Ride Lonesome (Boetticher, 1959): Prince Charles Cinema, 6pm
This film, part of the Ranown Series: Westerns of Budd Boetticher season at the Prince Charles, also screens on Setember 6th. Full details here.
Time Out review:
One
of the best of the Boetticher/Scott Westerns, bleaker but not too
distant in mood from the autumnal resignation of Peckinpah's Ride the High Country,
as Randolph Scott's ageing lawman lets time catch up with him and foregoes (even
as he achieves) the vengeance he had planned on the man who hanged his
wife so long ago that the killer, taxed with it, says 'I 'most forgot'.
It's deviously structured as an odyssey of cross-purposes in which Scott
captures a young gunman (Best) and proceeds to take him in, ostensibly
for the bounty on his head. Actually, Scott hopes to lure Best's brother
(Lee Van Cleef), the man who killed his wife, into a rescue bid; two outlaw
buddies (Roberts and Coburn) tag along, biding their time, desperate to
collect the amnesty that goes with Best's capture; the presence of a
pretty widow (Steele) stokes a measure of sexual rivalry; and there are
Indians about. Beautifully scripted by Burt Kennedy, with excellent
performances all round as the characters evolve through subtly shifting
loyalties and ambitions, it's a small masterpiece.
Tom Milne
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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