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Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley

Ride the High Country is the one Sam Peckinpah movie about which there has never been controversy--save at MGM in 1962, when a new studio regime opted to dump this beautiful, heartbreakingly el...( read more  read more... )egiac Western into the bottom half of a double-bill. Westerns rarely even got reviewed back then, so it's wellnigh miraculous that critics discovered the movie and raved about it. Newsweek called it the best American picture of the year.

Veteran cowboy stars Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea portray aging gunslingers in the twilight of the Old West. McCrea's character, Steve Judd, signs on to transport a shipment of gold from a remote mining camp. Gil Westrum (Scott), an old crony now trick-shooting in a carnival, agrees to help but really aims to seduce Judd into stealing the treasure. The slow-building tension between longtime friends--one still true to the code he's lived by, the other having drifted away from it--anticipates the tortuous personal dilemmas played out to the death by Peckinpah's Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Benny and Elita in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

The action scenes are powerful, if only beginning to suggest the radical technique with which Peckinpah would astonish audiences in just a few years. But his feeling for flavorsome dialogue, Rabelaisian humor, and full-blooded character acting is already unmistakable. Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, and John Davis Chandler are among the "redneck peckerwoods" complicating the journey, and Mariette Hartley is fresh and saucy in her big-screen debut. As for McCrea and Scott, they are simply superb. The two proposed that they swap roles before filming got underway, and the question of who got first billing was settled by flipping a coin. Both men retired once the film was in the can. They knew they'd never top it. --Richard T. Jameson

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80% liked it

3,135 ratings

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11 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 34 min.

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah

Release Date: January 1, 1962

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DVD Release Date: January 10, 2006

Stats: 150 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (150)

  • flixsterman
    June 6, 2009
    flixsterman
    There's just something about watching Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea on horseback that makes me want to mosey along down yonder and punch some little doggies.
  • FangsFirst
    September 7, 2007
    FangsFirst
    Well, I've already discussed my general lack of exposure to westerns (outside of my youth where I thought they were all boring and too brown and tan in colour palette for someone like me who likes colour.)

    So, here we are. The first and earliest of the Peckinpah films in the box...( read more) set. As I had read and thus rather expected, it was a fairly "normal" western (the "AMERICAN" style I previously referred to) but quite the good one. Morality was very, very grey, and there were some truly nasty people running about.

    Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott are two aged gunmen who are hired to transport gold down from the mine it is coming out of to a bank in town. They bring along a more youthful and energetic gunman (played by Ron Starr) and run across a young woman along the way who wishes to escape her overprotective father.

    On the whole it was very interesting as a film, with some pretty great lines and well acted and written characters. The main titles of the film were beautiful, but the score often did what I hate American western scores for doing--overly intrusive and loud and inappropriate at a few times (at one point it very suddenly cuts off as well, which felt very awkward). But, still, the filming in terms of colours and locations and framing was absolutely beautiful; McCrea and Scott--especially Scott--managed to come off as some seriously tough hombres (née badasses) during the film, despite their age and the fact that their age was playing into the characters. The final gunfight, truly was amazing.

    A strange thread of sexism and near-misogyny on the part of many characters though...I imagine, as a result, that Sam has a reputation as a misogynist as well, between this and Straw Dogs...(3/6/06)
  • jonnycrumley
    March 23, 2009
    jonnycrumley
    Great western. Old school cowboys Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, are superb in this lesser known western. The movie is beautifully shot, with some stunning scenery on show, and cast do an excellent job, with an intelligent script. Director Sam Peckinpah later became famous for d...( read more)irecting The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but I prefer this one.
  • Dracula787
    December 22, 2008
    Dracula787
    This wasn?t Sam Peckinpah?s first film, but it might as well have been, because even if he hadn?t made another movie it would have still earned him a place in the pantheon. This certainly isn?t the dramatic departure from the traditional western genre as some of his later work, ...( read more)in many ways it may have simply been the last great traditional western in the vein of John Ford. The film?s success is rooted mainly in the great skills of Joel McCrea, whose character is an incredibly likable and honorable. His speech about wanting to ?enter my house justified,? is one of the great moments in all of cinema, one that resonates long after the movie ends. Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, and Mariette Hartley are also great. This isn?t an action driven film, and it isn?t graphic like Peckinpah?s later films, but the two scenes of action are expertly filmed and choreographed. Peckinpah would go on to make bigger grander films, but this may still be their equal, it?s a small scale masterpiece.
  • ElCochran90
    September 18, 2009
    ElCochran90
    Awesome Peckinpah western. Just watch it.

