View source for The Culpepper Cattle Co.

{{Short description|1972 film by Dick Richards}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Use American English|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = The Culpepper Cattle Co.
| image          = Culpepper-cattle-co.jpg
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Dick Richards]]
| producer       = Paul Helmick
| writer         = Dick Richards
| screenplay     = [[Eric Bercovici]]<br>Gregory Prentiss
| starring       = [[Gary Grimes]]<br />[[Billy Green Bush]]
| music          = [[Jerry Goldsmith]] <small>(stock music composed for ''[[The Flim-Flam Man]]'')</small><br />[[Tom Scott (saxophonist)|Tom Scott]]
| cinematography = Lawrence Edward Williams<br />[[Ralph Woolsey]]
| color_process  = [[DeLuxe Color]]
| editing        = [[John F. Burnett]]
| distributor    = [[20th Century-Fox]]
| released       = {{Film date|1972|04|16}}
| runtime        = 92 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = $1 million<ref>Solomon, Aubrey. ''Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History''. The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. {{ISBN|978-0-8108-4244-1}}. p. 256.</ref>
| gross          = $1.25 million (US/Canada)<ref>Solomon p. 232. Please note figures are rentals, not total gross.</ref>
}}

'''''The Culpepper Cattle Co.'''''  or '''''Dust, Sweat and Gunpowder''''' (Australian title) is a 1972 American [[revisionist Western]] film produced by [[Twentieth Century Fox]]. It was directed by [[Dick Richards]] and starred [[Billy Green Bush]] as Frank Culpepper and [[Gary Grimes]] as Ben Mockridge. This was the first credited film for [[Jerry Bruckheimer]], for which he received an associate producer credit.<ref>{{IMDb name|0000988|Jerry Bruckheimer}}</ref> Its tagline is "How many men do you have to kill before you become the great American cowboy?" and also "The boy from ''[[Summer of '42]]'' becomes a man on the cattle drive of 1866", which references a similar [[coming of age]] film starring Gary Grimes. The film is typical of the "hyper-realism" of many early 1970s revisionist westerns. It is particularly noted for its grainy photography and use of sepia toning in some scenes.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.philipbrophy.com/projects/rstff/RewrittenWesterns_C.html |title=Rewritten Westerns: Rewired Westerns |last=Brophy |first=Philip |authorlink=Philip Brophy |magazine=Stuffing |number=1 |year=1987 |location=[[Melbourne]] |accessdate=2014-09-01}}</ref>

==Plot==
Ben Mockridge is a young man proud of his $4 handgun - which he flourishes for a friend he recently wagon-raced against -, and enamored of "cowboyin{{'"}}. He asks Frank Culpepper if he can join his cattle drive to [[Fort Lewis, Colorado]]. Culpepper (a reformed [[gunslinger]]) reluctantly agrees and sends Ben to the cook to be his "little Mary". Ben bids farewell to his mother, who tells him to be a good boy.

Ben discovers the adults have little interest in young'ns. Culpepper nevertheless assigns Ben tasks the greenhorn handles poorly, causing serious trouble.

After [[cattle raiding|rustlers]] stampede the herd, Culpepper tracks them to a [[box canyon]]. When the rustlers' leader demands 50 cents a head for having rounded up the cattle, Culpepper and his hands kill the rustlers, not hesitating to gun down disarmed men, or repeatedly shoot anyone still moving. They lose four of their own.

Culpepper directs Ben to a cantina a day's ride off, to find Russ Caldwell. Before he can reach it, Ben is accosted by trappers who take his horse and gun. Once Ben finds Caldwell, he and three of his buddies agree to join the drive. When they cross the trappers' path, they immediately kill the trappers and take their possessions.

When Ben stands night watch, a one-eyed man distracts him with talk, and Ben doesn't shoot him. Another thief overcomes Ben, and the horses are stolen. Culpepper is outraged at Ben's stupidity.

The horse theft "tears it", and Culpepper decides to toss Ben on a stage coach. When Culpepper enters a town, hoping to buy horses, they stop at a saloon, where Ben recognizes a patron as the one-eyed horse thief. Another shootout ensues, with Ben "redeeming" himself by killing the bartender, who reaches for his shotgun. Culpepper's adversaries die, one survivor directing Culpepper to the horses.

Ben handles Caldwell's gun sans permission, and the touchy Caldwell knocks Ben to the ground. When a [[ranch hand]] calls Caldwell an SOB, Caldwell demands a gunfight to reclaim "honor". The hand decides it unworthy of trouble and leaves the drive. "You cost me a good man, boy," fumes Culpepper, warning him to "make himself small".

In a grassy, wet area, Culpepper leaves the cattle to graze, going into town to look for the landowner to pay him. Ben follows them, to buy food for the cook, but joins them in a bar for a drink, where they prod him into a session with a backroom prostitute, although they merely bounce on the bed, clothed, squeaking the springs. The landowner, Thornton Pierce, tells Culpepper he should've asked ''first'' before letting cattle graze, and demands $200 as down-payment for trespassing. This time, Culpepper & Co. are outgunned, and angrily forced to surrender their sidearms.

Moving out the cattle, Culpepper encounters a group of religious "pilgrims", led by Nathaniel Green, who invites them to stay and water their cattle. He says God has led his party here, and they intend to settle.

Not surprisingly, Pierce and thugs show up, claiming "this land is mine", and gives ''everyone'', Green included, an hour to leave. Green is convinced Culpepper was sent by God to help. Culpepper responds that Green need only leave to be safe, which is what he intends to do, as it is less than two weeks to Fort Lewis and selling his cattle.

