Will Penny, el solitario

Charlton Heston stars as Will Penny, an ageing cowpuncher down on his luck and practically broke. After finding a spot of work down on the Flat Iron, Penny falls foul of some outlaws led by maniacal preacher Quint {Donald Pleasence}. They rob him and leave him for dead but he manages to find his way to a lineman's cabin where he is cared for by Catherine {Joan Hackett}, who is heading west with her young son to be reunited with her husband. Here Penny comes to learn things about himself, as does Catherine, but their relationship is not the only thing of concern to them. For Quint and his brood are coming back to finish what they started.

As widely reported these days, this was one of Heston's favourite roles. Which is not hard to believe since it is one of his finest and most earnest performances from what was a long and successful career. Directed and written by Tom Gries {who refused to sell the rights to his story unless he could direct}, Will Penny is an understated Western {Re;cowboy movie for those that need to distinguish the two} that shines because it relies on strength of story over histrionics and a pandering to the norm. This is no ode to the wild west, a time of gunslingers fighting it out and riding off into the sunset with the dame. This is the nitty gritty west, where cowboys are actually that, cowboys, working with beef so that they can afford to eat and perhaps enjoy a jar of throat stripper by way of a reward for their graft.

It's also refreshing to find a romance within the genre that is believable and not thrust upon us like some form of necessity. The relationship, and in fact the three family dynamic at the core of the film, is expertly written, not rushed or underdeveloped, and, crucially, not hurt by the bold and correct ending that Gries delivers. Hackett gives a lovely subtle turn opposite Heston, in a role that was turned down by a host of prominent female actresses at the time. Fine support comes from Pleasence {rightly overacting the role}, Ben Johnson, Lee Majors, Bruce Dern, Anthony Zerbe and Slim Pickens. While Lucien Ballard's cinematography is lucid and adds splendour to the moving story. I can't say that David Raksin's score totally works, since it at times feels like it belongs in some Universal Pictures creature feature! But it's a minor issue in what is an elegant Western that deserves, no, demands, to be sought out by more people. 8/10

Charlton Heston is an aging cowboy in Will Gries' 1968 gritty Western Will Penny. This is not the West of larger than life heroes, men of rugged independence and strength, just ordinary men without glamor who have to struggle for a living in a tough, bitter, and lonely environment. Will is a loner, not a "tough" guy with a romanticized image, but he is a survivor. After one job comes to an end, Penny takes off to look for work along with two companions, Blue (Lee Majors), a young cow hand, and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe), a more experienced worker. Along the way, after a dispute over an elk, Will and his friends are attacked by Quint (Donald Pleasance), the most demented preacher this side of Harry Powell (Night of the Hunter). When one of Quint's sons is killed, the preacher vows revenge and we know we haven't seen the last of him.

When Will inquires at a roadside inn about the nearest doctor for Dutchy who accidentally shoots himself, he meets Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett) and her young son Horace known as Button (Jon Gries), on their way to Oregon to find her husband. After leaving Dutchy in the care of a doctor, Will finds a job for the winter at the Flatiron Ranch as a line rider keeping squatters off the property. When he arrives at the line rider's cabin, however, he finds Catherine and her son living there after they were abandoned by their guide. When Will is suddenly attacked by the Quints and left to die in the cold, Catherine nurses him back to health and he soon develops a close attachment to Catherine and Button.

When Will realizes that he cannot force Catherine and HG to leave, he agrees to let them stay during the winter and they spend Christmas together and the story becomes both a tale of conflict with the Quints and his growing love for a married woman. Although we root for Will to overcome his reluctance to take risks, we know that Will has known nothing but handling cattle, cannot read or write, and has little self-confidence or belief that he can ever change. There are many familiar faces in Will Penny: Slim Pickens, Donald Pleasance, Lee Majors, Anthony Zerbe, and Bruce Dern. This outstanding ensemble cast produces a Western that is authentic and intelligent and is probably Heston's best performance of his career.

Interestingly, the film opened in the New York's R.K.O. Coliseum at Broadway and 181st Street, a neighborhood theater in which I spent many boyhood afternoons and even worked as an usher. The Coliseum was one of the most attractive movie theaters in New York and as described at the time, had "a lovely oval opening, surrounded with a wooden railing, from which it was possible to look down from the balcony onto the first floor". Like many movie palaces of my youth, it is gone now, but the memories remain.

