Will Penny

Peckinpah's flamboyant 'The Wild Bunch' and Leone's innovative spaghetti westerns of the 1960s are among my all time favourites, but the stir they created overshadowed some gems that are now unfairly overlooked - Brando's 'One-Eyed Jacks', and Monte Hellman's 'Ride In The Whirlwind' and 'The Shooting' immediately spring to mind. Those three movies all have strong cult followings (just ask Quentin Tarantino!), but for some reason the same can't be said for 'Will Penny'. I don't know why, as it's one of the best westerns I've ever seen. Charlton Heston is of course, a MOVIE STAR and also a controversial figure because of his politics, but sometimes people seem to forget that he could be a damn fine actor when he tried. I think 'Will Penny' is his best performance. Heston plays a low key character, an aging cowboy who is tired of his life but believes it is all he can do. Maybe this is the main reason why 'Will Penny' has been forgotten. He's basically a decent guy, not a larger than life John Wayne hero, or a Clint Eastwood anti-hero. Heston regards Tom Gries' script as one of the finest he's ever read, and I must agree with him. Gries was a TV veteran but this was his big break as a motion picture director. Despite the talent he showed he never became a name director, though he worked steadily until his death in the mid-70s, and was responsible for a few well known films including the Manson movie 'Helter Skelter'. Heston is surrounded by an impeccable supporting cast. His two buddies are played by a young Lee Majors and Anthony Zerbe ('Cool Hand Luke', 'The Omega Man'). Joan Hackett is very good as the woman squatter Penny befriends (her on screen son is played by Tom Gries real life son, who is also excellent). Donald Pleasence is fantastic fun as a crazed preacher, and he and his eldest son (played by Bruce Dern, one of my all time favourite actors) make terrific villains (Dern is always a terrific villain!). Western legends Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens play a ranch foreman and a cook respectively, and then there's character actors galore - G.D. Spradlin, Clifton James, William Schallert, Luke Askew, Matt Clark, Roy Jenson. Off the top of my head, it's difficult to think of a 1960s western with a more impressive cast. 'Will Penny' is a movie crying out to be rediscovered! I highly recommend it to western fans.

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 film was one of Charlton Heston's personal favorites, a change-of-pace drama dwelling on character development and self-preservation instead of the usual shoot 'em ups in western movies. The story is a spare tale, often found in pulp fiction westerns, of a stranger who happens along and sees a woman and her young son through a rough winter. Heston's character is a drifting cowpuncher and the movie has shadows of "Shane" and "Hondo" casting about here and there. There are villains, of course, with Donald Pleasence and his hard case sons on hand to supply the required outlawry. The movie was beautifully filmed in high country with a great cast and a nice music score. Heston had a great chemistry with Joan Hackett and their relationship rings true throughout the movie. For some reason, the picture was not a major box office success although it seems to be a more popular film today than when it was released.

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.

If any western that I have seen feels authentic to the old west it is "Will Penny". The Inyo County, California locations are wonderful and the cowboys at work scenes are refreshingly honest.

The basic storyline serves as a template to work more on character development and the cast (full of western stalwarts) do not disappoint.

Charlton Heston as Will Penny is on great form as the vulnerable, middle aged man of the plains. He is a little backward but unfailingly truthful and decent. He and his friends "Blue" and "Dutchy" represent the best principles of old west comradeship and his approach to Mrs Allen and her son "H.G" shows with tenderness what he has craved to have all his life but knows it is too late to embrace.

I found Donald Pleasence a bit over the top as the evil "Preacher Quint", but his portrayal is entertaining if nothing else. Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens and Lee majors all do a good job in support and Joan Hackett is completely convincing as the lone mother in search of a better life.

Very much a film for those viewers who like to experience, feel and be touched by a well written story and its characters.