GamerTab That was an excellent one.

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

BasicLogic Can you believe traveling across the desert and the wildness, all of these guys were packed light without any logistic stuff. We didn't see the bounty hunter and his group of travelers with packed horse to provide them with anything, food and water didn't seem a big problem at all, nor the chasing group of the murderer's brother showed any worries about their chows and drinking water. When the Indians decided to attack, they just foolishly circling around the shambled wreck with lances, allowing the defending whites shot them like shooting in the fish barrel or in a shooting gallery; I mean WTF?! They decided to attack but just circling around for their white enemy to shoot them down one by one? Ware the Indians really that so stupid? How could it possible the prisoner would get a rifle if he was handcuffed to a wagon wheel? Was it the director's decision to allow such stupid arrangement in order to set up the next scene, he was cheated out by the other guy telling him his rifle got no bullets in it. Another stupid scenario wrote up by the screenplay writer?The guy saved his life and asked for a favor to allow him to bring in the murderer in order to get an amnesty, but the guy simply refused. How selfish and ungrateful a person could be, you tell me. Yes, all the development of this film was simply one-way, one-direction predictable. Old Western films were all alike. They just wanted simple-minded audience to watch them without using their I.Q., basic logic, a least entry level reasoning. Watch too much and too many of these kinds of brainless films, you'd become more and more simple minded.By the way, the repeated soundtrack is so annoying, a typical pain to the hearing as always in the western movies.

weezeralfalfa First off, why did the screenwriter pick the name Santa Cruz as the ultimate destination for Brigade(Randolph Scott) and his odd assortment of strays plus captured outlaw Billy John? Since Bisbee, in the SE corner of present AZ, is mentioned several times, I assume that the reference is to nearby Santa Cruz county AZ, not to the coastal well watered city of Santa Cruz, CA, which looks nothing like the arid rocky landscape, with occasional sand dunes depicted(Alabama Hills and Olancho sand dunes of eastern CA). If so, the Mescalero Apache encountered were out of their usual territorial limits. Should have been Western or Chiricahua Apache: the latter being the most war-like of the Apache groups. It's clear to me that the name Santa Cruz was not a random pick. It translates into English as 'holy cross'. Thus, it somehow relates, in the screenwriter's mind, to the cross-like 'hang tree', which is featured so prominently in the last part of the film. This dead and decaying tree trunk has two partial limbs, thus rather resembling the cross that Christ was crucified on. It also stands alone in a clearing, which is surrounded by trees and shrubs, thus resembling the common depiction of Calvary Hill, where Christ was crucified. Like Christ, who was crucified along with true criminals and where criminals were commonly dispatched, Brigade's wife was an innocent sacrificial victim of outlaw Frank's need for vengeance against Brigade, hanged on this tree where criminals had sometimes been hanged. Incidentally, the screenwriter could have picked the geographically more appropriate name Las Cruses, which is a city very close to the traditional territory of the Mescalero Apaches, translating as 'the crosses'. However, Santa Cruz more clearly denotes the intention of a holy cross.Historically, burning special things often symbolically was thought to neutralize evil or the power of black magic. The burning of witches in Medieval Europe is a prime example. In some cultures, the decease's key belongings are burned, perhaps symbolically transferring them to the afterlife of the deceased. In Brigade's case, the burning of the 'hang tree' in the parting scene clearly is meant to celebrate his long awaited vengeance upon the man who hanged his wife, and to symbolically extinguish his need for further vengeance in facilitating the hanging of Frank's young brother, Billy John.Brigade mentions that the gorgeous blond Carrie Lane(Karen Steele) much reminds him of his deceased wife as a young woman. At age 60, stone-faced Scott is clearly too old to consider this young recent widow as a possible replacement. Thus he maintains an emotional distance from her, treating her like a daughter who needs protection from the persistent Apaches and perhaps his unpredictable companions. In the ending, it's clear that he is willing to go along with Boone's ambition to gain amnesty by being given credit for bringing in outlaw Billy John, and thereby perhaps promote his additional ambition to marry Carrie. Why?? I suspect that Brigade, as a young man, before he became sheriff of Santa Cruz, had his wild outlaw time. He believes Boone's story that this former minor outlaw has prospects of settling down to an honest productive life. Thus, he identifies with him, and foresees a rebirth of himself plus wife in the possible pairing of Boone and Carrie, in a humble analogy to the resurrection of Christ. Formerly, Brigade had criticized Carrie's husband for accepting a job in an isolated way station, easily raided by Apaches, thus endangering his life and that of his unusually desirable wife, whom the Apaches might want to steal. Included is the bizarre incident in which a band of Apaches bring the horse of Carrie's presumably now deceased husband, to trade with her companions for her! Perhaps they hoped she wouldn't recognize the horse, or perhaps they stuck it in her face to suggest that they had killed, or at least captured, her husband, thus rendering her available as a possible legal wife for them. In any case, she and the others later get vengeance against the Apaches when the latter attack the party to steal her, after failing in their ignominious attempt to buy her.Negatives include that the dialogue is often trite, and sounds forced or premeditated. Karen Steele was no great shakes as an animated actress, being the director's mistress around this time. Typical of Scott-starring westerns, there's minimal humor and social events to balance the tense drama. I see strong parallels in the basic plot to that of Scott's last Hollywood feature: the well-regarded "Ride the High Country", costarring Joel McCrea, with a different director. Again, we have a small party traversing a rugged wilderness toward a town. The party includes a young marriageable woman in a precarious position, who needs protection and some guidance(initially mostly by McCrea; near the end, by Scott), and includes, within the party, a pair at cross purposes to that of the leader. A gold shipment takes the place of a bountied prisoner as the contested object within the group. In addition, a raiding party also wants the woman. Thus,, again, we have two quite different prizes within the group that different groups hope to steal. Again, one of the young men within the group with a somewhat tarnished past is characterized near the end as a potential desirable husband for the woman, with the implied consent of Scott, as her unofficial guardian. Again, we have a dramatic in-the-open shootout duel with the little gang of badies at the end.

