The Electric Horseman (1979) on Netflix
Retired rodeo champion Sonny Steele promotes Ampco's breakfast cereal in a lighted cowboy costume. When the racehorse he is to ride is drugged, he rides off, and reporter Hallie Martin follows.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.5/1010,128 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sonny Steele won the rodeo's all-around world championship five times before he retired, and Ampco signed him as the national spokesman for its Ranch Breakfast cereal. He tours in an electrically lit cowboy costume, grows the mustache his publicity department asks for, and drinks; his manager Wendell and his assistant Leroy try to keep him sober. Hallie Martin, a television newscaster from New York, comes to an Ampco event in Las Vegas and finds the company steering her away from Sonny. During rehearsals at Caesars Palace for a variety show, Sonny sees that Rising Star, the champion racehorse he is due to ride, has been given tranquilizers. He tells Ampco's chairman, Hunt Sears, that the stallion, the company's new symbol, is being exploited, and Sears dismisses him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Electric Horseman (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- A brief on-screen kiss between Robert Redford and Jane Fonda proved surprisingly costly to film: traveling thunderstorms kept interrupting the 20-second scene, and it ended up needing 48 takes at a cost of $280,000.
- The film marked country singer Willie Nelson's acting debut as Wendell Hickson, and according to director Sydney Pollack, Nelson improvised most of his dialogue in the role.
- For years home video releases replaced the song "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" in the opening title sequence with a generic instrumental sound-alike recording. A 2019 North American Universal Blu-ray edition returned the music that had been removed on many past video releases.
- This was the fifth film pairing director Sydney Pollack with Robert Redford, following This Property Is Condemned, Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, and Three Days of the Condor.
