Calling the Killer by Name
The motion picture Western was killed by television. In 1962, there were 36 television Westerns on the tube. Most of the action took place inside the saloon, the general store or the bunkhouse. The principal characters talked, talked and talked. Missing was the spectacular scenery and the breathtaking action that lifted up most of the oat burners of the 1940s and ‘50s. When they tried to turn John Ford’s classic "Stagecoach" into a radio play, they had to add dialogue. There wasn’t enough in the 96-minute movie to fill a 54-minute radio drama. By 1961-62, the Western had pretty much run its course. The stalwart cowboy heroes of decades earlier were passing away (Gary Cooper died in 1961) or getting long in the tooth. In those two years, there appeared a quartet of films that elegantly mourned the passing of the West. In "The Misfits," Clark Gable’s final film, he cries out, "They’ve changed everything and turned it rotten," when he discovers that the herd of mustangs he’s tracking in the Nevada desert is only an old stallion, a mare and a couple of colts.
Stewart Had a Problem
In "Lonely Are the Brave," Kirk Douglas, on his horse Whiskey, evades a posse in jeeps, airplanes and helicopters. In the final stretch, Douglas is run over by a truck when he attempts to cross Highway I into Mexico. In John Ford’s "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence," James Stewart has to come to terms with a difficult fact: The killing of a notorious gunman (Lee Marvin) that made him famous actually was committed by a friend (John Wayne) who died an alcoholic and was about to be buried in a pauper’s grave. My favorite of the quartet is "Ride The High Country" directed by Sam Peckinpah. Best known for the bloody and ultra-violent "The Wild Bunch," Peckinpah also made three thoughtful Westerns that quietly mourned the passing of an era. Besides "Ride the High Country," there was Jason Robards in "The Balled of Cable Hogue" and Steve McQueen in "Junior Bonner."
Coburn Has a Two-Toned Opinion
Sam Peckinpah was born in Fresno in 1925, a descendent of pioneer Western settlers, the son of a cowboy-lawyer and the grandson of a congressman and Superior Court judge. During World War II, he served in the Marines in China. Even as a teenager, Peckinpah had the reputation of a boozer and brawler. James Coburn, who starred in two classic films directed by Peckinpah (Pat Garrett in “Billy the Kid,” and “Cross of Iron”) summed him up in an interview at the Golden Boots Awards in 1997. Peckinpah, said Coburn, was "the trickiest, meanest, most alcoholic — the best director I ever worked for." My favorite lines of dialogue in a Peckinpah movie come from "The Wild Bunch." Two old-time outlaws (William Holden and Ernest Borgnine) are sitting at a campfire in the dead of night. They’ve lost half of their gang in a hail of gunfire. They were betrayed by a former gang member. The bag of gold they had made off with turned out to be a worthless bag of washers. "We’re gettin’ too old for this," muses Holden. "It’s time we hung up our guns and backed off." "Backed off to what?" was Borgnine’s reply McCrea Was Starting to Slide "Ride The High Country" was Peckinpah’s second feature film. It’s the turn of the century and our heroes, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, are getting old and gray. Both have seen better days. Scott is working as a stickman in a traveling carnival and McCrea’s last job was as a bouncer in a barroom. The roles they played mirrored their careers. McCrea had the lead in "Foreign Correspondent," a couple of classic comedies directed by Preston Sturges, and some highly regarded Westerns, including Cecil B. DeMille’s "Union Pacific" and Raoul Walsh’s "Colorado Territory." By the early 1950s, McCrea had slipped into playing in forgettable B Westerns. Scott had a checkered career, for over 30 years. He never was considered a great actor. When he retired, he applied for membership in the Beverly Hills Country Club. "We don’t allow actors to become members,” he was told. "I’m not an actor,” he told the club, “and I’ve got more than 70 films to prove it." He was allowed to join the country club, though. He was listed as a cattleman and real estate developer.
Need a Cowboy? Here Is Scott
Scott was considered the prototype of the Hollywood cowboy. His films in the 1930s and ‘40s varied in quality. He played "Hawkeye" in "Last of the Mohicans." He played the tight-lipped marshal in "Abilene Town," the film that inspired the long-running television Western, "Gunsmoke." In the late 1940s, Scott formed his own company. He produced a series of tight, fast- paced Westerns in which he starred, including "The Walking Hills," "Man In the Saddle" and nine films directed by Budd Botticher considered classics. Among them are "The Tall T" and "Comanche Station." In "Ride the High Country," McCrea is given the chance to redeem himself by transporting gold from a mining camp to the bank in the city. He gets his old friend Scott to help him. Scott tries to talk him into running off with the gold instead of turning it into the bank. Scott reminds McCrea that both of them are down at their heels and will likely end up paupers in their old age.
Postscript
"What do you want on your gravestone?" Scott chides McCrea. "All I want is to enter my house justified,” is McCrea’s reply. The line was said to have been uttered by Peckinpah’s father, a lawman in the waning days of the West. That line summarizes Peckinpah’s stoic philosophy.
