NR | 1h 13m | Western | 1959
With miles of open country in every direction, it’s hard to think of any man in the Wild West who didn’t feel utterly free. Think again, says screenwriter Burt Kennedy. In this riveting screenplay, every man wants to buy freedom from something and figures he has just the thing that’ll buy it for him.
Bounty hunter Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott) arrests Billy John (James Best) for his habit of shooting men in the back. They then begin the lonesome ride to Santa Cruz, California where Billy must face trial and a near-certain hanging.
But Billy’s certain of something else. He figures his hoodlum brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef) will rescue him before any hanging; still, he keeps trying to buy his freedom. Soon the ride gets a little less lonesome.
At a swing station, Mrs. Carrie Lane’s (Karen Steele) station master husband has been killed by Indians. So, she tags along with Brigade and Billy John. Then, two ex-outlaws tag along too: Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts) and Whit (James Coburn).
Boone claims he’s no longer raiding stagecoaches. All he wants is to buy amnesty from the law; courts will pardon previous offenses, even of outlaws, if they turn criminals in. But Brigade seems so set on ransoming Billy to buy some freedom of his own that Boone and Whit must bide their time.
On the trail, Frank senses that Brigade isn’t after the bounty. Brigade had once turned Frank in for murder. Vengeful, Frank had kidnapped and hanged Mrs. Brigade at a place called Hanging Tree. Now, both Boone and Frank suspect that Brigade’s itching for a showdown there, to buy freedom from guilt over not protecting his wife. They all converge at the fated spot, and Billy figures that he’ll escape a hanging after all, but the noose around his neck is about to get tighter.
To producer-director Budd Boetticher, the landscape is as much a character as humans and horses. He captures building-sized rocks and hulking mountains in the distance. They lie atop each other like massive, half-collapsed tents. He shows you sand flying off a dune or dust road, whether from the wheels of a speeding stagecoach or the hooves of a charging horse. Watch as a six-horse stagecoach hurtles toward a fence at breakneck speed.
Tracking shots follow men on horseback, allowing audiences to eavesdrop on entire conversations while a riding party is on the move. When Brigade warns that they’re being watched, an Indian posse appears as if magically on a sand mound at the far edge of the frame, but nearly a mile away.
Heinz Roemheld’s heroic title theme is unashamedly American, in mood at least reminiscent of catchier Aaron Copland tunes.
Thinking Man’s Western
Scott does Brigade as only he can. As a volatile Billy, Best interweaves his stutter with a nervous giggle and sudden flash of teeth. Inexplicably, despite his macho charisma in his first major film role, Roberts didn’t garner as many starring roles as he might have.Boetticher’s chosen landscape is mainly arid. But 50 minutes into the film, he switches to greener topography. Roemheld’s cheery title theme abruptly gives way to mournful, ominous chords, marking Boetticher’s establishing shot, introducing the leafless, lifeless Hanging Tree.
Boetticher’s camera glides down from above like a vulture, spying on Brigade’s party from behind the tree as they warily approach it on horseback. As the lens lowers, it reveals more and more of the gnarled tree, alone in a gigantic clearing, as if making some statement about its sombre past.
Here, there aren’t as many gunfights as in typical shoot ‘em ups, but Burt Kennedy’s narrative is a thinking man’s Western. His crackling script does most of the shooting, although, he does allow for quieter, lighter touches.
Brigade may be the strong, silent type, but he cares enough to stay up all night to keep a wounded horse company. Of Brigade, an admiring Boone tells Whit: “He doesn’t act like a man that makes his way killing.” That grudging respect is also why Boone dismisses Whit’s idea of catching Brigade unawares. “Can’t kill a man like Brigade from behind,” he says.
Surely, Whit knows he can. But the way Boone says it, Whit accepts it as the law of the land. That’s good screenwriting.
Garrulous Boone has an entire paragraph of dialogue to signal his yearning for the lovely Lane, ending with a flourish, “She’s about the best all-over good-looking woman I ever seen.” Understated as ever, Brigade smilingly says, “She ain’t ugly.”
