Horses, train, guns, small town, and the wild –Richard Brooks’ Bite the Bullet got all these essential western ingredients. But it has more as Brooks created a different kind of western, calling it his “love poem to America.”
Entertaining the western lovers with a cross-country horse race in the early 20th Century, Bite the Bullet breaks away with the clichéd good cowboy against a gang storyline. Instead, we see the principled former Rough Rider Sam Clayton (Gene Hackman) join the race with friend Luke Matthews (James Coburn) and a small bunch of daring folks: the head-turner Miss Jones (Candice Bergen), a bad girl with a good deal of good intact in her heart; the impulsive and reckless young man Carbo (Jan-Michael Vincent); and others. As they compete in the wild for the prize, their personalities clash and the only thread binding them is the collective human spirit of survival.
The plot and characters unfold gradually and many scenes give the audience good time to let the feeling sink in while the suppressed motives and backstories of the characters surface in due time. The Mexican racer’s character with a toothache literally bites a bullet to bear the pain, thus visually enacting the title.
Standing out in Bite the Bullet is the motif of the humane treatment of animals. The movie starts with Clayton rescuing an orphan foal and giving it into the care of a child. Carbo’s cruel treatment of his horse and getting punished for it, Sir Harry Norfolk (Ian Bannen) faced with shooting his injured horse, and a few other scenes are centered on the same message – compassion for the beast of burden.
Bite the Bullet falls more on the adventure and drama side rather than the action western. At the same time, it has the naturalistic element with man against nature in the wild. Brooks’ love poem to America would have to reflect the American spirit of strength with compassion and principles against the vastness of the motherland. It’s a poem that touches the heart.
