Why Lonesome Dove is the greatest western ever made

The making of 1989’s Lonesome Dove was – in the true spirit of savage, land-roaming westerns – epic. The four-part mini-series, effectively four 90-minute movies about a cattle drive from Texas to Montana, was shot over three and a half months in multiple Texas and New Mexico locations. It required a 500-strong herd of cattle, more than 100 horses, 16 pigs, a bucketful of snakes, seven specially constructed Old West towns and 88 speaking roles.

Those included actors-turned-working cowboys and – unusually for TV at the time – Academy Award-calibre stars in Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones and Anjelica Huston. There were also pistols at dawn with tensions between Duvall, who died last month, and Australian director Simon Wincer. “We had our moments,” admits Wincer.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove revived a flagging genre – “The western was dead,” says Wincer – and blazed a trail at the frontier of prestige western TV. It’s a forebear of Yellowstone, which returned this week for its latest spin-off, Marshals. Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan acknowledged the story’s influence when he wrote a foreword in a 40th anniversary reprint of the book, calling the mini-series, which was scripted by William Wittliff, “arguably the most literal and faithful adaptation to the screen in cinematic history”.

It was also shockingly raw for US TV of the time, blind-siding viewers with unexpected deaths, painful-to-watch violence, and an abrasively matter-of-fact attitude to sex. (All the cowboys circling the same prostitute for “a poke” feels decidedly 1870s by modern standards.)

Duvall and Jones star as, respectively, the affable Augustus “Gus” McCrae and crotchety Woodrow Call, a pair of former Texas Rangers on a mission to be the first cattlemen in the untamed grasslands of Montana. Accompanied by a company of “cowpokes”, tracker Deets (Danny Glover) and a delectable prostitute, Lorie (Diane Lane), they journey not just across the country but through almost the entirety of the western genre. Lonesome Dove is perhaps the ultimate American fairy tale, but it’s more complex than white hats vs black hats. It’s a tale of grit and granite-like masculinity and a yearning for lost love.

McMurtry’s 1985 novel – a buffalo-sized 850 pages and the first of four books – began as a screenplay called Streets of Laredo, which McMurtry developed with film-maker Peter Bogdanovich. They intended it as a critique and summation of the West, starring John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda. But Wayne didn’t want to make it and the screenplay sat around for 12 years. McMurty reworked it as Lonesome Dove, named for its fictional Texas border town, and infused it with his rich and deep knowledge of Texas history and Wild West mythos.

“He was a Texan through and through,” says Wincer of McMurtry, who died in 2021. “His parents were former Texan ranchers. He knew that country and the stories. He was a great historian. He knew the history of the Native American.”

The book remains much loved – and controversial. It’s a seminal door-stopper that continues to be hailed as a must-read for anyone looking to understand American history, held up as the essential western alongside Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Just as Gus and Call head off to find the new frontier, a calling of sorts, middle-aged men are somehow destined to mosey their way towards the book.

But not everyone appreciates it. Many have criticised its relentless violence and gore: its most shocking passage depicts the mutilation of minor outlaw Dog Face, who is castrated, scalped and eventually gagged with his own organs. Female characters, when they do appear, are never far from being sexually assaulted or murdered.

Texas representative Jared Patterson made headlines in 2023 when he said Texas schools “might need to ban Lonesome Dove” – part of a proposal to remove books with sexual content from the state’s high schools (though Patterson also admitted he hadn’t read it.) He’s in the minority there – the book remains so popular in the Lone Star State that Wincer remembers feeling “the whole of Texas was looking over my shoulder” when he signed on to direct the adaptation. “In Texas, Lonesome Dove is like the Bible. Every director in America wanted to direct it. But they chose me, an Australian!”

Wincer got the Texan nod of approval following the release of his First World War film, The Lighthorsemen (1987). It premiered in Houston the same week that filming began on Lonesome Dove. “After the premiere, the Houston Chronicle said, ‘It’s OK, this guy knows what he’s doing.’”

Wincer’s introduction to Duvall, however, was not exactly friendly. “His opening words to me were, ‘I don’t have a high regard for Australians,’” recalls Wincer, laughing.

Duvall had previously made Tender Mercies (1983) with Aussie director Bruce Beresford, who stormed off the set at one point after a bust-up with the actor. “One thing I know about Bobby,” adds Wincer. “No director had ever had a good experience with him. He was just difficult to deal with. He would suddenly erupt over nothing. Not about the way I was shooting, but something would upset him. Everyone on the crew would be walking around on eggshells. That’s how Bobby tended to operate.”

