I love the character actor Warren Oates for his idiosyncratic performances in the period 1969-74 – and this is Warren Oates Week at The Movie Gourmet. Friday, I’ll write about the upcoming Oatesathon on Monday night, when Turner Classic Movies will be presenting SEVEN Warren Oates movies. And next week’s DVD.Stream of the Week will feature two Oates cult classics that TCM will be missing.
Oates was one of those actors whose performances always make an impression. He could turn a stock Western Bad Guy into a memorable character by adding a touch of cowardice, dimwittedness or venality. In Barquero, he was formidable enough to go gun barrel-to-gun barrel with Lee Van Cleef for 115 minutes.
Oates had a special gift for portraying desperation, so he triumphed in neo-noirs like Chandler, Cockfighter, The Brinks Job and his crowning achievement, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. By early 1970s, the counter-culture was bringing lots of screenplay cynicism and anti-hero roles to the movies – both perfect for Oates.
Warren Oates died in 1982 at age 53. He has 123 acting credits on IMDb, mostly Westerns. He was a favorite of directors Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman. Indeed, he is most well-known for playing one of the Gorch brothers in Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and Sissy Spacek’s father (blown away by teen punk Martin Sheen) in Terence Malick’s Badlands.
Some of Oates’ best work was in 1974 as the leads in Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Hellman’s Cockfighter. He was also unforgettable in the offbeat Barquero (1970), Hellman’s Two-lane Blacktop (1971) and Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand (1971).
The 53-minute 1993 documentary Warren Oates Across the Border includes clips of Oates’ work, along with commentary from his widow Teddy Oates, Hellman, and fellow actors Ned Beatty, Robert Culp, Ben Johnson, Peter Fonda, Stacy Keach and Millie Perkins. Here it is.