Ben decides to stay, feeling he can somehow help. He reveals he safely hid his gun during the barroom ambush. As Culpepper rides off, Caldwell and his three friends, their consciences (and lust for revenge) getting the better of them, return to defend Green from Pierce, to Culpepper's exasperation. Nonetheless, Culpepper leaves them behind to drive his cattle. In the ensuing shootout, ''everyone'' in the Caldwell and Pierce parties except Ben is killed.

Revealing his hypocrisy and ingratitude, Green tells Ben they are not going to stay after all, as the ground has been stained with blood. "God never intended us to stay—he was only testing us." An angry Ben forces them to bury the four bodies of his friends, then discards his gun and rides off to parts unknown.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hampes|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9i6NDwAAQBAJ&q=culpepper+cattle+company&pg=PA108|title=Cowboy Courage: Westerns and the Portrayal of Bravery|date=2019-03-04|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-7606-7|language=en}}</ref>

==Cast==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Gary Grimes]] as Ben Mockridge
* [[Billy "Green" Bush]] as Frank Culpepper
* [[Luke Askew]] as Luke
* [[John McLiam]] as Thornton Pierce 
* [[Bo Hopkins]] as Dixie Brick
* [[Royal Dano]] as Rustlers' Leader
* [[Geoffrey Lewis (actor)|Geoffrey Lewis]] as Russ Caldwell
* [[Raymond Guth]] as Cook
* Wayne Sutherlin as Missoula
* [[Matt Clark (actor)|Matt Clark]] as Pete
* [[Anthony James (actor)|Anthony James]] as Nathaniel Green
* [[Charles Martin Smith]] as Tim Slater
* [[Gregory Sierra]] Rustler
* Lu Shoemaker as Prostitute/"Former Virgin"
{{div col end}}

==Historical accuracy==
{{original research|section|date=December 2012}}
''The Culpepper Cattle Co.'' has been praised for its attention to detail and period atmosphere. A subtle example is seen when Frank Culpepper leans against a water barrel and his arm above the wrist is exposed—it is white, untanned. People rarely took off ''any'' clothing in public (there is a comic moment when the cook is embarrassed to be seen with his shirt off), and the idea of an "all-over" tan would have been absurd, if not incomprehensible. (Only working folk had a tan.) Cowboys were "fish-belly white" over most of their bodies.<ref>{{Cite book|last=McCourt|first=Tom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kf4VrqlHSPYC&q=Cowboys+were+%22fish-belly+white%22+over+most+of+their+bodies.&pg=PA47|title=Cowpokes to Bike Spokes: The Story of Moab, Utah|date=2007|publisher=Big Earth Publishing|isbn=978-1-55566-396-4|language=en}}</ref>

The opening title sequence mixes genuine period photographs with sepia-tinted posed images of the cast members.

The story is almost violent, but this has to be seen in the context of the offenses against Frank Culpepper and his party. These included horse and cattle theft, which were usually punishable by hanging. As there was no practical way to haul the thieves into court, Culpepper was justified in dispensing immediate "justice", however brutal. Culpepper's final act of justice is to wipe out the evil agro-capitalist (the villain in scores of Westerns) and his horde.

By contemporary standards, the grass-fed cattle are rather scrawny, as fattening them up on corn had not become general practice. Even if it had, there would have been little point in adding weight to animals who would only "walk it off" on a long drive. The 1866 date of the story is plausible. This was the same year [[Charles Goodnight|Goodnight]] and [[Oliver Loving|Loving]] made their first long cattle drive.

The film's principal anachronism is showing most of the cowhands with beards. Contemporary photos indicate that, while cowboys often had mustaches (sometimes quite fancy), beards were not common—one out of twenty cowboys, perhaps. This was unusual in an era (extending to the end of the 19th century) where a high percentage of men took pride in having full beards.

The film incorrectly mixes in scenes of topography and vegetation found only in the climatic zone of southwestern Arizona. The location of the cattle drive is between "Texas" and Fort Lewis, Colorado (located in southwest Colorado near Durango). There are scenes of cattle being driven by Saguaro cactus which only occur in the Sonoran Desert of southwest Arizona. This Arizona scenery is 350 miles off-course of a probable route that would run between west Texas and southwest Colorado. The scenery surrounding the Eaves Movie Ranch (outside Santa Fe, NM) is typical of the landscape and vegetation that would have been common along the fictional route.

The firearms used are almost all anachronisms in an 1866 setting. With the exception of Ben Mockridge's 1850s-era percussion-cap pistol, the other pistols and rifles date from the early 1870s to the mid-1890s.

Another anachronism is a pressure lantern (invented in the late 1890s) visible in one bar scene.

==Awards==
Gregory Prentiss and Eric Bercovici were nominated for best original screenplay by the [[Writers Guild of America]].

==See also==
* [[List of American films of 1972]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{IMDb title|0068435}}
* {{tcmdb title|id=71994}}
* {{AFI film|54379}}

{{Dick Richards}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Culpepper Cattle Co., The}}
[[Category:1972 films]]
[[Category:1972 Western (genre) films]]
[[Category:American Western (genre) films]]
[[Category:1970s English-language films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Dick Richards]]
[[Category:20th Century Fox films]]
[[Category:Films scored by Jerry Goldsmith]]
[[Category:Films scored by Tom Scott (saxophonist)]]
[[Category:Revisionist Western (genre) films]]
[[Category:1972 directorial debut films]]
[[Category:1970s American films]]
[[Category:English-language Western (genre) films]]