An amiable country boy (Jon Voight) heads to New York, aiming to make his fortune as a gigolo, but instead spends the winter befriending a con man (Dustin Hoffman), who hasn’t long to live.
For his role as the unattractive bum Ratso Rizzo, Hoffman was paid ten times more than he received for his part in The Graduate (1967)a couple of years ago.
With greasy hair, pallid complexion, bad teeth and gammy leg, he brilliantly represents a man who merges easily into the seedy and sordid atmosphere of New York as conjured up by British director John Schlesinger (making his first American movie).
It is the relationship between the big blonde likeable dim-wit and the small down-and-outer that is the impressive centrepiece of this comedy-drama.
John Barry’s score and Harry Nilsson‘s songs have enjoyed a successful afterlife that occasionally threatens to eclipse this tender, funny, and ultimately noble film, but the performances of the two leads and Schlesinger’s Oscar and BAFTA-winning direction give it a compassionate humanity rarely seen.
The harmonica theme tune is so haunting you’ll feel like taking your chances as a male tart on the streets of Manhattan.
Ratso Rizzo
Dustin Hoffman Joe Buck
Jon Voight Cass
Sylvia Miles Mr O’Daniel
John McGiver Shirley
Brenda Vaccaro Towny
Barnard Hughes Sally Buck
Ruth White Annie
Jennifer Salt Woodsy Niles
Gilman Rankin
Director John Schlesinger
Video
Related Posts
Graduate, The (1967) Dustin Hoffman got his first starring role in this gentle Oscar-winning satire about American values as Benjamin Braddock, a 21-year-old…
Accident (1967) "Like a punch in the chest. Put together breath by breath, look by look, lust by lust, lie by lie.…
My Dinner with André (1981) My Dinner with Andre consists entirely of a conversation in a New York restaurant between theatre director Andre Gregory and…
White Bus, The (1967) An anonymous and impassive young girl (Patricia Healey) leaves her suicidal London life and returns by train to her home…
My Favorite Year (1982) Last seen playing a bad movie director in The Stunt Man, Peter O'Toole continued to bite the hand that feeds by…
Silencers, The (1966) The Silencers is a quintessential 1960s spy spoof, the first (and best) of four colourful Matt Helm features, with debonair "Rat…
Tom Jones (1963) This romping bawdy adaptation of Henry Fielding's picaresque novel of the 18th Century was an enormous hit and won Oscars…
Mother Night (1996) This big-screen adaptation of the novel by Kurt Vonnegut tells the intriguing (fictional) tale of how successful German-American playwright Howard…
Ratso Rizzo
