Where the Buffalo Roam

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For the first webcomic, see Where the Buffalo Roam (comic).

Where the Buffalo Roam
Cover of the Anchor Bay DVD.
Directed by	Art Linson
Produced by	Art Linson
Written by	Hunter S. Thompson John Kaye
Starring	Bill Murray Peter Boyle Bruno Kirby Rene Auberjonois
Music by	Neil Young
Cinematography	Tak Fujimoto
Editing by	Christopher Greenbury
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	April 25, 1980
Running time	96 min.
Country	USA
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Where the Buffalo Roam is a 1980 comedy film based on a number of semi-biographical stories by author Hunter S. Thompson. Bill Murray portrayed the author and Peter Boyle portrayed Thompson's attorney, Carl Lazlo, Esq., who is loosely based on Oscar Zeta Acosta.

An obituary Thompson wrote for Acosta, The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat, which appeared in a October 1977 issue Rolling Stone magazine, serves as the basis of the film, although screenplay writer John Kaye drew from several other Thompson works, including Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Great Shark Hunt and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thompson served as "executive consultant" on the film.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Reception 4 Production 5 Soundtrack 5.1 Track listing 6 Miscellanae 7 See also 8 References 9 External link

[edit] Plot

The film opens in the Rocky Mountains on the Colorado ranch of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, a working journalist furiously trying to finish a story about his former attorney and friend Carl Lazlo, Esq..

The film then flashes back to a series of exploits involving the author and his attorney.

In 1968, Lazlo is fighting to stop a group of San Francisco youngsters from receiving harsh prison sentences for possession of marijuana. He convinces Thompson to write an article about it for Blast Magazine. Thompson's editor, Marty Lewis — a parody of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner — reminds Thompson that he has 19 hours to deadline. The judge hands out stiff sentences to everyone, and the last client is a young man who was caught with a pound of marijuana and receives a five-year sentence. Lazlo reacts by attacking the prosecuting attorney and is then jailed for contempt of court.

The magazine story about the trial is a sensation, but Thompson does not hear from Lazlo until four years later. The film then depicts Thompson's assignment to cover Super Bowl VI in Los Angeles. (The game was actually played in New Orleans that year.)

Lazlo appears at the hotel and convinces Thompson to abandon the Super Bowl story and join his band of freedom fighters, which involves smuggling weapons to an unnamed Latin American country. Thompson goes along with Lazlo and the revolutionaries to a remote airstrip where the plane is to be loaded, but when a police helicopter finds them Lazlo and his henchmen get on the plane to escape while Thompson refuses to follow.

Thompson's fame and fortune continue and he later covers the 1972 Presidential campaign. After being thrown off the journalist plane by The Candidate's (i.e. Richard Nixon's) press secretary, Dooley (Mark Metcalf), Thompson is forced to take the crew plane (known as the "Zoo"). Thompson gives Harris from the Washington Post (Rene Auberjonois) a strong hallucinogenic drug and steals his clothes and press credentials. Thompson is able to engage The Candidate in a conversation and then launches into a diatribe about the "Screwheads" and the "Doomed". The Candidate tells Thompson to "fuck the doomed".

Lazlo then tries to convince Thompson to join his socialist paradise somewhere in the desert, but Lazlo's briefcase full of papers that describe the community are blown across the airport runway. Lazlo, presumably, is not heard from again.

The action then ends at Thompson's cabin, just as the writer puts the finishing touches on his story, explaining that he didn't go along with Lazlo because "it never got weird enough for me."

[edit] Cast

• Peter Boyle as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
• Bill Murray as Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
• Bruno Kirby as Marty Lewis
• Rene Auberjonois as Harris from the Post
• R.G. Armstrong as Judge Simpson
• Mark Metcalf as Dooley
• Craig T. Nelson as Cop on stand

[edit] Reception

The movie fared poorly when it was released (though it was not widely circulated)^{[citation needed]}. It has been panned critically for being a series of bizarre episodes strung together rather than having a cohesive central plot. "The movie fails to deal convincingly with either Thompson's addictions or with his friendship with Lazlo," critic Roger Ebert wrote at the time, but Ebert also noted that "this is the kind of bad movie that's almost worth seeing". ^[1] It has since gained a cult following through broadcast on cable television and VHS and DVD releases.

