Ride the High Country (1962) remains one of Sam Peckinpah’s better yet overlooked films. Showcasing the talents of western stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, and his own talents behind the camera as well as with actors and dialogue, Peckinpah creates a moving, lyrical ode to the end of the west (a theme that he would explore to full effect in The Wild Bunch 7 years later).
Ride the High Country was Peckinpah’s second film, after The Deadly Companions (1961.) Both McCrea and Scott, in their last major film roles, would play characters that were composites of others that they played in their many other westerns. The aging Steve Judd (McCrea) is hired by the bank, even though they are skeptical of his age, to transport a gold shipment from a mining town back to the bank. He asks his friend, the equally aged Gil Westrum (Scott) who is working in a carnival cheating patrons, to join him. He accepts but with an ulterior motive. Gil brings along his younger, hotheaded partner Heck Longtree (Ron Starr) who clashes with Steve. Gil’s ultimate goal is to steal the gold and convince Steve to go along with it by reminding him of how underpaid and underappreciated they have been as lawmen and now have nothing to show for it.
During their first stop over, they stay at the farmhouse of the stern, bible-beating widower Joshua Knudsen (Peckinpah regular R.G. Armstrong) and his attractive, repressed daughter Elsa (Mariette Hartley in her film debut.) Sparks fly between Heck and Elsa but Joshua puts a quick stop to that. When the trio leaves the farm, Elsa runs off with them since they are headed to the same town where her fiancé Billy Hammond (James Drury) and his hillbilly brothers (amongst them Peckinpah regulars Warren Oates and L.Q. Jones) live. However, once there, she is frightened and overwhelmed by their wheels off lifestyle. Following an out of control wedding in a whorehouse (every woman’s dream) Elsa runs out on her husband. As the men leave the town with the gold and Elsa, the four are hunted by the Hammond brothers. Gil intends to go through with stealing the gold but Heck is starting to have second thoughts.
What makes the film stand apart from other westerns is how it capitalizes on the iconic personas of Scott and McCrea and how it uses the conventions of the western genre to comment on its mortality. The beautiful and complex dichotomy between Gill and Steve is highlighted by the glorious sequence where Gill tries to subtly talk Steve into taking the gold and McCrea utters the famous line “All I want is to enter my house justified.” Steve is noble and lives by an outdated sense of duty and honor. Gil has become corrupted by greed and has lost his values; a sign of the upcoming times. It is truly gut wrenching when Steve catches Gil in the midst of his betrayal. The film’s noble but tragic ending, redeems both men in albeit different ways. The final shot of McCrea becoming one with the land is haunting cinematic beauty. The rest of the cast, especially Hartley, is outstanding.
The screenplay by N.B. Stone Jr. and reworked by Peckinpah is filled with wonderful and moving dialogue that captures the essence of living at the tail end of one era while being on the cusp of another. These men live in a complex world where there is no black and white. The score by George Bassman is grandiose and majestic but is sometimes overused and unnecessary for certain scenes that it nearly drowns out. Peckinpah displays a real confidence with his actors and the gorgeous landscape. Many of his revolving themes that would dominate his later films (friendship, betrayal, redemption, simmering violence inside man, and changing times) are on display here. Unlike many of his films, there was no studio tampering with the final cut here. Unfortunately, the MGM studio head was unimpressed with the film and subsequently it received a poor release and was buried alive. This would begin Peckinpah’s tempestuous and violent relationship with studio executives and producers.
Next to The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Ride the High Country is Peckinpah’s warmest and most accessible film. Most importantly though, it introduces us to the universal template that would be the basis for his best films (Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) that being the inevitable loss of principles that results when one finds himself in a situation that defies logic and one’s preconceived notion of how things should be. You are then faced with a no-win situation in regards to your faith; you can stand your moral ground and risk death or you can cheat your morality and spend the rest of your life as a coward. Ride the High Country becomes a meditation on morality and how far one can fall yet still be able to redeem one’s self.
The extras here include the always fascinating commentary by Peckinpah scholars/documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, and David Weddle, the ubiquitous Peckinpah trailer gallery, and a brief but loving featurette Sam Peckinpah and The High Country that feature Peckinpah’s sister Fern as she comments about her brother, his love of the west, and their family.
The film has been given a glorious widescreen and sound transfer here. Largely overlooked and hard to find even on video, Ride the High Country is available for the first time on DVD. It is a rich, rewarding, spiritual film experience. Go out of your way for this one.
Ride the High Country is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
The DVD is also part of the Sam Peckinpah’s The Legendary Westerns Collection now available at Amazon . As of yet, the set has not been released in the UK. Visit the DVD set’s database for more information.
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