From the archive: "Ride the High Country"

Ride the High Country may be an early Peckinpah Western, yet it's one that reveals an already fully formed (indeed, wholly mature) sensibility, translating to the screen what had long been a Western serial staple: the tale of old (or ageing) cowpokes, shunned by mainstream society, proving to both themselves and others that there's still lead in their pencils, or pistols. (See, in more recent times, City Slickers, Unforgiven, Open Range.) Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott are the retired sheriff and deputy pushed to one side during a gaudy camel-racing sideshow in the opening minutes; along with an impetuous kid (Ron Starr), they take one more gig: protecting a mining route from criminal interests. Along the way, the pair pay tribute to fallen comrades, compare aches and pains, and do their very best to vouchsafe both the gold and a golden-haired feisty femme (Mariette Hartley), who escapes the clutches of an abusive, Bible-bashing father only to fall into the hands of a set of over-possessive brothers.

The presence of L.Q. Jones and a typically sweaty Warren Oates among this latter group offers a salty taste of the Peckinpah to come, yet for much of its running time, Ride plays like a natural development of those digressive, Hawksian studies in male cameraderie for an audience coming to expect something more progressive from their entertainments. (One highpoint is Hartley and Jones's spectacularly tacky and discomforting wedding in a brothel, presided over by a drunken judge, with a trio of whores as makeshift maids of honour.) Certainly, there's an acknowledgement the times are a-changin', but Peckinpah himself appears determined to cling to the best of the old West. For all that Lucien Ballard's cinematography - crisp and misty, as required - is lovely (and a genre benchmark for the time), it pales when set against the sight of two very watchable screen veterans comporting themselves with the utmost decency and gentility.

(July 2010)

Ride the High Country screens on Channel 4 this Tuesday at 1.20pm.