Coups de feu dans la Sierra

This is an important western because the subplot of a young woman's life in the remote west is addressed. At this time many women were looked upon as chattel. Here a young woman escapes farm life with an overbearing religious father who beats her, to flee into marriage with a redneck miner who beats her and plans to share her with his brothers and father. The lead character played by veteran Joel McCrea is trying to earn an honorable living because there is no pension or social security benefits for him to rely on. Randolph Scott is trying to score some easy dough to last during his retirement. A fine movie about morality, honor, and duty.

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY proves that the Old West was a dangerous place for anyone willing to transport gold from a mining town to a bank with a couple of double-crossing cronies as companions and a runaway girl to protect.

JOEL McCREA and RANDOLPH SCOTT are the willing participants, a lawman and his corrupt pal, and MARIETTE HARTLEY is the girl who wants to escape the clutches of a cruel father and marry Billy Hammond (JAMES DRURY). She joins Scott and McCrea but doesn't realize what she's in for when she meets up with her ornery fiancé and his psychotic brothers, one of whom is played by WARREN OATES. She also has to contend with the advances of Scott's young pal, RON STARR, who doesn't want to see her get mixed up with Drury and his brothers.

The plot stays focused on these characters, moves slowly and is photographed with finesse by Lucien Ballard who filmed it in CinemaScope and Metrocolor in some gorgeous natural settings. It's a character-driven tale that has a moral compass but never becomes too preachy in the telling.

First-rate performances by McCrea and Scott hold the film together with the others being competent enough to stand inspection. The big mystery to me is: What happened to Ron Starr? He was certainly adequate enough and seemed to grow in the role as the film progressed, looking somewhat like a young Glenn Campbell. His bio at IMDb is very incomplete, so there's no telling what actually happened to him.

Summing up: Sturdy western with downbeat ending is interesting all the way through.

It was goodbye to two stars from the golden age of Westerns and hello to a director who would help transform the genre into something bloodier, nastier, and truer. A skillful compromise of those visions, "Ride The High Country" presents a kind of crossroads that feels more like a destination, a perfect summing-up of the legend and the reality of the American West.

Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) is a weary old lawman trying to make ends meet as he nears the end of the road. To transport some gold from a mining town to a bank, he takes on the services of an old buddy, Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott). Westrum's as sleek and angling as Judd is square, and has more on his mind than collecting $10 a day risking his neck guarding someone else's money. While this remains unsettled, the pair gets mixed up with a woman (Mariette Hartley) who thinks she's in love with a miner whose idea of a honeymoon means sharing the wealth with his hideous brothers.

Ask anyone with a glancing knowledge of films what kind of movies Sam Peckinpah made, and they will likely describe a movie very different from this. There's some shooting, a little blood, and an unshaven Warren Oates, but otherwise "Ride The High Country" is a movie in the classic Western mold. There are some dissonances for Scott and McCrea's old-time fans to sort through, like Scott's ambiguous morality, but this is all-in-all the nicest movie Peckinpah ever made, decent characters set against an inspiring landscape, the kind of yarn John Ford or Anthony Mann would have delivered.

Not that everything is too black-and-white. The girl, having escaped her stern father and the stump farm where they lived, asks Judd at one point about right and wrong: "It isn't that simple, is it?" "No, it isn't," Judd replies. "It should be, but it isn't."

McCrea is the center of this film, a pillar of virtue. He quotes the Bible, but it's not clear he's especially religious or just stoic in the classic tradition. When he talks about his simple desire "to enter my house justified," he may have the Christian meaning in mind, or just the humanistic ideal of having been a good man when all is said and done. Nevertheless, there are intimations of a deeper truth in the redemption of Westrum and his unambiguous last line: "I'll see you later."

Peckinpah does present a bull-headed Christian zealot in R.G. Armstrong as the girl's father, but he's essentially decent, afraid of life, what it did to him and can do to her. Some see a suggestion of incest in their relationship, when she tells him he doesn't want her with any man but him, but it's more likely that's her complaining about his being overprotective.

There's a lot of humor here, too, much of it courtesy of Randolph Scott. Scott could be a stiff in other films; here he settles nicely into the role of a cut-up, like when he watches his young charge Heck get the tar beaten out of him twice without lifting a finger to help him. "Good fight, I enjoyed it," Westrum chirps as the boy licks his wounds.

The film culminates in a good fight with the Hammonds, so ornery they jeer at Heck when he brings the girl to their doorstep and she assures them he was a gentleman: "How come? Something wrong with him?" It's the one gunfight in the film, and though its one more than some Peckinpah films like "Junior Bonner" had, it's another reason for the film sticking out as unusual in the director's oeuvre.

But it's a good kind of difference, for the most part, as Peckinpah finds his métier while paying tribute to those who came before him with the help of McCrea and Scott. Like its heroes, "Ride The High Country" moves a little slowly in parts, but watching it, you'll likely agree with me the long journey is worth the ride.

An above average Western featuring two of the genres most recognizable stars, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (in his last film). Both men have a history together as outlaws, but McCrea has gone straight and is now in charge of getting the gold from the mines to the bank. To help him, he hires his old friend Scott who, along with a young hothead (Ron Starr), is in town dressed up like "Buffalo Bill" and demonstrating his fancy shooting.

Scott believes he can persuade his old partner to split the gold with him before they return, and must act as a buffer between the impatient young ruffian and his old friend. While en route, the three encounter a religious farmer (R. G. Armstrong) and his under socialized daughter (Mariette Hartley), who steals away to join them.

The trouble really begins when they get to the remote mining town, encountering an inbred mountain family of hoodlums (which includes Warren Oates) and its judge (Edgar Buchanan).

Directed by Sam Peckinpah, and written by N.B. Stone Jr., it was added to the National Film Registry in 1992.

Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea will probably be remembered as the top "B" western stars in movies. But their last film "Ride the High Country" stands as an "A" western and a very good one too.

Perhaps they owe this final chance to director Sam Peckinpah who turns the story into a splendid film in its genre shot in beautiful outdoor sceneries, with very well managed action scenes, a credible script, great settings and a fine musical score too.

Two moments are particularly outstanding in my opinion: the sort of "Fellinesc" sequence at the wedding with all those bizarre characters and the final showdown where Scott and McCrea face the mean Hammond brothers (John Anderson, James Drury and Warren Oates) in the "old fashioned way".

A well deserved "A" product for both actors -that amused and thrilled us western fans- through their long careers in the genre.