![]() | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.(January 2023) |
Ride the High Country | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Sam Peckinpah |
Written by | N.B. Stone Jr. Uncredited: Sam Peckinpah William Roberts |
Produced by | Richard E. Lyons |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Lucien Ballard |
Edited by | Frank Santillo |
Music by | George Bassman |
Color process | Metrocolor |
Production company | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $813,000 [1] |
Box office | $2 million [2] |
Ride the High Country (released internationally as Guns in the Afternoon) is a 1962 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Mariette Hartley. The supporting cast includes Edgar Buchanan, James Drury, Warren Oates, and Ron Starr. The film's script, though credited solely to veteran TV screenwriter N.B. Stone Jr., [3] was – according to producer Richard E. Lyons – almost entirely the work of Stone's friend and colleague, William S. Roberts, and Peckinpah himself. [4] [lower-alpha 1]
In 1992, Ride the High Country was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant [8] [9]
The film featured Scott's final screen performance. [10] After this film, Joel McCrea did not make another feature film until 1970. That year saw him make Cry Blood, Apache , with his son Jody. He appeared in The Young Rounders in 1972. His final film appearance was in 1976 in Mustang Country.
In the early years of the 20th century, an aging ex-lawman, Steve Judd, is hired by a bank to transport gold from a high country mining camp to the town of Hornitos, California. Six miners were recently murdered trying to transport their gold on the one trail leading down from the crest of the Sierra Nevada. In his prime, Judd was a tough and respected lawman, but now his threadbare clothes and spectacles serve as reminders that he is long past his prime. Judd enlists the help of his old friend and partner Gil Westrum to guard the gold transfer. Gil, who had been making his living passing himself off as a legendary sharpshooter named The Oregon Kid, enlists the help of his young sidekick, Heck Longtree.
Judd, Gil and Heck hit the trail on horseback toward Coarsegold, a mining camp located in the Sierra foothills, north of the town of Fresno. Judd doesn't realize that Gil and Heck are planning to steal the gold for themselves — preferably with Judd's help, but without it if necessary. Along the way they stop for the night at the farm of Joshua Knudsen and his daughter Elsa. Knudsen is a domineering religious man who warns against those who "traffic in gold" and trades Bible verses with Judd at the dinner table. That night, Elsa and Heck secretly meet in the moonlight for conversation, but the elder Knudsen catches them and pulls her away. Back at the house, he admonishes and slaps her; even though her father had only met Heck that evening, "I can see that the boy is no good"- just as all her other boyfriends were no good. Elsa replies "I promised the next time you hit me you'd be sorry for it!"
The next morning, after the three men had left on the trail to the mining camp, she catches up to them and asks whether she can keep them company on the way. She announces that she is also going to Coarsegold, to marry a miner named Billy Hammond. He had previously proposed to her when he was in town, although she had not accepted his proposal back then. Along the way, Elsa and Heck flirt, and at one time he tries to force himself on her. Heck is stopped by Judd, and then punched by both Judd and Gil. He later apologizes to Elsa.
When they reach the mining camp, the two older men set up a tent to weigh and accept gold dust in individual bags for which they give receipts of deposit, with safe transport guaranteed by the bank. Having brought her mother's wedding dress with her, Elsa and Billy are married in the camp's brothel—the only substantial building there—by a real retired judge who happens to be at the camp. The madam and prostitutes serve as "maid of honor" and "flower girls". Then Billy forces Elsa to a room in the brothel for their wedding night even though she emphatically states "No, Billy, not here!"; he strikes her when she refuses to obey him. By now intoxicated and passed out, he fails to prevent his disreputable brothers Elder, Sylvus, Jimmy, and Henry from entering the room and attempting to rape her. Outside, hearing her screams, Judd and Heck rescue Elsa from the brothel and the Hammonds and let her stay in their tent that night.
