Ride the High Country

Randolph Scott made over a hundred films and dozens of Westerns. High Country is Scott's final movie. He wraps up his career working with other aging cowboys, John Carradine and Joel McCrea (this is also McCreas's last movie).

This film is a California western and as such includes mining and gold. The two old cowboys (Scott and McCrea) reminisce about their lives as guns slingers. John Wayne (The Shootist) and Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven) tell similar tales late in their careers. The stories' are of old gun fighters, with aches and pains, but a retention of lightning fast reflexes and an unflinching willingness to pull the trigger.

Ride the High Country begins as a buddy film but evolves into a tale of double cross. Mariette Hartley's first film role is as the oppressed daughter of a rural Bible thumper. Her missteps add tension and suspense to an already intense movie.

Peckinpah's directing brings wonderful scenery and graphic violence to the screen. In total, this movie can be considered nothing short of a Must See.

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Screenwriter: N.B. Stone Jr.

Cast: Joel McCrea .... Steve Judd
Randolph Scott .... Gil Westrum
Mariette Hartley .... Elsa Knudsen
Ron Starr .... Heck Longtree
Edgar Buchanan .... Judge Tolliver
R.G. Armstrong .... Joshua Knudsen
Jenie Jackson .... Kate
James Drury .... Billy Hammond
L.Q. Jones ....Sylvus Hammond
John Anderson .... Elder Hammond
John Davis Chandler .... Jimmy Hammond
Warren Oates .... Henry Hammond

Date: 1962 94 mins.