Not long ago I wrote a letter to Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry asking that the city find some way to celebrate what is acting legend Kirk Douglas’ favorite film out of all the ones he’s made in his long career – “Lonely Are the Brave.”
It’s a story based on the book by the individualist philosopher and environmentalist author Edward Abbey, titled “The Brave Cowboy.”
After Douglas read this fine piece of writing, he soon bought the movie rights. He loved the book’s central character, John W. “Jack” Burns, a war veteran in the late 1940s who became a wandering cowboy on his chestnut mare named Whiskey, working from ranch to ranch across the wide-open Southwest.
He’s the last of a dying breed even in 1962, when the movie is set in and around Albuquerque – with special details on the nearby Sandia Mountains. In the Sandias, Burns would find a fleeting refuge for his frontiersman instincts and sensibilities.
My letter to Berry was simple enough, and had a great effect. I asked that we honor Douglas in the summer of 2012, the 50th anniversary of the film’s release, by holding an event where the city would show that film and proclaim Douglas’ favorite all-time character, Jack Burns, a distinguished local wandering cowboy.
Douglas would appreciate that.
Berry sent my letter to Ann Lerner, the director of the Albuquerque Film Office, and she called me right away, saying that the mayor was enthusiastic about the idea and so was she. So Lerner called me up to her office a couple of weeks ago and knighted me with the noble, if impossible, task as chairman of a committee with the sole purpose of “getting Mr. Douglas interested in coming here” for a screening of his great work on that movie.
“Lonely Are the Brave” also stars Walter Matthau, Carroll O’Connor, George Kennedy and Gena Rowlands.
Paul Bardacke, who is a former state attorney general and now a prominent attorney in Albuquerque, told me he thinks this is a “great idea.” Bardacke is an old college roommate of Douglas’ son, actor and director Michael Douglas.
I also have the task of finding as many “extras” from that 1962 film as I can to be on hand at the screening. The movie was a big deal for everyone here in the small town that Albuquerque was in those days. Now, it’s grown up. But there are still a few people around, no doubt, who were in it.
Lerner was so excited about the screening and celebration that she already made arrangements to have the event at the historic KiMo Theater on old Route 66, the central road across New Mexico in those days, when Jack Burns and his mare ambled across the five volcanoes on the western mesa, across the Rio Grande and through the northern part of the city.
The opening scene shows Burns putting out his campfire, looking up at a newfangled airliner streaking across the deep blue autumn sky. He then cuts barbed wire after reading the sign held up by that fence that says: “Duke City.”
That’s the first sign his character is a rugged young man hell-bent on being free. He’s about to encounter a troubled, harried, angst-ridden society with only the guitar on his back to placate him and his horse on their endless travels across the modern, slowly vanishing American West.
After reading the book, it’s easy to see why Douglas immediately snapped up the rights to it. He hired veteran screenwriter Dalton Trumbo – who had been black-listed by the McCarthy people, who found some remote association to “communism.” Douglas hired him without prejudice, and Trumbo produced in one draft what Douglas calls “a perfect script.” No rewrites.
If Douglas cannot attend – he is getting up there in age (he’ll be 95 in December) – I want to express in a letter to him on behalf of people everywhere that we appreciate what he loved about an unforgettable literary and cinematic character who, like Douglas himself, was always willing to fight for what he believed in. Never afraid to put it all on the line for a great cause. Always loyal to his friends.
And in spite of everything, never letting go of his dreams for a better world.
John W. Flores is a journalist and author living in Albuquerque. He was honored by Marine Corps Commanding General James T. Conway in an August 2009 ceremony with a top civilian medal and citation for his biographical tribute to Marine Sgt. Freddy Gonzalez, a Medal of Honor recipient killed during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