The next day, the miners of the camp organize a "miner's trial" (without any need for a judge) to force the outsiders to return Elsa to her "legal" husband; because they are outnumbered, former lawman Judd agrees to the miner's demands as "that's the law in places like this". However, Gill wakes up the drunken judge and demands to see his license (which in fact is duly issued in Sacramento), and then keeps it. He forces the judge at gunpoint to agree that when asked if the judge has a license to marry, he must say no (because Gill has it). The ruse works and the three men are allowed to leave the camp with the gold and Elsa.
Along the way, Judd talks to Gil about right and wrong and how that's "something you just know". After all the lost years working in disreputable places, he tells Gil that he's now grateful to have gained back some of his self-respect and intends on keeping it "with the help of you and that boy back there". When Gil asks if that's all he wants, Judd replies, "All I want is to enter my House justified."
Realizing Judd will never go along with his plan to steal the gold, Gil plans to take the gold without his help. During the night as Gil and Heck prepare to leave with the gold, Judd confronts them at gunpoint. Heck, after previously expressing a change of mind to Gil, gives up his gun immediately. Angered by his old friend's Gil's betrayal, Judd puts his gun away, then slaps Gil and challenges him to draw. Instead, Gil throws down his guns and accepts that Judd will turn him in when they return to town. Judd is forced to change his plans when the Hammond brothers appear in hot pursuit of Elsa. They found out about the ruse and learned that the judge's license could be verified in Sacramento, proving the marriage legal. In the ensuing gunfight, two of the brothers, Jimmy and Sylvus, are killed, and Billy, Elder and Henry give up and escape.
During the night, Gil leaves camp and heads back to the site of the gunfight, where he takes a horse and gun from one of the dead brothers. Then he follows Judd, Heck, and Elsa down the only trail. Meanwhile, Heck has shown himself to be trustworthy, and even though he will most likely go to prison, Elsa tells him she'll be there when he gets out. When they reach Elsa's farm, the Hammond brothers are waiting, having already killed her father. A gunfight breaks out and soon both Judd and Heck are wounded. Gil comes riding in to help his old friend, and together the pair insult and challenge the brothers to a face-to-face shootout in the open. When the dust settles, the three brothers are dead, but Judd is mortally wounded. He tells his old friend, "I don't want them to see this. I'll go it alone." When Gil pledges to take care of everything just like he would have, Judd says, "Hell, I know that. I always did. You just forgot it for a while, that's all." Judd casts a look back towards the high country and then dies.
Source: [11]
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Peckinpah flipped a coin in the presence of a producer to see which leading man got top billing, Scott or McCrea.[ citation needed ] Scott won the toss. However, in the opening credits, both stars' names are shown in the same shot, so both Scott and McCrea received equal top billing.
The film was released on the bottom half of a double bill. William Goldman says he spoke to an MGM executive at the time who says the film had tested strongly but they felt the film "didn't cost enough to be that good". [13]
According to MGM records, the film lost $160,000. [14]
Seen in a double bill with The Tartars , Bosley Crowther greatly preferred Ride the High Country, calling it a "perfectly dandy little Western" and "the most disarming little horse opera in months." According to Crowther: [15]
The two young people are quite good, especially Miss Hartley, a newcomer with real promise. R. G. Armstrong and Edgar Buchanan also contribute telling bits. We know little about the director and scenarist, but Mr. Peckinpah and Mr. Stone certainly have what it takes. And so, if anybody ever doubted it, do a couple of leathery, graying hombres named McCrea and Scott.
