Summary

• The famous "I'm walkin' here" scene in Midnight Cowboy, where Dustin Hoffman nearly gets hit by a cab, has become one of the most quotable lines in movie history.
• Hoffman claimed that the scene was improvised, but the film's producer and director suggest that it was filmed with an extra in the cab.
• While the truth about whether the line was improvised or not remains unclear, there are several factors that help explain the discrepancy and what likely occurred.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Dustin Hoffman improvised the famous "I'm walkin' here" scene in Midnight Cowboy.

The 1969 film Midnight Cowboy was a watershed moment in American cinematic history, being the first (and only) X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The success of the film, about a naïve male prostitute from Texas (the titular "Midnight Cowboy," played by Jon Voight) and a hustler he met in New York City (played by Dustin Hoffman), helped to change the way Hollywood treats topics that would normally be seen as too noncommercial to be made into studio films (Midnight Cowboy made more than $40 million on a budget of roughly $3 million.) It arrived after the fall of the Hays Code, which ruthlessly censored notions of sex and nudity which are central to the movie's story. On top of its merits as pure cinema, and its moving story about an unlikely friendship between two of New York's most downtrodden residents, it's a celebration of artistic freedom after decades of being harshly curtailed.

One of Midnight Cowboy's most famous scenes depicts Voight and Hoffman walking down the street when Hoffman is nearly hit by a cab. He hits the vehicle and shouts the iconic quote, "Hey! I'm walkin' here!" It's become one of the most quotable lines in movie history, and aptly summarizes the movie's central theme that every person — no matter how humble — deserves basic dignity and respect. It's also led to a big question about how the line came about. Hoffman is a dedicated method actor, and supposedly improvised it during filming. But the film's producer Jerome Hellman offers a different version of the story, leading to a great deal of speculation on whether the line was really improvised or not. Details vary, but the truth most likely falls somewhere in the middle.

Updated December 20, 2023 by Robert Vaux. The article has been updated to expand upon information already included, based on public comments from the filmmakers themselves as well as the original script. It also includes a few additional details on the film's place in movie history, and why it's so highly regarded over 50 years after it was made. No one can know for certain how the line came about, save those who were present when it was shot. Movie magic can sometimes take place spontaneously, when an actor or director seizes upon a moment of inspiration while the cameras are rolling. The question of whether Hoffman's line was improvised will likely remain open. Here's what the public knows for certain.

The Origin of Midnight Cowboy's 'I'm Walkin' Here' Moment

Famously, the scene has been described by Hoffman many times over the years as being improvised. He told the National Post:

“It was a low-budget movie. Nobody wanted to make this movie, Midnight Cowboy. People walked out during previews; it was considered filthy in 1969. Very low budget. Consequently, on Sixth Avenue, there was no money to stack it with extras. So it’s what they call a stolen shot. We have radio mikes on, the van is across the street, we rehearse it by ourselves. You know, the director [John Schlesinger], me and [Jon] Voight. And we would have to do this dialogue walking. And the hidden camera across the street would go with us, but we couldn’t stop the signal, so we had to reach the dialogue at a certain point so we wouldn’t have to stop. It would have to be turning green when we hit it. So we rehearsed it ourselves and we finally got — oh, so we’ll start this far back, then we’ll do this pace and then we’ll get there when it just hits green — perfect — and we can just continue. And we do it, and the first take a cab jumps the light … I wound up saying, ‘I’m walkin’ here!’ But what was going through my head is: ‘Hey, we’re makin’ a movie here! And you just f–ked this shot up.’ But somehow something told me you’d better keep it within the character.

However, in the director's commentary of Midnight Cowboy, Jerome Hellman said the scene was filmed with an extra in the cab. Similarly, director John Schlesinger recalled, "I don't know that that was improvised. I think we got an extra inside a cab and did it. I can't swear to the fact that it was in the script or not, but I don't think that was improvised." That's backed up by the pacing of the scene itself, in which Voight and Hoffman need to reach the light at a certain point so that they didn't break their stride. Hoffman himself confirms that the scene required numerous takes to get right. Despite the scene's verite atmosphere and hidden camera, it's unlikely that a cab would have simply come out of nowhere the way Hoffman described.

More tellingly, the original script states that his character, Ratso Rizzo, pretends to be hit by a cab in order to feign an injury:

Ratso darts into traffic against a red light, yelling unheard obscenities at a cab driver who blasts his horn. Joe runs recklessly forward as Ratso slams the taxi fender with his fist, pretending to be hit, falling into Joe's arms.

The moment arrives after Rizzo's line about "social register types" who need a go-between to procure a prostitute, and before his admonition that Buck could score a hundred bucks a night with the right management: both of which are in the final film. While that doesn't provide concrete proof, it does strongly suggest that the cab was always intended to be a part of the scene, rather than "jumping the light" as Hoffman recalls.

Why Midnight Cowboy's Cast and Crew Have Differing Accounts

Later in Hoffman's story, he notes after he first said the line, "I'm walkin' here," that "Schlesinger jumps out of the van and goes, ‘What happened? What happened? What happened?’ We told him, he says, we have to do it again just like that." I add the emphasis to note that often, when Hoffman tells the story, he notes that very point, that they then re-shot the scene a number of times. It may have very well begun as a piece of improvisation — and the line doesn't exist in the original script, which supports Hoffman's allegation that it was improvised on the spot — but obviously, it's a winner. Therefore, it is logical to believe that the line was improvised initially, but that the shot that ultimately ended up in the film was one of a number of takes in which he repeated the line multiple times.

Varying accounts are certainly understandable, especially in hindsight and with a good deal of time spent on a single shot. It's also well in keeping with Hoffman's character: a threadbare street hustler down on his luck who has no problems embellishing the truth when it suits him. The actor's dedication to his craft is unparalleled, and — along with the passage of time that invariably clouds the memory — he could have simply remembered the moment while in Ratso's mindset and added a little flair to the story after the fact. None of it changes the iconic line, and indeed actors of Hoffman's caliber are often hired precisely because they can conjure up such moments on the fly.

So, to me, it seems as though the legend is...

STATUS: More True than False, but at least understandable in people thinking it is "false."

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