bsmith5552 "Ride Lonesome" was the sixth of seven Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher "B" plus low budget little westerns. Again, Scott plays a loner with a past and an axe to grind.Scott is Ben Brigade a bounty hunter who has captured murderer Billy John (James Best) and plans to bring him to Santa Cruz to be hanged. The two proceed along until they come to a seemingly abandoned stagecoach swing station. Ah, but not so. Emerging from the shadows are Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts) and his pal Whit (James Coburn). Also on hand is the wife of the station master who is away, Carrie Lane (Karen Steele). Boone and Whit's reasons for being there are unknown at this point.It turns out that the local Apache chief has an eye for Mrs. Lane and offers a horse in trade for her. Unfortunately, the horse turns out to have belonged to her missing husband. The Indians leave but Brigade knows that they will return in greater numbers and decides that he must move on. Boone and Whit offer to accompany him and Billy John along with the now widowed Mrs. Lane. Before they leave, Boone tells Brigade that he plans to take the prisoner away from him. You see an amnesty has been offered to whomever brings Billy John in and Boone has a past and wants to be exonerated.The group of five leaves but not before Billy John informs them that his brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef) in in pursuit. They hole up in a run down building when the Indians attack. The Indians are repelled and the group proceeds on their way crossing desert like country in the open. This causes Boone to believe that Brigade is purposely leaving a trail for Frank to follow and that Frank is the man that Brigade really wants. It turns out that Brigade and Frank have a past and that Brigade wants to settle the score.When they arrive at a clearing dominated by an old rotten former hanging tree they await Frank's arrival. Brigade also has to consider Boone's threat to kill him if necessary. Frank arrives and........................................................Director Boetticher and writer Burt Kennedy must have run out of ideas. They re-use several scenes from earlier films in the series. Sam Boone speaks the line, "There are some things a man just can't ride around", which was spoken by Scott in "The Tall T" (1957). Also, the emergence of Boone and Whit from within the shadows of the station, was used in the same film with Richard Boone and his cronies likewise stepping out of the shadows. The scene where Boone offers Whit a partnership in his small ranch should he obtain his freedom, is similar to the one in "Buchanan Rides Alone" (1958) where Scott offers a similar partnership arrangement to L.Q. Jones.Randolph Scott plays yet another grim faced loner with a past and nary a smile. Pernell Roberts was about to embark on the TV series "Bonanza" the same year as this film. For James Coburn, this was his first film and led to his being cast in a major role in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960). James Best had been under contract at Universal and made many westerns. He would go on to play Sheriff Roscoe on the long running "Dukes of Hazard" TV series.

talisencrw In the past year or so, I've made a determined decision to get more accustomed to pre-1970's films from around the world, particularly genres I've previously given short change to, such as musicals, war films and westerns. I have to admit it's greatly enhanced my appreciation of cinema in general. It's amazing how great some of these films actually are.Since cinema is the greatest love of my life, I also collect books on film, trying to find out anything and everything I can. As the old Calvin Klein commercial goes, 'A man has many loves, but only one Obsession'. An unexpectedly great and relatively inexpensive find was 'The Editors of American Cowboy's The Top 100 Westerns of All Time,' from 2011. Looming at #52 was this, and its write-up sounded intriguing, so I've always kept my eyes open for it. Sure enough, last month I saw a Randolph Scott Westerns 6-pack for a very low price, and I pulled the trigger (pardon the pun).This was exceptional and clearly deserves its lofty status. There is so much action, intrigue and beauty jam-packed in Burt Kennedy's script for this 72 minutes. Every shot is finely composed and exquisitely filmed. I dare you to find a better supporting cast. Sure, the four-hour epics by the Sir David Leans and Victor Flemings out there are great, but I'd rather see a simple story, brilliantly told than the gluttonous two-to-three-hour pieces of self-important crap you find these days. Let that be my epitaph.I was so close to even giving this a perfect grade. It's honestly THAT good.

Big Swede T Budd Boetticher was such an interesting man,old-school American,creative,brash tough guy with a glint in his eye. And a great movie director,of course. Randolph Scott,in so many ways the heir to the William S Hart classic cowboy from the Silent movie era and a fine one in his own right. The best landscape God ever created for a Western outside of Monument Valley,the Alabama Hills of Lone Pine in California.(Both William S Harts old ranch house in north LA and Lone Pine are excellent stops for the Sagebrush Pilgrim out on the road...) Great writing by Burt Kennedy,fine acting by the likes of Pernell Roberts...I could go on but will add up and conclude: A terrific western,tight,adult with noir-like undertones makes this not only the best film in the Ranown cycle but one of the best westerns of the 50's(which I consider the Golden Age of the genre...)or indeed ever. And in just 73 minutes... "Ride Lonsome"...is pretty much perfect. T

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.