But on the small screen this summer, complex takes on the genre like “Hell on Wheels” (returning Aug. Burns shows up with two files and a plan to ride for Mexico - to turn him down.įifty years after the release of that film, “Lonely Are the Brave,” westerns may not be much in evidence at the multiplex. So it’s a moral imperative for Paul - when his old compadre John W. He has written the government and local authorities about his resistance to unjust authority and been given a year in jail. Like Abbey, Paul is an incipient libertarian or a patriotic anarchist. Paul, the hero’s friend, has refused to register, not because he is a pacifist (he isn’t) but because he considers a draft unconstitutional. Douglas went to bat for Trumbo on “Spartacus,” promising him a screen credit with his real name.) And Trumbo had solved the story’s two biggest problems: Why was the hero’s best friend in jail in the first place? And why wouldn’t he leave?Ībbey’s novel, published in 1956, is set a decade earlier, following the introduction of the military draft. (Blacklisted and jailed after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Trumbo had for 10 years written scripts under assumed names, winning an Oscar for one of them as Robert Rich. Its screenwriter was talented and hard working. The material - the story of a modern-day cowboy who breaks into jail to rescue his best friend - is original for a western, and gets better as it goes along. Douglas was gambling again, but playing a good hand. And Byrna, which had a production deal with Universal, commissioned a screenplay, by Dalton Trumbo. Meanwhile he had encountered a paperback novel - “The Brave Cowboy,” by Edward Abbey - and optioned it through his production company, Byrna. Douglas thought the picture had turned out well, but it still hadn’t been released. It was 1961, and this actor-producer had recently gambled on a big history picture, “Spartacus.” He had fired the director - Anthony Mann - after a week of shooting, replacing him with Stanley Kubrick.
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