Ride Lonesome

another good film from the Budd Boetticher, Burt Kennedy and Randolph Scott team.

Nice taut screenplay about a bounty hunter who has deeper motives than you expect at first glance. The cast is great here, especially Scott, Van Cleef, and Coburn and the brisk pacing means it never outstays its welcome.

A run-of-the-mill late ‘50s western that pairs frequent collaborators Budd Boetticher (director) and Randolph Scott (leading man) for more tangles amongst the tumbleweeds. By the time of this, their fifth such partnership, the duo had worked this particular genre down to a science. Their mutual comfort level is obvious, but so is their fatigue. Even when staring down the twin barrels of a loaded shotgun, nobody seems all that fiery or excited in _Ride Lonesome_; it’s just another day at the office. Punch in, pull a few triggers, punch back out again. How are the wife and kids?

Showing his age, the 61-year-old Scott plays an experienced bounty hunter who grumpily collects a posse of rivals and companions on his way to deliver a fugitive murderer in Santa Cruz. Whilst bickering amongst themselves, the group is troubled by a tribe of Mescalero natives and pursued by their target’s dastardly brother. Racing through the desert, the old man’s unwanted ride-alongs barter for the bounty, but despite being given several chances to pull one over on each other, the unlikely squad sticks together. No matter how shady their stories might seem, nobody’s here to stab backs.

Not a bad film, but also not a compelling one, _Ride Lonesome_ does what it sets out to do with little flair or passion for the gig. A few interesting footnotes speckle the cast list - this was James Coburn’s feature film debut, and pre-stardom Lee Van Cleef appears in a very small villainous role - but those parts are limited. If you’re looking for a quick-hit cowboy flick, this’ll do the trick. It weighs in at a scant seventy-odd minutes and there’s plenty of nice desert scenery (including costar Karen Steele’s persistent, hilariously out-of-place bullet bra) but I expect I’ll forget all about it in a few months’ time.

What an iconic ending.

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