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Written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. from the novel by William Dale Jennings, Mark Rydell’s The Cowboys premieres. Set in 1878, John Wayne stars as a Montana rancher who is forced to hire a ragtag group of schoolboys to ride shotgun with him on an arduous 400 mile cattle drive. A rousing, well-crafted coming-of-age western with a scene-stealing turn from Bruce Dern as a gnarly, bushwacking rustler who fatally underestimates the hard-won resolve of Wayne’s ostensible young greenhorns. Also starring Roscoe Lee Browne as a folksy chuck wagon cook, and a debuting Robert Carradine as one of the boys. Majestic score by John Williams.
