Wuchak Released in 1962, "Ride the High Country" was Sam Peckinpah's second feature film and arguably his best Western; yes, better than the overrated "Wild Bunch" (1969). While it lacks that movie's slow-motion ultra-violence, it has a superior story and more interesting characters.BASIC PLOT: Too aging ex-lawmen and old friends take a job transporting a gold shipment from a mountain mining settlement to the bank in the town below. One is a man of integrity (Joel McCrea) while the other has compromised his (Randolph Scott). Can he be redeemed? And at what cost? What about his young mentee (Ron Starr)? The conflict between puritanical religion and purity of purpose is spotlighted with Elsa's curmudgeonly father representing the former and Judd (McCrea) the latter.Yet there's so much more, like the five redneck brothers from hell at the wild mining camp, not to mention Mariette Hartley (Elsa) in her debut. The movie's short at 94 minutes, but seems longer (in a good way) because it's so dense with gems to mine, like Elsa's brief discussion with Judd: ELSA: "My father says there's only right and wrong, good and evil; nothing in between. It isn't that simple, is it?"JUDD: "No, it isn't. It should be, but it isn't." Elsa flees the stifling clutches of her legalistic father to marry some young buck at the hedonistic frontier camp. She's swings on the pendulum from legalism to libertinism, which is the opposite extreme, but they're actually two sides of the same bad coin. Judd represents the sound middle path of wisdom. Everyone near him recognizes this and is positively influenced by him, one way or another, even his old wayward friend. Kudos to the genius of writer N.B. Stone Jr.Both Scott and McCrea retired from acting after this winner, although the latter decided to return several years later. Some say "Ride the High Country" represents the non-official end of the traditional Western and the beginning of the new.The film was shot in Inyo National Forest, Malibu Creek State Park, Merrimac & Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park, California.GRADE: A

gavin6942 An ex-union soldier is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.The movie was released on the bottom half of a double bill. William Goldman says he spoke to an MGM executive at the time who says the film had tested strongly but they felt the film "didn't cost enough to be that good". Funny looking back now and thinking that Peckinpah or Joel McCrea could ever find themselves working in a B-movie. But it is apparently true.And stranger still, despite the growing praise over the last several decades, the film allegedly lost money when it debuted. Was this because of the billing, or were people truly not interested?

5th Shock Ride The High Country is certainly one of the best Post War to Hippie period Westerns and arguably one of the best ever made anytime, anywhere.It shows us four characters. The Good Guy, the one who lives by and is ready to die by the Code Of The West. I just want to enter my house justified. Then in the second main figure we see this same man who rode the same road but took a side path. Because, after all, being good is thin gruel and low wages, Nicht Wahr? And then we see the innocents, boy and girl, still to choose their Tao. Add gold, shake and pour.I may be my village's idiot but I believe that all good Westerns are more than Monument Valley, Moab and Redrock landscape diversions. They all are, if they're doing it right, invitations to Ride The High Country.

dougdoepke Aging drifter Steve gets old friend Westrum and his young charge Heck to help him bring money back to the bank from an outlying gold camp. However complications soon arise.Exceptionally fine character study for a western, a genre that usually settles for much less. On one end of the character spectrum are the Hammond Brothers, especially Henry (Oates), who appear to have no values beyond having fun no matter at whose expense. On the other end is old Joshua (Armstrong) who's unbending in his righteous biblical values, such that he's turned poor daughter Elsa (Hartley) into little more than a sad household drudge. The rest of the cast are somewhere between these poles.Of course, the plot's central core is the wavering relationship between Steve (McCrea) and Westrum (Scott). Steve's unbending in his determination to stay true to his word and bring the $20,000 to the bank. It's not the money that tempts him, as it does Westrum, rather Steve's got to get back his self-respect after a wayward life. Or, as Peckinpah colorfully puts it "Enter my house justified". At this point, that's his core value, and he doesn't want to get diverted by Elsa's problem with fiancée Billy Hammond (Drury). Westrum, on the other hand, is ready to double-cross his old friend and take the money for himself. His values, at this early stage, are purely mercenary.Now these character elements set up a particularly interesting dynamic as they play out. What that dynamic shows is that neither Westrum nor Steve are as oblivious to changing circumstances as old man Joshua, for example, is. When Elsa gets mauled on her wedding night by the Hammond clan, Steve allows himself to get diverted. He's not going to let her get mauled by these oafs, and thus consents to let her ride back to town with them, even if it means a shootout with the vengeful Hammonds. In that sense, Steve shows a humane side that proves more compelling than his self-centered mission to get the gold to the bank.Now Wes goes along with the hijinks in the gold camp involving Elsa, because he cares only about stealing the gold away from Steve, despite their earlier friendship. His main value all along has been both selfish and mercenary. But when Steve, the kid Heck (Starr), and Elsa are waylaid at her father's house by the vengeful Hammond's, Westrum has to make a decision. He can ride off with the gold he's successfully stolen or ride in to help his old friend. In a defining moment, he rides in, showing that like Steve, humane values are more compelling than self-centered ones. Thus the central core of the story emerges, the bond between two essentially good men who ultimately bend in the right direction.None of this would work so well without the casting of the two old pro's, McCrea and Scott, in the central roles. Each brings a big screen history of sagebrush heroics to their respective characters. Seeing them rise to the challenges despite their ages, Scott (64), McCrea (59), lends the whole movie a dignified, elegiac air. In fact, that last scene stands as one of the great ones among the western tradition.In fact, the supporting cast is also excellent, even the rather unnoticeable Ron Starr who I assume was intended to be recessive among the many more forceful types. Mariette Hartley looks perfect as the rather ungainly farm girl trapped by an unfeeling father and the barbarous Hammonds. (And, a long way from her amusing Polaroid commercials with James Garner.) Then too, Peckinpah has a terrific eye for the unwashed. The Hammonds are a great collection of familiar baddies, except for Drury. And I particularly like the easily overlooked Elder's (Anderson) insistence that, despite appearances, their clan too has honor and will meet Westrum and Steve face-to-face in the shoot-out.Anyway, the movie's a western of real substance and subtle emotion, in my view, ranking with the very best, and a fitting farewell to two of our best western heroes.