[edit] Production

Hunter S. Thompson was paid $100,000 for the film rights to his obituary of Chicano activist Oscar Zeta Acosta, "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat", which is one of the essays included in The Great Shark Hunt. He was brought aboard the film's production as "executive consultant". "I signed away editorial control from the beginning," he is quoted as saying to the Rolling Stone College Papers. "I wandered around and fired machine guns on the set."

The film was the directorial debut for producer-director Art Linson and was the fourth film he had produced.

Actor Bill Murray, a friend of Thompson's, took the lead role and the film was made while Murray was on summer break from Saturday Night Live. Murray immersed himself in the character so deeply, that when Saturday Night Live started its fifth season, Murray was still in character as Thompson – argumentative, surly and hard to get along with. Gradually, though, the Thompson persona faded away. ^[2]

[edit] Soundtrack

Where the Buffalo Roam
Soundtrack by various artists
Released	1980
Genre	Rock, R&B
Length	38:00
Label	MCA
Professional reviews
All Music Guide Link

The film was scored by Neil Young, who sings the opening theme, "Home on the Range" with just his acapella voice and harmonica. Variations on "Home on the Range" are played by Young on electric guitar as "Ode to Wild Bill" and by an orchestra with arrangements by David Blumberg on "Buffalo Stomp". Music in the film included rock and R&B songs by Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Temptations, the Four Tops and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Additionally, characters played by Bill Murray and Rene Auberjonois sing lyrics from "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds".

Because of the high cost of music licensing, the DVD releases have retained only the Neil Young score and the Creedence song, "Keep on Chooglin'", with the rest of the music replaced by generic approximations of the original songs.

[edit] Track listing

The soundtrack album was released by MCA Records in 1980 as a vinyl LP and included bits of dialogue from the film. It is not available on CD. The tracks on the album were:

1. "Buffalo Stomp" – performed by Neil Young with the Wild Bill Band of Strings
2. "Ode to Wild Bill #1" – written and performed by Neil Young
3. "All Along the Watchtower" – written by Bob Dylan; performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
4. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" – written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney; performed by Bill Murray
5. "Ode to Wild Bill #2 – written and performed by Neil Young
6. "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" – written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong; performed by The Temptations
7. "Home, Home on the Range" – written by Brewster Higley and Daniel Kelley; performed by Neil Young
8. "Straight Answers" (dialogue) – performed by Bill Murray
9. "Highway 61 Revisited" – written and performed by Bob Dylan
10. "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" – written by Holland-Dozier-Holland; performed by the Four Tops
11. "Ode to Wild Bill #3" (plus dialogue) – written and performed by Neil Young
12. "Keep on Chooglin'" – written by John Fogerty; performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival
13. "Ode to Wild Bill #4" – written and performed by Neil Young
14. "Purple Haze" – written by Jimi Hendrix; performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
15. "Buffalo Stomp Refrain" – performed by Neil Young with the Wild Bill Band of Strings ^[3]

[edit] Miscellanae

• Ralph Steadman, who illustrated the original editions of The Great Shark Hunt, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other of Thompson's works, also did the artwork for the movie poster of this film and drew the title cards for the movie.
• When Thompson and Lazlo are driving in San Francisco, they pass a 1974 Ford Torino painted in the striped red-and-white Starsky and Hutch pattern. Not only is this perhaps an unintentional homage to a TV show from the 1970s, it is anachronistic, since that scene was supposed to have taken place in 1968.
• The restroom scene, when Thompson confronts the Candidate, and the Candidate says "Fuck the doomed," was deleted from some television broadcasts.

[edit] See also

• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[edit] References

1. ^ Ebert, Roger. April 29, 1980. Reviews: Where the Buffalo Roam, Chicago Sun-Times (retrieved August 17, 2006)
2. ^ Special features, Where the Buffalo Roam, DVD release by Anchor Bay Entertainment.
3. ^ Where the Buffalo Roam soundtrack details at www.soundtrackcollector.com (retrieved August 17, 2006).

[edit] External link

• Where the Buffalo Roam at the Internet Movie Database