RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY

This is Sam Peckinpah’s second film, another Western, released in 1962.  In it one can see the start of the transition from traditional to revisionist Westerns which Peckinpah himself would advance more spectacularly with ‘The Wild Bunch’ .

The lead actors are Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott and you can’t get much more traditional than that.  

On the other hand there are some moments in which Peckinpah shows his propensity to push the boundaries.  There’s an horrific scene in which à young bride nearly gets gangbanged by the groom’s brothers. And in the climactic shootout Peckinpah doesn’t softsoap the brutal violence.

As is often the case with Peckinpah there is a strong elegiac theme. How could there not be with two old timers together for one last time, this being Scott’s last film and one of McCrea’s last.

The characters they play (who know each other from way back) have both fallen on hard times but have reacted in different ways. 

Steve (McCrae) is happy enough to take on a low paid and dangerous job: transporting gold down from à mine up in the mountains back down to the bank. 

Gil (Scott) has become a bit of a Wild West showman who only agrees to accompany Steve because he plans to steal the gold even if this brings him into conflict with his old partner.  

Tagging along is Gil’s young sidekick, Heck, who has no qualms about committing robbery.

On the way up to the mine they spend a night at à farm where lives à widower and his young daughter, Elsa.

The father is intensely religious and controlling so it’s no great surprise that Elsa runs away and joins Steve and the others. She wants to go with them up to the mine to marry a young man there she has taken a fancy to, much to the chagrin of Heck who has taken a shine to her.

Once at the mine there are plenty of warning signs that Elsa shouldn’t marry her intended, not least his unsavoury brothers.  Nevertheless the wedding goes ahead, presided over by an alcoholic judge, with the madame of the local brothel providing her girls as bridesmaids.

Inevitably Elsa has to be rescued, pursued by the angry brothers.  

Still bubbling under is Gil’s desire to get his hands on the gold, although Heck, who has matured fast, is less keen to help than before, not least because he and Elsa are falling in love.  

When we get to the inevitable confrontation between Steve and Gil, the latter backs down surprisingly meekly.  Maybe he recognises that Steve is the faster draw, or maybe he too is going off the idea of becoming a common thief.

Leastways Gil is now Steve's prisoner, to be handed over to the authorities in due course.  But all that goes by the wayside when they are ambushed by the brothers.  Gil and Steve join forces one last time, and they triumph but not without Steve being fatally shot.  It is left to Gil to take the gold to the bank, and both we and Steve have no doubts he will see the job through.  

It's a satisfying end to a terrific film.