"Frank Mansfield walked into town with his cock in his hand. And what he did with it was illegal in 47 states!"
These animals all died in 1974, Tati; we'll be okay.
Tied with
Two-Lane Blacktop as my favorite Oates performance; he can't stop running his mouth in one, and he's taken a vow of silence in the other. People smarter than me have called
Cockfighter a meta-sequel to
Two-Lane for that reason.
Further readin':
http://www.dennismcmillan.com/charle.../cockfigh1.htm
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Originally Posted by Phil  Cockfighter might be my favorite of the bunch. It immerses you into its subject matter in a way Two-Lane doesn't. Two-Lane isn't after the same effect, though- watching two men lose themselves in their obsession without understanding it has a profound effect, but with a mute lead, abhorrent subject matter, and rednecks as far as the eye can see, a different approach is called for to lure the viewer in. But it's amazingly shot by Néstor Almendros, the score sticks in your head for days, and Oates completely captivates.
IMPORTANT: Cockfighter is available on a few cheapie DVD labels, but try to get the Anchor Bay version shown above. They restored it and took out all the shit Roger Corman added later, like a dream sequence with car explosions (added expressly for the purpose of having explosions in the trailer). It was retitled Born To Kill, and should not be mistaken for the real deal:  Here's an absolute mess of a re-release trailer. Watch the real one first.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Malmordo I was very surprised to see how big of a role screenwriter and novelist Charles Willeford has in COCKFIGHTER (as heavyset mustached Ed Middleton, the referee). This guy was a better actor than anyone probably expected, and had a unique physical appearance that would've gotten him a great deal more work if he'd stayed in Hollywood (his only other role was a brief cameo in the Roger Corman car chase flick THUNDER AND LIGHTNING). To my mind he's on a short list of writers who actually looked comfortable in front of a camera.
Other interesting bits about the writer and COCKFIGHTER...On the DVD commentary Hellman claims that Willeford wrote only the first draft. Hellman brought in Earl Mac Rauch (BUCKAROO BANZAI) for some doctoring and additional scenes. As much as I love Willeford's writing -- and one of these days I'll have to hunt down his original novel for comparison -- I can definitely see the value of Mac Rauch's material, specifically in the moments between Frank and Mary Elizabeth (Patricia Pearcy). Their scenes have a sense of warmth that the script needed to illustrate the extent of Frank's moral and emotional degeneration.
It's also surprising that Willeford stuck around to act in the film after Mac Rauch rewrote so much of his script, and that he spoke so highly of it later in interviews (and his book Cockfighter Journal: The Story of a Shooting).
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