Bill Slocum Spare, lean, with gorgeous cinematography and memorable dialogue, "Ride Lonesome" is the kind of film you want when you reach for a Western.A bounty hunter named Brigade (Randolph Scott) is bringing in a murderer named Billy (James Best) after a three-day pursuit in a rocky desert. Brigade has unexpected company, though, two ne'er-do-wells who plan to use Billy for their own ends. Less unexpected is Billy's nasty brother, Frank (Lee Van Cleef), who's coming after Brigade, too. For a man in so many sets of crosshairs, Brigade seems strangely content. His reasons turn out to be less clear-cut than at first light.Director Budd Boetticher and Scott had a famous run of Westerns that literally got their start thanks to John Wayne's "The Searchers." Not only did that film raise the bar for the Western genre, it also tied Wayne up from making a film with Boetticher, "Seven Men From Now," which thus became the first of seven films Boetticher made with Scott. Scott was a lot like Wayne, fixed and stolid in his acting style but surprisingly spry when given the right script. Brigade is a perversely dynamic character that way, allowing Scott to play off his usual ramrod stiffness to brilliant effect."You don't see the kind that would hunt a man for money," Brigade is told by Mrs. Lane (Karen Steele), a woman he helps rescue from Mescaleros."I am," he says, almost amused at her shock, and then is silent. Scott's Brigade doesn't have a lot to say, but what he does say counts for a lot.With Scott holding back so much at the center of things, room is given to the other characters. The ne'er-do-wells, Boone (Pernell Roberts) and his young buddy Whit (James Coburn) become our default rooting interests in a way. We sense Brigade can handle himself, but can they, especially when the temptation to do wrong is so great? They don't want to be bad guys, but if they are going to get amnesty for their past crimes, they have to bring in Billy, and that means getting past the formidable Brigade. Will they draw on him, and if so, whom do we root for?Burt Kennedy's fantastic script keeps us guessing, tossing us new complications and character motivations every five minutes. Meanwhile, Boetticher and cinematographer Charles Lawton, Jr. keep the frame clear of distraction. This allows us not only to drink in the beauty of California's Alabama Hills, what Boone calls so memorably "all this empty," but keeps us on the lookout for dangers lurking in the corners of every frame, whether it be smoke or silhouetted riders on horseback. Even Scott at the film's opening shot appears at first as just another figure on a landscape, tying his character intrinsically to this arid, alien world, leaving us to wonder about him and his motives all the way through to the end.For all of its main character's cold stillness, "Ride Lonesome" is also a film of humor and action, with Coburn and Best supplying much of the former. Best is enjoyably loathsome and annoying, playing desperately for angles despite all the empty he has between his ears. Roberts steals much of the film with his attempts at working a deal with Brigade and wooing the newly available Mrs. Lane. A great standoff scene between him and Best left me wondering - like herbqedi noted in his June 2004 review - why Roberts didn't emerge as a bigger film actor.Most marvelously, "Ride Lonesome" manages to deliver all this range and depth, and answer our questions about the reticent Brigade besides, in just over 70 minutes. That's another thing about Boetticher, he didn't waste time. You won't either seeing this testament to the greatness of Westerns.

