Main Cast: Warren Oates, Richard B. Shull, Harry Dean Stanton, Troy Donahue, Millie Perkins
Release Year: 1974
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Frank Mansfield (Warren Oates) is a game cock trainer who has taken a vow of silence; he once bragged too loudly about his cockfighting prowess and ended up losing his best fowl in a drunken, late-night match before an important tournament. To regain his pride after such hubris, Frank refuses to utter a word until he wins the coveted "Cockfighter of the Year" medal. Cockfighter follows his ups and downs as he attempts to succeed in the shadowy, barely legal sport. Frank loses his truck, trailer, and a girlfriend after trying to rig a match with fellow cocksman Jack Burke (Harry Dean Stanton), and has to sell his house to raise funds for stock. Later, Frank wins ten roosters in a private backwoods match and trains them heavily with his partner, Omar Baradinsky (Richard B. Shull), working his way back to the top of his chosen craft. He also attempts to reestablish his relationship with an old girlfriend (Patricia Pearcy) who doesn't know much about cockfighting and is repulsed when she actually witnesses one in the flesh. There is plenty of brutal footage included in Cockfighter that will dismay many animal lovers, so those with qualms about the sport should steer clear. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
Review
"I learned to fly a plane, I lost interest in it. Waterskiing, I lost interest in it. But this is something you don't conquer." The opening of the unique Cockfighter tries to immediately explain the allure of its illicit subject, but the effort is in vain, as the remainder of the film's story showcases an assortment of obsessed men who love and care for their fighting roosters, then send them to violent deaths in order to gamble short money on their fate. Indeed, the final image of the picture finds the hero pulling the head off the rooster that just restored him to cockfighting glory, hardly a man who considers his birds anything more than a means to an end. Adapted by crime writer Charles Willeford from his own novel (he also appeared in the film as the sympathetic referee Ed Middleton), Cockfighter is an interesting treatment of an ugly subject, though the film never establishes a positive or negative attitude. The characters speak often of their prize roosters with admiration and affection, and have high regard for the science and mystery of the sport, though they are all ultimately just gamblers, never sure of the outcome despite hours of training and cross-breeding. The strange ambivalence of Cockfighter is likely due to the fact that director Monte Hellman never felt comfortable with the subject in the first place, and producer Roger Corman felt compelled to add graphic footage of bloody cockfights after production that Hellman was loathe to include. As it turned out, cockfighting is such a secretive, underground activity that even in Southern states where it was legal, most people were embarrassed by the sport and Cockfighter was a commercial failure. Still, the film boasts many fine performances, especially Warren Oates, who melts into the role of Frank Mansfield without uttering a sound (aside from some voice-over narration and a flashback scene). Cockfighter is simultaneously intense and contemplative, an episodic road film that simmers with obsession. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
Cockfighter (also known as Born to Kill) is a 1974 film by director Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton and Ed Begley, Jr. in his film debut. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford. The film has been banned in the United Kingdom because of animal cruelty issues, as the fights shown were actually staged for the filming.
The Plot
The plot begins in medias res with a mute Frank Mansfield (played by Warren Oates) locked inside a trailer preparing his best cock for an upcoming fight. He slices the chicken's beak slightly so that it looks cracked in order to increase the betting against him in the upcoming fight. He bets his trailer, girlfriend, and the remainder of his money with fellow cocker Jack (played by Harry Dean Stanton). Mansfield loses the fight (ironically because of the cracked beak), almost all of his belongings, and is set on a rambling path to win the Cockfighter of the Year award.
Frank visits his home town, his family farm, and his long-time fiancée Mary Elizabeth (played by Patricia Pearcy). Mary Elizabeth has long grown tired of Mansfield's cockfighter ways and asks him to settle down with her. Frank decides in favor of cockfighting, leaves Mary Elizabeth, sells the family farm for money to reinvest in chickens, and starts a partnership with Omar Baradinsky (played by Richard B. Shull). The partnership takes them all the way to the cockfighting championships.
The Screenplay
Cockfighter released as Born to Kill
Willeford adapted the novel to the screen himself and made several major plot changes among many smaller changes in detail. The author indicated that Cockfighter is based loosely on the structure of the Odyssey[1], so it is most significant that the author removed the entire subplot with the beautiful widow Berenice, perhaps the Calypso character. Removing this character also excluded the protagonist's short-lived music career from the plot, although the movie does show Mansfield plucking a guitar at one point. Two other significant characters in the novel are also missing from the movie: Doc Riordan (a pharmacist / inventor who supplies Mansfield with conditioning medicines for his chickens) and the Judge who sells the Mansfield farm. The final scene of the movie also presents a dramatic shift from the end of the book: Mansfield claims that Mary Elizabeth loves him as she walks off, whereas in the book he realizes the relationship is over and he is free.
There are many subtle details changed in the movie, most of which are insignificant to the plot. For example, it is emphasized in the book that Icky is a rare blue chicken, whereas in the movie he is a white chicken called "White Lightning". The Mansfield farm is in Ocala in the book, in Decatur, Georgia in the movie. Possibly for some comic relief in the movie, Baradinsky goes back to the motel tournament rather than driving on to a separate tournament as in the novel. He hides his cash under the dead chickens in the bathtub and does not lose money like everyone else in the holdup. By the time of the Milledgeville tournament, Middleton's wife had died in the book, but in the movie Middleton (played by Willeford himself) refers to his wife as living. And finally, in the movie, Mansfield does not "regain" his voice until after Mary Elizabeth leaves.
^ Herron, Don. Willeford. Dennis McMillan Publications, 2003.
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