By George!
Updated: Jul 23
Here’s another of the wonderful TV documentaries that George Plimpton made with producer David Wolper in the early 1970s for ABC. Plimpton, as I noted, was editor of the erudite Paris Review, and a friend of writers like Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer, as well as many others. He was most famous, though for his participatory journalism, where he wrote books about his experiences training in a wide range of challenging fields, mostly sports, but he branched out on occasion, generally for these TV documentaries. And that’s what we have here today – Plimpton! Shoot-Out at Rio Lobo.
For this effort, Plimpton went to Hollywood to find out what it was really like to work on a movie, talking with the cast crew and cast, and getting a tiny role with one line, which he not only rehearses endlessly throughout the documentary – that ends up involving him in some twists and turns (including one – without giving it away… -- involving an exchange with the director that I’ve always remembered), but also spends time with the stunt coordinator, trying to learn the ins and out of how to best die on film in a Western shoot-out, that has its own fun twist. As fun as this episode is, it’s also a serious matter. That’s because the movie in this case is no small production, but Rio Lobo starring John Wayne, directed by the legendary Howard Hawks, who made such classics as Red River, To Have and Have Not (the movie Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall met on, where she delivered her famous line, ““You know how to whistle, don't you Steve? You just put your lips together, and blow”, The Big Sleep, Sergeant York, Scarface, and the great screwball comedies Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. And many more. So, yes, Plimpton was diving in at the deep end.
(I should note that later in his career, when Plimpton had become a well-known personality, he actually started getting hired for much more meaningful roles. Nothing substantive, but more than someone almost in the background with one line. For instance, he was in Good Will Hunting, Volunteers (as Tom Hanks’ father), Steve Martin’s L.A. Story and even had a recurring role in two episodes of ER, did a voice as himself on The Simpsons, and appeared in 10 episodes of the detective series A Nero Wolf Mystery that starred Timothy Hutton. In fact, the iMDB lists 43 credits for him.
Here then is the 50-minute TV documentary, Plimpton! Shoot-Out at Rio Lobo.
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