It was part of Duvall’s process. “Every actor had their way of getting where they need to get to before they come on camera,” says Wincer. “Sometimes he’d erupt and come up and apologise later and say, ‘I’m sorry, man, I’m having woman’s troubles.’”

Following The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, Duvall was already a heavyweight, Oscar-winning actor, and in huge demand in Hollywood. But CBS didn’t care, and protested at the number of bona fide movie stars who had signed on for Lonesome Dove. “They said this is television, you need TV stars,” says Wincer. The network was placated by the casting of S.W.A.T.’s Robert Urich as Jake Spoon, a Texas Ranger-turned-gambling rogue. In one of the show’s most devastating scenes, Gus and Call – stubborn about civilising the savage land with law and order – hang their old pal Jake for falling in with a gang of bandits.

Regardless of star power, actors were required to do four or five weeks in the saddle. Wincer – a former polo player and lifelong horseman – insisted on it. One actor who couldn’t ride a horse before being cast was New Yorker DB Sweeney, who – much to Jones’s initial annoyance – co-starred as the posse’s top cowhand, Dish Boggett.

“Tommy Lee Jones found out some kid from Long Island who doesn’t know how to ride was playing the top cowboy and tried to get me fired,” Sweeney tells me. “He’s a sixth-generation Texan and understood the importance of the material. Tommy Lee tried to wear me out. We’d go on a four-hour training ride and he wouldn’t talk to me.”

Sweeney won Jones over later that same day by displaying rugged, manly skills. “He was complaining about these wild goats on his property,” recalls Sweeney. “Being Texas, there was a rifle on the patio. I shot a goat, butchered it and made a stew – he liked the stew. I went from him trying to get rid of me to being his favourite.”

Sweeney learnt to ride for several months and was among the actors who went buck naked – well, almost – in one cattle-wrangling sequence.

“All the cowboys decided they’d go for it,” says Wincer. “They wore their chaps, their boots, and nothing else. If you look closely there’s one shot where there’s a giant penis flopping around. Somehow CBS never noticed.”

In another famous scene, one of the cowboys is killed by water moccasin snakes. “The art department unearthed a snake guy and he turned up with a container of snakes, all swimming in water,” says Wincer. “He said, ‘Build a net around me in the water, and I’ll get in there and double for the actor. Just tip this bucket of snakes over me.’ And that’s how we did it. One review said, ‘Simon Wincer has done for the water moccasin what Steven Spielberg did for the great white shark.’”

The snake death is just one of Lonesome Dove’s many tragedies. There’s bandit Blue Duck (Frederic Forrest) murdering a child and kidnapping Lorie; Indians slaughtering a sickly woman who’s just given birth. Gus and Call set out to tame the land but – also true to the spirit of the western – it can’t be tamed.

Sweeney remembers that for the hanging of Jake Spoon and the bandits – one of the most harrowing scenes in the whole series – Duvall worked himself into legitimately hating one of the bandit actors, giving extra credence to Gus’s line, “You’re the kind of man that’s a pleasure to hang.”

“I could see Duvall looking for reasons to hate him,” says Sweeney. “I felt bad for that actor. He just wanted his moment with Robert Duvall.”

Production designer Cary White, speaking to Texas Monthly magazine, said Duvall was so committed to the role he used fake outhouses on the set. “Duvall would take a c--p in them because he was in character,” said White.

For Wincer, the most powerful scene is a two-hander between Duvall and Jones. Gus is on his deathbed after being shot in the leg with two arrows (watching Gus pull an arrow not out of but through his leg is unbearable). He has one leg amputated but refuses to have the other removed to stop gangrene. It’s a heart-wrenching goodbye – dressed up as combative stubbornness – between two long-time companions.

“One of the finest things I’ve been involved in,” says Wincer. “It’s an 11-minute scene and these two wonderful actors were absolutely at home in their roles. We probably only did it twice. It was just breathtaking.”

Lonesome Dove aired February 5-8 1989. It peaked with 44 million viewers and was nominated for 19 Emmys, winning seven. “Something like every other TV in Texas was watching it,” says Sweeney.

Wincer credits the original author for its brilliance, despite the fact McMurtry admitted he never watched it all the way through.

Duvall still treasured it years later. In 2010 he called Gus “my favourite part that I’ve ever done, probably”. He also made a point of apologising to Wincer in his speech at a reunion in Fort Worth a few years ago. “He was like my best friend for the next couple of days,” says Wincer.

He chuckles looking back at their creative duelling. “All I cared about was what ended up on the screen. And I knew what we were getting was gold.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]