WILL PENNY

If I was to compile a list of my favourite Unknown Westerns (and why wouldn’t I?) this obscurity from 1968, starring Charlton Heston, might well come out on top.

It’s essentially a moving love story which also does a great job of conveying what life as a cowhand was like in the late nineteenth century, with some action thrown in.

We start off with a cattle drive getting wrapped up, leaving Will trying to find gainful employment over the winter.  He tags along with a couple of other cowhands, until they tangle with psycho Donald Pleasence and his family, as a result of which one of them gets badly shot.   

Leaving him with a local doctor, Will eventually is taken on by Ben Johnson to spend a lonely winter out in the hills looking after a herd.

Complications ensue when it turns out that his dwelling place has been occupied by Catherine and her young son, who were travelling to California to reunite with Catherine's husband, but who have been deserted by their guide.

Although not initially keen to set up house with them, Will is forced to change his mind after Catherine nurses him back to health after he is badly wounded by Pleasence who wants revenge for one of his sons having been killed.

The developing relationship between Will and Catherine is beautifully acted by Heston and Hackett.  They are worlds apart in terms of age (he's around fifty, she's around thirty), social class, education and life experience.  Yet they come to recognise in each other someone who is decent, honest and kind.  Will rapidly becomes a father-figure to the son, as it becomes clear that Catherine's husband is not close to her or the boy.

Their relationship climaxes in a heart-breaking scene when she proposes that they start a ranch together but he very reluctantly declines on the practical grounds that he’s now too old to start that kind of life.  When he lists the potential problems they might face, she says simply that she thought love was meant to overcome such obstacles.  When he rides off at the end he is gutted as well because in the short time he was with them he came to realise the kind of happiness he could have had if life had worked out differently.

This ending comes after some action when Pleasence and his family turn up yet again.  It's a small problem with the film that the action scenes are not that gripping, not helped by Pleasence’s cartoonish and over-the-top performance.

That aside, this is a terrific film, with what must be one of Heston’s best performances, and indeed it was no great surprise to read on Wikipedia that of his many films this was one of his favourites.