Ride the High Country (1962)

Ride the High Country (1962)

starring Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea

directed by Sam Peckinpah

94 minutes

Former lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) hires Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott), his former partner in crime fighting, and Heck Longtree to help him transport gold from a mining camp back to town. They pick up Elsa, a preacher's daughter who wants their help getting away from her father, on the way to the mining camp. There she she hopes to find Billy Hammond, who once proposed to her. Westrum and Longtree have plans to double cross Judd.

Not everything goes as planned. Heck falls for Elsa who rebuffs his advances until they get her to Hammond. She soon discovers that Billy (and his four unmarried brothers) is much scarier than she remembered. Judd and Heck insist on doing the right thing and rescue Elsa from Billy and his brothers. Elsa is already married at this point which complicates things further.

It isn't long before they discover, as they are trying to get the gold back to town, that the Hammond brothers are on their tail.

Thoughts

This is the first film made by Sam Peckinpah that I have seen in quite some time. The other films of his that I have seen are The Wild Bunch (1969), Straw Dogs (1971), and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

This movie is an interesting mix of old and new. The two lead actors, the way they play their roles and the way their character relate to one another, are the old. They feel like something from an earlier era. The rest of the movie feels like, what must have been to many people in the early 1960s, a breath of fresh air. The characters that surround Judd and Westrum feel ahead of their time for the early 1960s and much more at home in the films of the next 10 to 15 years.

The look and feel of the mining camp (gross, dirty, nausea-inducing) seems very avantgarde for the early 1960s.

I could have done without the heavy handed use of music in this movie. It was too much. It was like having every sentence end with an exclamation point. Some music? Okay, but this was way more than was necessary.

I found this movie to be more interesting than enjoyable but I am glad that I have seen it.