When I first designed the Western movie course I’m currently teaching at Lycoming College, I wanted to call it Ride the High Country — subtitled “Films of the American West.”
While this didn’t prove quite catchy enough, I thought it made a great paean to this lofty genre — on top of which, the 1962 film of that title just happens to be my favorite Western.
So as we continue our brief Webb series on “America’s genre,” I thought I’d take dedicate one whole column to that overlooked gem — by adapting the blurb from my 2020 book The Best Movies You Never Saw:
Ride the High Country stars 56-year-old Joel McCrea and — in his final role — the great Randolph Scott; respectively, they play Steve Judd and Gil Westrum, former lawmen who sign on to escort a shipment of gold down out of the mountains.
Tagging along is a brash young recruit — and then the trio is also joined by Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley), a feisty farm girl who’s run off from her cruel father to marry one of the miners.
McCrea’s morally upright Judd soon has his hands full: Westrum and the youth plan to take the gold for themselves, while Elsa — backing out of the marriage — rejoins them, pursued by the spurned groom and his worthless brothers.
Although it did not score with American viewers, Ride won first prize at the Cannes Film Festival; it is generally considered the first great film from director Sam Peckinpah — who went on to helm The Wild Bunch, The Getaway and Straw Dogs.
High Country keys on the relationship between the stalwart Judd and the cynical Westrum, who argue over whether it’s really worthwhile to do what’s right. The ending, which comes down quite clearly on this issue, is certainly one of the film’s strongest features. Casting, incidentally, had at first called for each man to play the opposite role — but the actors themselves initiated the change, so that McCrea could play the good guy, and Scott … well, not-so-good. Likewise, in rewrites, Peckinpah wisely reversed the final fates of the two leads from what was in the original script.
But what really struck me is how well Hartley holds her own against two Hollywood icons (both of whom were perhaps best known for their many earlier Westerns).
In her film debut, the young actress is utterly believable and compelling — and the script helps out by elaborating the plight of single women in the wild, wild West. Elsa’s train-crash of a wedding, which gives her every reason to renege, is not the sort of sequence one normally expects in a Western; yet while it greatly enriches the movie’s thematic concerns, it also proves absolutely crucial to the plot — leading to an exciting pair of shoot-outs near the end.
That final duel, with antagonists stepping slowly toward one another across a broad, dusty farmyard, is another of those classic Western tropes — along with the movie’s elegiac, autumn-sunlight ending.
The script is peppered with choice, biting dialog:
“You couldn’t get close enough to Steve Judd to saddle his horse.”
“I hate to get married with one of my brothers smellin’ bad enough to gag a dog off a gut-wagon.”
“You all better cut yourself a switch, Mr. Longtree. I don’t reckon you could handle me bare-handed.”
“The Lord’s bounty is not for sale, but the Devil’s is. If you can pay the price.”
Topping it off are gorgeous locations filmed by veteran lensman Lucien Ballard, who shot True Grit, The Wild Bunch and the similarly overlooked Will Penny; the latter, starring Charlton Heston in what he called his favorite role, uses many of the same locations as this film.
Like High Country, Penny also follows an aging cowboy — serving as a sort of farewell to that bygone way of life. Others in this subgenre might include Monte Walsh and, of course, Lonesome Dove.
Ride the High Country is currently streaming for free on YouTube.