Ride the High Country was hailed as a success upon its release in Europe, winning first prize at the Cannes Film Festival. [11] The film's reputation has only grown in following years, with Peckinpah's admirers citing it as his first great film. [16] They also note that all of the themes of Peckinpah's later films, such as honor and ideals compromised by circumstance, the difficulty of doing right in an unjust world, the destruction of the West and its heroes by industrial modernity, and the importance of loyalty between men are all present in Ride the High Country. [11] In 1964 the film won the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. [17]
In his autobiography In the Arena (1995), Charlton Heston wrote that he was considering remaking the film in the late 1980s, presumably with Clint Eastwood as a co-star, but after viewing Ride the High Country Heston proposed Harry Julian Fink's script of Major Dundee (1965) to Peckinpah. [1]
The original casting was for McCrea to play the Gil Westrum part and Randolph Scott to play Steve Judd. After reading the script the two men agreed that a switch of roles was in order. [11]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
The way it came about was one day I happened to mention my need for a good property to Roberts, who told me about this good friend of his, N.B. Stone Jr., who had this screenplay he'd written years before about two old guys who were through but got one more chance in life. Well, it sounded like a pretty good idea, and Roberts put me in touch with Stone. [5]What Roberts had neglected to mention was that his friend's chronic alcoholism had brought his career to a standstill. The 145-page draft eventually obtained from Stone was, in Lyon's word, "awful." Apprised of the situation, Roberts offered to do a full rewrite, though he insisted on remaining uncredited, still hoping to give his friend's career a boost. The rewrite was completed, and though deemed an enormous improvement, it remained, in Lyon's words, "a diamond in the rough." Thankfully, Peckinpah "knew how to cut it to really bring out its brilliance":
What Sam did was a tremendous three-to-four-week dialogue rewrite. And he made possibly the single most important structural change. In the original Stone-Roberts script, Randy, the 'black hat' character, dies at the end. Sam switched it so the good guy died. And that, I think, really gave the film its tremendous impact, because it went against the tradition of the bad guy paying his debt. [6]The film's title itself – as opposed to the original Guns in the Afternoon – was also Peckinpah's handiwork. [7] The significance of Peckinpah's contribution was not lost on the film's star. "Sam was such a good writer," recalled McCrea. "He improved the script immeasurably." [6]
David Samuel Peckinpah was an American film director and screenwriter. His 1969 Western epic The Wild Bunch received an Academy Award nomination and was ranked No. 80 on the American Film Institute's top 100 list. His films employed a visually innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence as well as a revisionist approach to the Western genre.
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American epic revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on the Mexico–United States border trying to adapt to the changing modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means.
George Randolph Scott was an American film actor, whose Hollywood career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in dramas, comedies, musicals, adventures, war, horror and fantasy films, and Westerns. Out of his more than 100 film appearances, more than 60 of them were Westerns.
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known.
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah, including The Wild Bunch (1969) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Another of his most acclaimed performances was as officer Sam Wood in In the Heat of the Night (1967). Oates starred in numerous films during the early 1970s that have since achieved cult status, such as The Hired Hand (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), and Race with the Devil (1975). Oates also portrayed John Dillinger in the biopic Dillinger (1973) and as the supporting character U.S. Army Sergeant Hulka in the military comedy Stripes (1981). Another notable appearance was in the classic New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs (1977), in which he played the commander of the American forces in the country.
Justus Ellis McQueen Jr., known professionally as L.Q. Jones, was an American actor. He appeared in Sam Peckinpah's films Ride the High Country (1962), Major Dundee (1965), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). His later film roles include Casino (1995), The Patriot, The Mask of Zorro (1998), and A Prairie Home Companion (2006).
Convoy is a 1978 American road action comedy film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine, Burt Young, Madge Sinclair and Franklyn Ajaye. The film is based on the 1975 country and western novelty song "Convoy" by C. W. McCall. The film was made when the CB radio/trucking craze was at its peak in the United States, and followed the similarly themed films White Line Fever (1975) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977). The film received mixed reviews from critics; however, it was the most commercially successful film of Peckinpah's career.
Coarsegold, California, is a census-designated place in Madera County, situated in the central part of the state. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 4,144. Coarsegold holds historical significance as Madera County's last surviving "gold town" and is notable for its Native American heritage, particularly as the headquarters of the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, a federally recognized tribe. The community celebrates its frontier culture with annual events such as the Coarsegold Rodeo and the Tarantula Awareness Festival. Positioned between Fresno and Yosemite National Park, the town appeals to both retirees and commuters, thanks to its strategic location along Highway 41.
