L'homme de l'Arizona

**** I never really figured out what the Tall T exactly was. It doesn't matter. This is a great film and an outstanding western. The actors are all good, especially Randolph Scott as a western everyman (I always want to repeat the "Blazing Saddles" homage to Scott whenever I say his name)and Richard Boone as one of the most evil bad men in western film history. Skip Homeier and Henry Silva give great performances as two young guns who are teamed up with Boone. They are sexy and evil at once. The dialogue is biting, the situations are adult and dramatic, the scenery is superb, and the music complements the film's tension to a Tall T.

A former ranch ramrod (Randolph Scott) and members of a stagecoach in the Southwest (e.g. Maureen O'Sullivan) are threatened by a trio of ruthless killers (Richard Boone, Henry Silva and Skip Homeier).

"The Tall T" (1957) is a quality 50's Western with likable Randolph Scott in the heroic role. It has achieved a sort of cult status as the prime example of a classic Boetticher-Scott Western. The original story was written by Elmore Leonard, which explains the movie's similarities to the later "Hombre" (1967), not to mention Boone appears in both as the chief outlaw. There are also parallels to Scott's "Hangman's Knot" (1952), which was shot in the same area and shares some story elements.

I didn't recognize Maureen O'Sullivan of Tarzan fame, 23 years after her physical prime in "Tarzan and His Mate" (1934). While the script keeps having the male characters refer to her as a "plain" or "old maid," she's obviously fit and still alluring in the second half with her hair down. In truth, most men in the Old West would kill to gain the attentions of such a woman.

The film is taut at 1 hour, 18 minutes, and was shot at Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California.

GRADE: B+/A-

There's nothing epic about this well-crafted, workman-like western, and that works in its favor. Randolph Scott is wonderful as the world-weary small-time rancher who's pursuing a better life at an age when most men in those days were either retired or dead. He meets his evil double in the guise of Richard Boone, who finds himself out of place with the heartless thugs he finds himself running with. It's his fate but he yearns for the life that Scott has chosen. Wonderful location work. Dialogue and action are used to service the story and that's all, as it should be. As fulfilling and satisfying a movie as a good serving of stew and a mug of hot coffee.

This 1957 Western follows in the tradition of "Rawhide" (1951). Once again we find a group of people that are being held by a band of thieves while waiting for their next stage to rob. This time Randolph Scott has taken over the Tyrone Power role of the hero in the earlier film. Scott must wait for the appropriate opportunity to make his stand against the evil band of killers (Richard Boone, Skip Homeier, and Henry Silva). Maureen O'Sullivan (who once portrayed Tarzan's Jane of the movies) finds herself in the unusual role of portraying a "plain jane" who has recently married a scoundrel. The newlyweds are on their way to their honeymoon when they are captured by Boone and his gang of cut throats. O'Sullivan's husband tries to use his new wife and her father's fortune as a bargaining chip to buy his way out of his predicament...but the killers wind up killing him along with the stage station's owner and his son. The hapless victims all seem to be killed off one by one and thrown into a well. Margaret O'Sullivan's only hope is for Randy to somehow save her. Scott uses the gang's individual weaknesses to get the drop on them .... and what is to come is one of the most brutal Westerns made during that period of film making. This film serves as a transitional bridge between the old Ken Maynard (man in a white hat who only drinks milk) bloodless Western and the grimy, realistic sweat stained Spaghetti Western that is destined to come. A fine cast and a disciplined script makes it everything one could hope for in a Western!!!

There's a scene in the film where Randolph Scott tries to tame a dangerous bull carrying with him no other possession that a candy bar. This works as an accurate metaphor for the cinema of Bud Boetticher and this film in particular, undoubtedly his best one. In `The Tall T' the forms essayed and executed by Boetticher in his task of reinventing the Western genre reach perfection. Everything is a triumph, from the script to the acting and especially through the coexistence of two levels of narrative permanently in tension with each other – the lineal and the psychological one. Boetticher is more than a very intelligent craftsman; he's a director who can transform a basic chat between two cowboys into a philosophical discussion about ethics. If this picture stands out among the other westerns of the Ranown cycle is maybe because of the bad guy played by Richard Boone, one of the most celebrated heavies in the history of cinema.