Ride Lonesome (1959)

In the past year or so, I've made a determined decision to get more accustomed to pre-1970's films from around the world, particularly genres I've previously given short change to, such as musicals, war films and westerns. I have to admit it's greatly enhanced my appreciation of cinema in general. It's amazing how great some of these films actually are.

Since cinema is the greatest love of my life, I also collect books on film, trying to find out anything and everything I can. As the old Calvin Klein commercial goes, 'A man has many loves, but only one Obsession'. An unexpectedly great and relatively inexpensive find was 'The Editors of American Cowboy's The Top 100 Westerns of All Time,' from 2011. Looming at #52 was this, and its write-up sounded intriguing, so I've always kept my eyes open for it. Sure enough, last month I saw a Randolph Scott Westerns 6-pack for a very low price, and I pulled the trigger (pardon the pun).

This was exceptional and clearly deserves its lofty status. There is so much action, intrigue and beauty jam-packed in Burt Kennedy's script for this 72 minutes. Every shot is finely composed and exquisitely filmed. I dare you to find a better supporting cast. Sure, the four-hour epics by the Sir David Leans and Victor Flemings out there are great, but I'd rather see a simple story, brilliantly told than the gluttonous two-to-three-hour pieces of self-important crap you find these days. Let that be my epitaph.

I was so close to even giving this a perfect grade. It's honestly THAT good.

You just don't seem like the kind that would hunt a man for money.

Ride Lonesome is directed by Budd Boetticher, written by Burt Kennedy and stars Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, James Coburn, James Best & Lee Van Cleef. Charles Lawton Jr. is the cinematographer (in CinemaScope for the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California location) and Heinz Roemheld provides the musical score. Film is part of the Ranown Western cycle involving Boetticher, Scott, Kennedy and producer Harry Joe Brown.

Bounty hunter Ben Brigade (Scott) captures wanted outlaw Billy John (Best) and tells him he's taking him to Santa Cruz to be hanged. Best boasts that his brother Frank (Cleef) will soon be arriving to ensure that doesn't happen. Brigade isn't the least bit bothered by this statement. The two men stop at a Wells Junction, a remote swing station, where they encounter Boone (Roberts) & Whit (Coburn), two drifters, and Mrs Lane (Steele), the station attendant's wife. With Mr Lane missing and the Mescalero Apache's on the warpath, the group decide to collectively travel to Santa Cruz, but hot on their trail are the Indians and also Frank John's gang. There's also the small matter of motives within the group, for it seems Boone & Whit, too, have a special interest in Billy, while Brigade may have something far more ulterior driving him on...

As the decades have rolled by, the Boetticher/Scott Westerns have come to be rightly regarded as genre high points. Between 1956 to 1960 they produced 7 pieces of work. The weakest of which were the more jovial "Buchanan Rides Alone" (1958), and the Kennedy absent "WB" contract filler that was "Westbound" (1959). The remaining five each follow a familiar theme that sees Scott as a man driven by emotional pain, movies with simmering undertones and pulsing with psychological smarts. If you poll a hundred Western fans for their favourite Boetticher/Scott movie, you will find any of the five being mentioned as a favourite - such is the tightness and intelligence of each respective picture.

So we are out in the desolated Old West, it's harsh and weather beaten. Our five characters are either troubled by death - prior and pending - and, or, searching for a life that may be a touch too far from their grasp. As their journey unfolds, loyalties will be tested and shifted, uneasy bonds formed, all while psychological and sexual needs bubble away under the surface. All this human foible glowering is viewed by the enveloping Alabama Hills - with Mount Whitney the chief patriarch overseeing his charges. "Ride Lonseome" is a stunning genre movie, an elegiac piece, one that's bleak yet not without hope, a collage of tones seamlessly blended together to create one almost magnificent whole. It was the first Boetticher movie to be in CinemaScope, and pic is directed with great economic skill, where the whole width of the screen is creatively used by the director, thus placing the characters in the landscape in the way that the great "Anthony Mann" used to do with "Jimmy Stewart". His action construction is smart, and it should be noted that there is not one interior shot in the whole film. Lawton Jr. sumptuously shoots in Eastman Color, which is actually a perfect choice for the rugged terrain and the wide and lonesome inducing open spaces provided by the Scope format. While Kennedy's script is sparing, perfectly so, the dialogue is clipped but very telling, and crucially there's no manipulation in the narrative.