Junior Bonner is a 1972 American contemporary Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Joe Don Baker and Ida Lupino. The film focuses on a veteran rodeo rider as he returns to his hometown of Prescott, Arizona, to participate in an annual rodeo competition and reunite with his brother and estranged parents. Many critics consider it to be the warmest and most gentle of Peckinpah's films.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 American revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah, written by Rudy Wurlitzer, and starring James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Richard Jaeckel, Katy Jurado, Chill Wills, Barry Sullivan, Jason Robards, Slim Pickens and Bob Dylan. The film is about an aging Pat Garrett (Coburn), hired as a lawman by a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid (Kristofferson).
Mary Loretta Hartley is an American film and television actress. She is possibly best known for her roles in film as Elsa Knudsen in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962), Susan Clabon in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), and Betty Lloyd in John Sturges' Marooned (1969). She has appeared extensively on television, with notable roles as Claire Morton in the ABC soap opera Peyton Place (1965), various roles in the CBS television Western drama series Gunsmoke, and a series of commercials with James Garner in the 1970s and 1980s.
Major Dundee is a 1965 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, and James Coburn. Written by Harry Julian Fink, the film is about a Union cavalry officer who leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners, and Indian scouts on an expedition into Mexico during the American Civil War to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding United States bases and settlements in the New Mexico territory. Major Dundee was filmed in various locations in Mexico. The movie was filmed in Eastman Color by Pathécolor, print by Technicolor.
"Sam Peckinpah's 'Salad Days'" is a sketch from the 7th episode of the third series of the British television programme Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Noon Wine is a 1937 short novel by American author Katherine Anne Porter. It initially appeared in a limited numbered edition of 250, all signed by the author and published by Shuman's. It later appeared in 1939 as part of Pale Horse, Pale Rider (ISBN 0-15-170755-3), a collection of three short novels by the author, including the title story and "Old Mortality." A dark tragedy about a farmer's futile act of homicide that leads to his own suicide, the story takes place on a small dairy farm in southern Texas during the 1890s. It has been filmed twice for television, in 1966 and 1985.
James Child Drury Jr. was an American actor. He is best known for having played the title role in the 90-minute weekly Western television series The Virginian, which was broadcast on NBC from 1962 to 1971.
Broken Trail is a 2006 Western television miniseries directed by Walter Hill and starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church. Written by Alan Geoffrion, who also wrote the novel, the story is about an aging cowboy and his nephew who transport 500 horses from Oregon to Wyoming to sell them to the British Army. Along the way, their simple horse drive is complicated when they rescue five Chinese girls from a slave trader, saving them from a life of prostitution and indentured servitude. Compelled to do the right thing, they take the girls with them as they continue their perilous trek across the frontier, followed by a vicious gang of killers sent by the whorehouse madam who originally paid for the girls.
The Deadly Companions is a 1961 American Western and war film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Steve Cochran, and Chill Wills. Based on the novel of the same name by A. S. Fleischman, the film is about an ex-army soldier who accidentally kills a woman's son, and tries to make up for it by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Indian territory. The Deadly Companions was Sam Peckinpah's motion picture directorial debut.
Robert Golden Armstrong Jr. was an American character actor and playwright. A veteran performer who appeared in dozens of Westerns during his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah.
Marathon Man is a 1976 American thriller film directed by John Schlesinger. It was adapted by William Goldman from his 1974 novel of the same title and stars Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane and Marthe Keller. In the film, "Babe" Levy, a graduate student, becomes embroiled in a plot by Nazi war criminal Christian Szell to retrieve ill-gotten diamonds from a safe deposit box owned by Szell's dead brother. Babe becomes unwittingly involved due to his brother Doc's dealings with Szell.
Frank Santillo was an American film editor who won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for Grand Prix in 1966. He was an associate of Slavko Vorkapich and Peter Ballbusch at MGM during the 1930s and 1940s and was known for his creative montage work. He was under contract as an editor at MGM from 1956 to 1966. He worked with director Sam Peckinpah on three films, and was interviewed at length about the production of Ride the High Country (1962).
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