Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lonesome Dove.

You are right...

I liked it. Liked the book more perhaps but the series didn't disappoint. When I heard they were going to make the series I was prepared for a big letdown, but not so.

It's just a story. Don't know why you haters hate.

Did you notice that the author said Duvall's favorite character will "surprise you", then told us it was Gus in "Lonesome Dove"? I was thinking that I would have been surprised if it had been any other character. What a great movie.

CHLINSTRUCTOR, is that book to which you refer "The Longhorns," by J. Frank Dobie, © 1912?

If so, it is a very interesting read. I have an original first edition.

L.W.

I've got a copy too. I've also got Out of the Old Rock by Dobie and On the Open Range. On the Open Range is one of my favorite books of all time. I've read many of the stories to my kids when they were small. It's just about had it. It's got a bunch of signatures of kids my Mom went to school with in Texas. I don't know if it was once a school book that Mom somehow cobbed onto or what but it was given to me by my Grandma and I think it was out of the Austin Schoolbook Depository. I wish it wasn't coming apart, but I'm glad to have read so many of the stories so much. Dobie was a great writer, compiler and folklorist.

From where I sit, I can see my copies of Dead Man's Walk, Comanche Moon and Streets of Laredo, all by McMurtry and all sequentially in the Lonesome Dove series, with LD between CM and Streets chronologically. I must not have a hardcover copy of Lonesome Dove. McMurtry is a talented writer, but sometimes just goes off on tangents. My criticism of Lonesome Dove would be how it lags badly in mid-story...about the time they get to Nebraska and it starts being about Clara, Gus' ONE TRUE LOVE. IMO, McMurtry's Last Picture Show series is better than his LD series. So much of McMurtry's stuff is woven together that it's difficult to tell one series from another. I haven't read any of his latest books because I feel he went off the deep end. Texasville IMO, is his greatest work, though it is not without its flaws and distastefulness in parts. The Last Picture Show is more poetic, and perhaps more evocative of the 50's, which was before my time. I can't think of a better book about the 80's in rural America than Texasville though. You could pick it up and put it down in Kansas and it would still ring true. Oklahoma too. Probably about any place in the oil patch.

The mini series is pretty good, but they should have shortened it considerably.

I'm highly interested in what an expert such as yourself, thinks is the best example of McMurtry's work translated onto film-either the big screen or small. Hud? The Last Picture Show? Lonesome Dove? All were critically acclaimed. Maybe Terms of Endearment? I've never seen the latter so...

I've read that too. It's interesting that Goodnight himself appears as a character in several other books of McMurtry's, such as Comanche Moon and Streets of Laredo. I wonder if Val Kilmer's character in Comanche Moon was based on Stephen Ambrose.

What did you not like about it? Do you dislike westerns overall or just didn't like that particular one? Most folks do like it.

Personally, I liked it a lot when I first watched it, but I grew up loving westerns only to have the spigot literally just turned off back in the seventies. Westerns were so sparse that IMO ones that were pretty pedestrian overall got elevated to mythic status just by appearing when there weren't any others. Dances with Wolves comes immediately to mind. I love accuracy in westerns and to me having some period stuff in one as opposed to using 1892 Winchesters and SAA's in 1836, really raises one up. OTOH, I think that some older oaters that were just considered "good" as opposed to newer ones that were considered "excellent" really had better storylines.

1967's Hombre with Paul Newman is a helluva western, as is One Eyed Jacks and The Appaloosa, both with Marlon Brando.

Yes that's the one. I'll have to dig up my first edition an re-read it. It's been at least 10 years since I last read it for probably the 10th time. Thus the error I made on who Gus & Captain Call's characters were based upon. J Frank Dobie is one of my favorite authors.

Did not know the history on Josh Deets...thanks for sharing.

Doc

Another good Dobie read is "A Vaquero of the Brush Country". Story of Thomas Young. Actually it was mostly written by Young and Dobie put it all together.

In this book you find out who McMurtry based Clara from Lonesome Dove on. Actual woman who raised horses some where out around Uvalde I believe.

I watched it again this weekend, most of it. I don't like gus ending up the way he did.
I also know one thing, sooner or later i am going to get a hat like woodrow used.
I think my favorite part is where woodrow beats the crud out of that guy for quirking his son. And that line about not accepting rude behavior.

Ron,

Go to the local western wear store and look for a Resistol "Showdown".
4 1/2" brim, I wanna say 6" crown, and I believe they offer them in black.

I have one in Stone with a kettle curl and Montana Peak crease. It's my stepping out hat.

Or you can have one custom steamed, like I did. Just say you want a Gus and they'll know.

If I was a CAS, I'd get one like Kilmer wore in Tombstone though.

But he wanted one like Woodrow!

Crap! The Gus is so popular...
Dang!

I have a Gus hat in whiskey color. Made by Jaxonbilt Hats in Salmon, Idaho. Roy Jackson is the hat maker and will build to suit. If it isn't too cold or windy it is my usual hunting lid.

mike r

LOL! I know!!! Tis' isn't it???

I, For one really liked the movie.

There were some slow parts, but many GREAT parts.
Have a copy that I replay often.

Always admired the "Gus" hat and ended up getting one in a Stetson 6X in "silverbelly" very similar to the one Gus wore in the film.
Also had an old black Resistol (that I've had for over 30 years)restyled in this style.

They go good with my Carhart vest, And the girls really like them!(grin!)

Virgil B.