    80/100
  • ralch
    January 25, 2009
    ralch
    WIDESCREEN. Muy buena, pero el la escena del duelo clímax tiene cierto aire de irrealidad que molesta. / Very good, but the scene of the climactic showdown has an air of unreality that annoys.
  • paulhue86
    September 22, 2008
    paulhue86
    Overlooked classic. Very original.
  • thrusz
    July 25, 2008
    thrusz
    I really need to see more Sam Peckinpah.

    This is the movie that is argued over which represents the death of the classic Western. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is claiming that it is the last classic Western. I guess that makes Ride the High Country the firs...( read more)t of the new formula. I think that there's a bit of truth to that. This movie gets into far darker theme than the simple shootout. This is a movie about rape, greed, and betrayal and that's not something I'm really used to seeing in my classic Western.

    I have to applaud Sam Peckinpah for stepping out of himself so much to view his work as something outside of time. He knew what his movie was going to be compared to and he cast two old favorites for the two lead actors. Joel McCrea is one of my favorite older actors. He's always been this figure of respect and morality while still having that tough guy feel. He's playing an older character. It really is like watching a sequel of those old movies with a gap between the first movie and the second movie. We get to see a character who has gone through a lot and still has that sense of morality, but that morality is far more fine tuned and realistic than simply the good guy standing out against the backdrop of the West. Then paring them up with a younger man and woman just makes that contrast all that much more present. The younger characters have that ignorance and naivite' of youth and these gentelman are aware of that, but have a new kind of morality. A morality full of grey (hair) and questionable decisions.

    The movie doesn't really pick up to the heavy stuff until the second half of the film. Really, the introduction of the brothers goes into a fairly dark place. We have this very innocent girl who just gets fed to these brutes who are, in all essence, rapists. They use the law to their own advantage and manipulate this girl to the point of a breakdown all brought on in the span of twenty minutes. Peckinpah really develops the character of this girl as someone vibrant and full of life who seems to be sheltered from the real world to someone who is broken and disillusioned to what is right and what is wrong. We see the true nature of rape and violence and what it can do. This girl is scared for her life and she feels like she has no one protecting her. Then the three people who protect her are the old man who is noble, the old man who is a crook, and the young man who follows the crook. This isn't the bunch of people that we've seen in the previous Westerns and it is really very obvious. While the A-story may follow where this money is going to go, her B-story is far more interesting and I believe eventually replaces the A-story.

    On some level, this is a morality play. We see the breakdown of two lifelong friends. Their age (I can't stress this enough) is what makes this movie all the more important. These are young, foolish friends who split. These are friends who would previously die for one another breaking company. There is a deep trust that is broken and it is a powerful choice. The end works very well with this theme. You feel the darkness that begins to lift and you know that the world is a generally good place, despite the events of the movie. I think that's the perfect ending for this movie and, although not unique by most cases, I do think it fits really well into this movie.

    Finally, I'd like to point out Warren Oates in this movie. He plays one of the more minor characters, but he's fantastic. He plays a creep scoundrel so well that you actually kind of want to see him succeed just so he can get more screentime.
  • sxcjaydo
    July 10, 2008
    sxcjaydo
    this is a really good movie!

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