Then of course there's the cast. Scott leads off with one of his brave and ageing man of few words portrayals, a character with inner sadness gnawing away at him. With just one glance and a couple of words, Scott actually provides more depth than most other actors in the genre were able to do with more meatier parts. With the lead protagonist established, Boetticher surrounds him with fine support. Coburn was making his film debut and with his tall frame and distinctive voice he leaves a good impression, mostly because he works so well off of Roberts' more outwardly tough turn. Their partnership gives the film a believable friendship at its centre, lovable rogues perhaps? And they also provide some of the lighter moments that Boetticher and Kennedy use to tonally keep us guessing. Steele is just sultry, a blonde fire cracker in the middle of a potential hornets nest. While Best does a nice line in snivelling weasel, his character trait being that he shoots his victims in the back. As for Cleef? He's barely in it, but after his character is introduced into the story, his presence hangs over proceedings like a dark heavy cloud. He will be back, though, and rest assured it's worth the wait.

Does Ride Lonesome have flaws? Yes. One thing is, is that at 73 minutes it's too damn short!. But moving away from that particular greedy itch of mine, the film does carry some Western clichés. Most notably with the Indian participation in the story. Be it chases, portentous smoke signals or an adobe corral attack - where our group are of course outnumbered - it's stock Cowboy & Indian fare, not helped by Roemheld's music, which only reinforces the clichés. Thankfully, in Boetticher's hands the clichés are overcome by the scenes managing to raise the pulse, and in one particular sequence, it provides the basis for a terrific tracking shot. Roemheld however does deliver the goods for the finale, though, and what a finale it is too. Featuring a tree shaped like a cross, the ending has sparked many an interpretation. Some way too deep (French critics) & some just bizarre (internet sleuths), when actually the interpretation is simple - hell they even got "Martin Scorsese" to explain it on the DVD... The memorable shot involving the tree, as the music pounds away, can induce pounds of goose-flesh rising up on the skin. As endings go in the Boettticher canon? It gives "Comanche Station's" riderless horse finale a run for the title of being his, and Scott's, best. A near masterpiece from a true auteur. 9/10

_**Solitary people dwarfed against an arid, empty, hostile landscape**_

A leathered, weathered bounty hunter (Randolph Scott) captures his quarry (James Best) in the wilderness of east-central California intending to take him to Santa Cruz, but has to team-up with two dubious men (Pernell Roberts & James Coburn) and a lone woman (Karen Steele) at an isolated swing station to deal with Mescalero Indians. Meanwhile the young outlaw’s gang are on their trail (Lee Van Cleef, etc.).

"Ride Lonesome" (1959) is one of five Westerns from 1956-1960 written by Burt Kennedy, directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott. The others are: “7 Men from now,” “The Tall T,” “Buchanan Rides Alone” and “Comanche Station.” Two additional films omit writer Kennedy from the equation: "Decision at Sundown" and "Westbound." A little cult has formed around these Westerns and most are first-rate despite some not having the biggest budgets, like this one.

Similar to “The Tall T,” it was shot entirely outdoors and in the same general area. There’s a certain sad loneliness to the proceedings as the characters pursue money, justice, love, redemption or vengeance in a fallen Western world. I prefer “The Tall T,” but this one ain’t no slouch if you don’t mind the emptiness and melancholy. The ending leaves you with a good feeling.

This was Coburn’s film debut. Seven years later he’d be starring in “Our Man Flint” as the King of Cool. Interestingly, everyone in the main cast would go on to star or costar in Bonanza, except for Scott.

The film is taut at 1 hour, 13 minutes, and was shot at Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, and nearby Olancha Dunes, Olancha, California.

GRADE: B/B-

I usually find Randolph Scott to be a bit lightweight but he's on top form in this classy revenge western. He plays bounty hunter "Ben" who apprehends "Billy John" (James Best) for murder. He is taking him to town for a reckoning, but what he really wants is to capture that man's even more murderous brother "Frank" (Lee Van Cleef) as he has some old, visceral, scores to settle. En route he rescues the feisty "Carrie" (Karen Steele) from an attack by quite an eccentric group of Indians and alights on "Sam" (Pernell Roberts) and "Whit" (James Coburn) to help give them a fighting chance against the certainly pursuing sibling. Now I don't suppose there's loads of plot jeopardy here, but the story unfolds gradually and effectively and Van Cleef was always in his element in these kind of roles. Budd Boetticher also doesn't let this hang around. It's barely seventy five minutes long with a minimum of slushy romance and plenty of shoot-outs before a denouement that was entirely fitting - if perhaps a little too rushed. This is certainly a great example of the less is more film, and well worth a watch on a big screen if you can - the photography is impressive on a grander scale.