisted plot, and more. Watch it, you will be happy you did.

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Gus was my wife's favorite character. When we would argue she would often say "Why can't you be more like Gus?"

~ Rick

[charlie_t_jr]

The book ofcourse is great. If you get hooked on the characters as I did, you'll want to check out the entire "Lonesome Dove" book series. Following Lonesome Dove, McMurtry published "Streets of Laredo" that follows Call in the years after "Lonesome Dove".

McMurtry then went back to the beginning and put out "The Long Walk" which introduces a young Call and Augustus just joining the Rangers.

Then "Comanche Moon" which leads up to the "Lonesome Dove" story.

Great stuff.

Maybe someone can shed some light on this. Following the TV success of "Lonesome Dove", "Return to Lonesome Dove" was produced without input from McMurtry. From what I understand to show his displeasure, in the opening chapter of "The Streets Of Laredo" McMurtry (without spoiling anything) McMurtry tied up a Lonesome Dove story line that doesn't go along with "Return". Any one know the story behind the story?

[ChipWrecked]

While I can't answer any of your questions, I will say that I thought 'Streets of Laredo' was OK, but nowhere near as good as 'Lonesome Dove'.

Thanks for the tips on the others, though. McMurtry is a wonderful writer.

'The Last Picture Show' and 'Texasville' is another example of how well he follows up with characters after a number of years (in this case about 30: TLPS 1955, T'ville 1985).

[DrewDevil]

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McMurtry then went back to the beginning and put out "Dead Man's Walk" which introduces a young Call and Augustus just joining the Rangers.

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[george w]

a really good non-western novel of mcmurty's is All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers. it's about a young writer who just sold his first book so he quits school and heads west. i love books about writers and this one is perfect.

[vulturesrow]

I rented this earlier this week and just finished watching it tonight. All I can say is that I found it downright amazing. The way they stayed so faithful to the book and yet in my mind brought another dimension to the story is great. And the cast of course is near mind boggling. The only thing I can say is that although Jones did a great job playing the character of Call, he definitely didnt fit the look he had in my imagination when I read the book. But that is a minor quibble,I just didnt want to gush too much. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[blendedsuit]

i posted a similar in OOt maybe a year ago on this. FANTASTIC, I highly recommend this "extended movie".

[Zeno]

The book is top notch and so is the Miniseries. As an interesting aside there is obvious inspiration and some borrowing in the Lonesome Dove book by Larry McCurtry from the real life characters of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. This is very noticeable if you read the book by J. Evetts Haley called Charles Goodnight Cowman and Plainsman. In fact, the account in Haley’s book about a fight Oliver Loving (of the Loving-Goodnight Trail fame) and a cowhand called Wilson had with a group of Comaches is very similar to the fight related in McCurtry’s book in which Augustus McCrae receives his mortal wound. If you read Haley’s book the similarity is obvious. And the Woodrow Call character is based somewhat on Charles Goodnight. This is not to take away from McCurtry’s excellent book.

J. Evetts Haley’s book about Charles Goodnight is worth reading but the writing is uneven and varies from very good to rather dense trying to follow names and places and has a jerky flow to some of the text (a by product of the note-base material used I think). That said, anyone interested in Western History should read this book. It is well worth it and I recommend it highly.

-Zeno

[jester710]

Yeah, I had read that Goodnight and Loving served as inspirations for the characters on the imdb trivia page for the miniseries. I have just started reading the books, and I was surprised to find that Goodnight is actually a character, albeit a small one, in the the first book, Dead Man's Walk. He only shows up for 2 or 3 pages, but I thought it was interesting that McMurtry would include him. I barely started reading Comanche Moon, so I don't know if he shows up again later in the saga at all.