1.12.2010

Ride the High Country (1962)

Directed by Sam Peckinpah - starring Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley and Ron Starr as 'Huck Longtree'




Joel MCrea hires his old deputy, (Randolph Scott), to help bring down a shipment of gold from a mining town in the High Sierras. They bring along a third man, a young buck named Huck Longtree (that's got to be the best name ever), played by Ron Starr. Along their way they stay the night at a farm owned by a religious nut overbearing his beautiful daughter Elsa, played by Mariette Hartley in her first role. Huck is smitten with the daughter and she is too, kinda. She escapes her grueling father to join the trip up the mountain hoping to find some miner named Billy Hammond who's promised to marry her.

Mostly Joel McCrea's story with Scott along for the ride. Lots of humor but quickly grounded in the ugly reality that the rural states have been tainted with. Upon arrival to the mining camp the focus shifts to Mariette Hartley and her groom, ... and his drunk, unkempt, scarily retarded brothers who all want to 'try out' the bride on her wedding night. As the brothers take turns dancing with Mariette and forcing kisses on her it recalls scenes from DAY OF THE OUTLAW and MAN OF THE WEST, where the implication is rape, molestation and humiliation. Good grim stuff.


Shootouts, turncoats and salvation follows as Joel not only must bring back the gold he promised but must also return Marriette to her father with the Hammond boys close on his tail.

Nice love letter to the quaint old west while also bridging the grim and dirty west that was to follow. Early on McCrea almost gets run down by a primitive form of automobile, again this recalls MAN OF THE WEST when Gary Cooper jumps back on the train platform as the engine roars to a stop. But where that movie was completely humorless, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY never fails to elicit a chuckle. I had a smile on my face the whole time.


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