Spikeopath Ride Lonesome is directed by Budd Boetticher, written by Burt Kennedy and stars Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, James Coburn, James Best & Lee Van Cleef. Charles Lawton Jr is the cinematographer (in CinemaScope for the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California location) and Heinz Roemheld provides the musical score. Film is part of the Ranown Western cycle involving Boetticher, Scott, Kennedy and producer Harry Joe Brown.Bounty hunter Ben Brigade (Scott) captures wanted outlaw Billy John (Best) and tells him he's taking him to Santa Cruz to be hanged. Best boasts that his brother Frank (Cleef) will soon be arriving to ensure that doesn't happen. Brigade isn't the least bit bothered by this statement. The two men stop at a Wells Junction, a remote swing station, where they encounter Boone (Roberts) & Whit (Coburn), two drifters, and Mrs Lane (Steele), the station attendant's wife. With Mr Lane missing and the Mescalero Apache's on the warpath, the group decide to collectively travel to Santa Cruz, but hot on their trail are the Indians and Frank's gang. There's also the small matter of motives within the group, seems Boone & Whit, too, have a special interest in Billy, while Brigade may have something far more ulterior driving him on.As the decades have rolled by, the Boetticher/Scott Westerns have come to be rightly regarded as genre high points. Between 1956 to 1960 they produced 7 pieces of work. The weakest of which were the more jovial Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), and the Kennedy absent WB contract filler, Westbound (1959). The remaining five each follow a familiar theme that sees Scott as a man driven by emotional pain, movies with simmering undertones and pulsing with psychological smarts. Poll a hundred Western fans for their favourite Boetticher/Scott movie and you will find any of the five being mentioned as a favourite: such is the tightness and intelligence of each respective picture.So we are out in the desolated Old West, it's harsh and weather beaten. Our five characters are either troubled by death-prior and pending-or searching for a life that may be a touch too far from their grasp. As their journey unfolds, loyalties will be tested and shifted, uneasy bonds formed, psychological and sexual needs bubble away under the surface. All viewed by the enveloping Alabama Hills: with Mount Whitney the chief patriarch overseeing his charges. Ride Lonseome, is a stunning movie, an elegiac piece, one that's bleak yet not without hope, a collage of tones seamlessly blended together to create one almost magnificent whole. The first Boetticher movie in CinemaScope, the film is directed with great economic skill, the whole width of the screen is creatively used by the director, placing the characters in the landscape like Anthony Mann used to do with Jimmy Stewart. His action construction is smart and it should be noted that there is not one interior shot in the film. Lawton Jr sumptuously shoots in Eastman Color, actually a perfect choice for the rugged terrain and the wide, lonesome inducing open spaces provided by the Scope format. While Kennedy's script is sparing, perfectly so, the dialogue is clipped but very telling. And crucially there's no manipulation in the narrative.Then of course there's the cast. Scott leads off with one of his brave, ageing man of few words portrayals, a character with inner sadness gnawing away at him. With just one glance and a couple of words, Scott actually provides more depth than most other actors in the genre were able to do with more meatier parts. With the lead protagonist established, Boetticher surrounds him with fine support. Coburn was making his film debut and with his tall frame and distinctive voice he leaves a good impression, mostly because he works so well off of Roberts' more outwardly tough turn. Their partnership gives the film a believable friendship at its centre, lovable rogues perhaps? And they also provide some of the lighter moments that Boetticher and Kennedy use to tonally keep us guessing. Steele is just sultry, a blonde fire cracker in the middle of a potential hornets nest. While Best does a nice line in snivelling weasel, his characters trait being that he shoots his victims in the back. As for Cleef? He's barely in it, but after his characters introduction into the story, his presence hangs over proceedings like a dark heavy cloud. He will be back, tho, and rest assured it's worth the wait.Does Ride Lonesome have flaws? Yes. One thing is that at 73 minutes it's too damn short. But moving away from that particular greedy itch of mine, the film does carry some Western clichés. Most notably with the Indian participation in the story. Be it chases, portentous smoke signals or an adobe corral attack-where our group are of course outnumbered-it's stock Cowboy & Indian fare. Not helped by Roemheld's music, which only reinforces the clichés. Thankfully in Boetticher's hands the clichés are overcome by the scenes raising the pulse, and in one particular sequence, providing the basis for a terrific tracking shot. Roemheld does deliver the goods for the finale, tho, and what a finale it is too. Featuring a tree shaped like a cross, the ending has sparked many an interpretation. Some way too deep (French critics) & some just bizarre (internet sleuths), when actually the interpretation is simple; hell they even got Martin Scorsese to explain it on the DVD. The memorable shot involving the tree, as the music pounds away, can induce pounds of goose-flesh on the skin, powerful it is. As endings go in the Boettticher canon? It gives Comanche Station's riderless horse finale a run for the title of being his, and Scott's, best. A near masterpiece from a true auteur. 9/10