The Culpepper Cattle Co.
| The Culpepper Cattle Co. | |
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Promotional poster for The Culpepper Cattle Co.
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| Directed by | Dick Richards |
| Produced by | Paul Helmick |
| Written by |
Dick Richards Eric Bercovici Gregory Prentiss |
| Starring |
Gary Grimes Billy Green Bush |
| Music by |
Jerry Goldsmith (stock music composed for The Flim-Flam Man) Tom Scott |
| Cinematography | Lawrence Edward Williams Ralph Woolsey |
| Edited by | John Burnett |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
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Release date
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Running time
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92 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1 million |
| Box office | $1.25 million (US/ Canada) |
The Culpepper Cattle Co. or Dust, Sweat and Gunpowder (Australian title) is a 1972 Revisionist Western film produced by Twentieth Century Fox. It was directed by Dick Richards and starred Billy Green Bush as Frank Culpepper and Gary Grimes as Ben Mockridge. This was the first credited film for Jerry Bruckheimer, for which he received an associate producer credit. Its tagline is "How many men do you have to kill before you become the great American cowboy?" and also "The boy from Summer of '42 becomes a man on the cattle drive of 1866", which references a similar coming of age film starting Gary Grimes. The film is typical of the "hyper-realism" of many early 1970s revisionist westerns. It is particularly noted for its grainy photography and use of sepia toning in some scenes.
Ben Mockridge (Gary Grimes) is a young man proud of his $4 handgun and enamored of “cowboyin'.” He asks Frank Culpepper (Billy Green Bush) if he can join his cattle drive to Fort Lewis, Colorado. Culpepper (a reformed gunslinger) reluctantly agrees and sends Ben to the cook (Raymond Guth) to be his “little Mary.”
Ben quickly discovers that the adults have little interest in young’ns, and no interest in “showing him the ropes”. Culpepper nevertheless assigns Ben tasks the greenhorn handles poorly — or simply fails at — repeatedly causing serious trouble.
After rustlers stampede the herd, Culpepper tracks them to a box canyon. When the rustlers’ leader (Royal Dano) demands 50 cents a head for having rounded up and taken care of the cattle, Culpepper will have none of it. He and his hands kill the rustlers, not hesitating to gun down disarmed men, or repeatedly shoot anyone still moving. They lose four of their own in the fight.
Culpepper directs Ben to a cantina a day’s ride off, to find Russ Caldwell. Before he can reach the cantina, Ben is accosted by trappers who take his horse and gun. Once Ben finds Caldwell (Geoffrey Lewis), he and three of his buddies agree to join the drive. When they cross the trappers’ path, there’s no parlaying — they immediately kill the trappers and take their possessions.
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