The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972)

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.

Synopsis

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.”

Actors