The final film starring “The King of the Cowboys” has been restored for streaming and home video release.
Good news for fans of Roy Rogers, country music, and family-friendly contemporary westerns: Mackintosh and T.J., the 1975 drama featuring “The King of the Cowboys” in his last feature film appearance, has been given a spiffy 4K restoration for streaming and home video release. Distributed by Verdugo Entertainment, the movie is available on DVD and Blu-Ray through Amazon, Walmart stores and Walmart.com, Target.com and other outlets, and can be streamed on Amazon Prime, Vudu, You Tube and Google Play.
Described as “a moving photo album of ranch life in Texas in the mid-1970s,” Mackintosh and T.J. was filmed on various locations throughout the Lone Star State, including the fabled 6666 Ranch, by Emmy-winning director Marvin J. Chomsky (Roots, Holocaust, Inside the Third Reich). Veteran screenwriter Paul Savage, best known for his work on such TV series as Gunsmoke, Laramie and The Big Valley, wrote the movie with Roy Rogers specifically in mind to play the lead role of Mackintosh, a seasoned ranch hand who becomes a father figure for T.J., a homeless youngster, after their paths cross in rural Texas.
Fun fact: T.J. is played by Clay O’Brien Cooper, who dropped his last name while working in film and TV during his 1970s acting career — he also co-starred with such notables as John Wayne (The Cowboys) and James Garner (One Little Indian) — before finding fame and fortune as a real-life cowboy. A seven-time World Champion in Team Roping, he was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1997.
Mackintosh and T.J. was restored to 4K from the original 35mm camera negative, and went through a color correction process to match how the film looked during its original theatrical release. According to colorist Sean Lawrence: “Our color correction approach was to try and be as true to the original intention, and not impose modern color correction aesthetics. Were the filmmakers alive to see it, we would want them to feel that this matched their original vision.”
Film historian Stuart Rosebrook has likened Mackintosh and T.J. to other 1970s movies about modern-day cowboys: “Roy Rogers’ character Mackintosh seems to be an amalgamation of some of those characters we saw in Junior Bonner, J.W. Coop and The Honkers — men out of time, men who have values, who still follow the ‘Code of The West.’”
“It isn’t a Roy Rogers movie,” says film historian Courtney Joyner, “it’s a wonderful movie that Roy Rogers is in that reflects quite a bit of 1970s sensibility.”
The supporting cast includes Joan Hackett (Will Penny, Support Your Local Sheriff!), Billy Green Bush (The Culpepper Cattle Co., Five Easy Pieces), Andrew Robinson (Dirty Harry), James Hampton (F Troop) and Luke Askew (Easy Rider, Posse). The original score was composed by Waylon Jennings, and the soundtrack features songs by Jennings and fellow country music great Willie Nelson.
