(1974) 2.5 Fred Beldin "I learned to fly a plane, I lost interest in it. Waterskiing, I lost interest in it. But this is something you don't conquer." The opening of the unique Cockfighter tries to immediately explain the allure of its illicit subject, but the effort is in vain, as the remainder of the film's story showcases an assortment of obsessed men who love and care for their fighting roosters, then send them to violent deaths in order to gamble short money on their fate. Indeed, the final image of the picture finds the hero pulling the head off the rooster that just restored him to cockfighting glory, hardly a man who considers his birds anything more than a means to an end. Adapted by crime writer Charles Willeford from his own novel (he also appeared in the film as the sympathetic referee Ed Middleton), Cockfighter is an interesting treatment of an ugly subject, though the film never establishes a positive or negative attitude. The characters speak often of their prize roosters with admiration and affection, and have high regard for the science and mystery of the sport, though they are all ultimately just gamblers, never sure of the outcome despite hours of training and cross-breeding. The strange ambivalence of Cockfighter is likely due to the fact that director Monte Hellman never felt comfortable with the subject in the first place, and producer Roger Corman felt compelled to add graphic footage of bloody cockfights after production that Hellman was loathe to include. As it turned out, cockfighting is such a secretive, underground activity that even in Southern states where it was legal, most people were embarrassed by the sport and Cockfighter was a commercial failure. Still, the film boasts many fine performances, especially Warren Oates, who melts into the role of Frank Mansfield without uttering a sound (aside from some voice-over narration and a flashback scene). Cockfighter is simultaneously intense and contemplative, an episodic road film that simmers with obsession.