In the spring of 1974, director Monte Hellman came to Georgia to film Cockfighter, an intimate look into the gritty backwoods subculture of cockfighting. The movie tells the story of Frank Mansfield (played by Warren Oates) and his desperate pursuit to attain the Cockfighter Of The Year award. After losing a substantial bet in a crucial fight, Mansfield pledges that he will not speak again until winning the award. Other than a short line at the movie's finale and a few lines in flashback scenes, Warren Oates delivers a wordless performance. Oates was even ordered by Hellman to remain mute on the set in order to better get into character.
Author Charles Willeford said the story is not actually about cockfighting, but about a man blinded by the pursuit of his obsession.
In addition to Warren Oates, the cast included Harry Dean Stanton, Ed Begley Jr., Tab Hunter, Laurie Bird, Robert Earl Jones and Steve Railsback. Scenes were filmed in a number of Georgia towns and cities, including Atlanta, Roswell, and Toccoa, among other locales.
Cockfighter was shot in a mere four weeks in April and May 1974, and the inexpensive ($450,000) movie was released almost instantly in late July 1974. I don't think too many movies operate on that kind of time scale anymore. In any case, the official premiere of Cockfighter was held at the Roswell Village Twin on July 31, 1974 and was a pretty big deal. Governor Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn attended, as well as numerous local dignitaries like the mayor of Roswell.
I originally learned about the fact that Cockfighter was a local production in Warren Oates: A Wild Life, an excellent biography of Oates by author Susan Compo that was published in 2009.