This is a good, good movie..underrated & under appreciated....and somewhat largely unseen. Never a Heston fan....I was very pleasantly surprised & taken by his "Will"....he gives a fine, understated performance as the aging loner just looking for his next job..to get through the winter till he can hook up with a cattle drive in the spring. Heston is excellent, free of the melodramatics & overacting found in some of his other work. Will is an aging cowboy, a loner, an illiterate, faced with the prospects of a dim future. He is someone who realizes that he can't do anything else but what he has been doing all his life..he punches cattle because it's the only thing he's ever done, and the only thing he knows how to do......even as railroad tracks laid on the prairie indicate that time may be running out for the cowboy way of life. Nearing fifty, he has never learned to read or write, and existed moving from one job to the next...

Along the way..there's a chance encounter w/ Quint ....the psycho preacher and his degenerate sons, Rafe , Rufus , & Romulus..featuring Donald Pleasance in a maniacal..over the top performance.., & Bruce Dern as one of his loony sons. These guys could give the Hammond Brothers ("Ride the High Country") a run for their money.

There's also Joan Hackett, in a lovely, subtle, yet solid performance as Catherine Allen , a woman travelling across country w/ her young son, in search of her husband, who had gone on ahead ...through whom Will sees a life he never had..& never thought possible. The film is notable in that it presents not at all a romantic image of the West..Cowpunching not being a glamorous profession....not a lot of 'Yeehas' here... it's a life of solitude and hard work.. The work is brutal..., hired one day and out of work the next....... Yes..there is action..fistfights..gunplay & violence...but the first fistfight..shows us the kind of territory we're in...get it on..get it over with.. Here we see the kind of people who must really have inhabited the West..cowpunchers,.families looking for a better life... (sure, there were bounty hunters, bank robbers, marshalls...shootouts at High Noon..the OK Corral etc.) .....but this is more of a character study of people very much like us. In one of the gunfights...a cowboy sustains a bullet wound in a way that's atypical of western movies..but probably pretty typical of the real West.

Another nice touch is the "town" Will, Blue, & Dutchy ride into...many "towns" really did consist of nothing more than a couple of buildings ..a few shacks and a tent. The direction was superb; Lucien Ballard's cinematography added to the splendor of the story. ..filmed in the glorious Inyo Mountains of California.

The music in the movie is mostly uninspired , although by no means terrible or distracting..

Some fine, familiar character actors are here.. the can't be anything but great Ben Johnson appears as the top hand at the ranch where Will takes a job riding line... William Schallert, Clifton James, and Anthony Zerbe all deliver good performances. Lee Majors is passable.

In short.."Will Penny" is a film that deserves to be seen & enjoyed.. & savored.

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by a husbandless woman and her young son.

The picture was based upon an episode of the 1960 Sam Peckinpah television series "The Westerner" called "Line Camp," which was also written and directed by Tom Gries. Charlton Heston mentioned that this was his favorite film in which he appeared. Some, including Bruce Dern, say it is his best role. And yet, it is not one he is widely known for.

Roger Ebert wrote, "The admirable thing about the movie is its devotion to real life. These are the kind of people, we feel, who must really have inhabited the West: common, direct, painfully shy in social situations and very honest." This is true. This is not an action film, or a heist film, or anything that turns the West into mythology. It is everyday life.

The tough, lonely life of the cattle drover (as it really was) is briefly related in the ideal opening scene of Tom Gries' "Will Penny" with an aching Charlton Heston compelled, at the end of an exhausting cattle drive, to take a humble winter job in the cold bleak hillside... His turbulent, crude, oppressive - virtually celibate existence - is marvelously exposed by Gries...

Heston portrays with honesty and sensitivity, a middle-aged cowhand "free and easy" who ignores everything about farming... He is a lonely rider who takes his bath eight or nine times a year, and mends his own clothes... He is a "good steady hand" concerned for Mrs. Allen and her son but "bad scared before, and bad sorry after." He is also a helpless man with uncertain future, a sincere cowboy extremely sensitive...

"Will Penny" is an extraordinary film... Not only does it feature Heston's most sincere and sensitive performance, it has a fine supporting cast and is one of the most adult Western scripts ever written...

Joan Hackett portrays Mrs. Allen with strength and dignity, never collapsing beneath the strain of her tribulations...

Donald Pleasance is the most dastardly villain to grace the screen in many long years... He is mean, unkind, and slightly insane... Bruce Dern is equally effective as one of his sons, the psychotic who "handles a knife just fine."

Realistically spared, "Will Penny" is a straightforward and honest film, a sincere attempt to recreate the Old West, and, more important, the "mighty good men" who lived therein...