Sam Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country" is framed like one of John Ford's westerns and one thing in common with those and many other western movies that this is one of the best westerns ever made. The movie stars Joel McCrea as Steve Judd an ex Union Army soldier and retired lawman who is hired to find and transport gold back to the bank, but he couldn't do it alone as he couldn't think of any other person better to help him than his old friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) who brought along a young kid named Heck Longtree (Ron Starr), while on the trail the three men stay for the night on a ranch owned by a man named Joshua Knudsen (R.G. Armstrong) who is very religious and has a daughter named Elsa (Mariette Hartley) who Longtree gets a crush on but doesn't find out right away that she is engaged to a man named Billy Hammond (James Drury) who along with his brothers have very bad manners and do not treat Elsa very well. As the movie goes on Judd finds out that Westrum is trying to betray him by stealing the gold and keeping it for himself despite their friendship knowing all along and repeatedly denying that it would happen, arrests him and then they become friends again. This movie would go on to be Randolph Scott's final role in movies and after filming ended he said that making movies no longer interested him and that he couldn't give any better performance than he did in this movie which would end up being his most popular film. The performances are excellent especially featuring standout work from both Scott and McCrea (who was very modest about his own acting abilities) thanks to a great screenplay from N.B. Stone Jr., and Peckinpah's direction for this movie which happened to be his second film that he directed, as well as the beautiful cinematography by Lucien Ballard. The movie ranks among the best western movies that I've ever seen in my entire life and I've seen lots of them, and thanks to a masterpiece like this as well as one of the top ten best films of 1962 I am totally looking forward to seeing more of Sam Peckinpah's movies in the future.

An above average Western featuring two of the genres most recognizable stars, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (in his last film). Both men have a history together as outlaws, but McCrea has gone straight and is now in charge of getting the gold from the mines to the bank. To help him, he hires his old friend Scott who, along with a young hothead (Ron Starr), is in town dressed up like "Buffalo Bill" and demonstrating his fancy shooting.Scott believes he can persuade his old partner to split the gold with him before they return, and must act as a buffer between the impatient young ruffian and his old friend. While en route, the three encounter a religious farmer (R. G. Armstrong) and his under socialized daughter (Mariette Hartley), who steals away to join them.The trouble really begins when they get to the remote mining town, encountering an inbred mountain family of hoodlums (which includes Warren Oates) and its judge (Edgar Buchanan).Directed by Sam Peckinpah, and written by N.B. Stone Jr., it was added to the National Film Registry in 1992.

Multiple themes unfold in this narrative. Age versus youth; innocence versus depravity; greed versus poverty; puritanism versus immorality; crime versus integrity. It is packed with incident, but seems slow. Lasts only 90 minutes but seems much longer. The acting by Scott and McCrea was OK, but not remarkable. The roles were undemanding. Mariette Hartley was excellent, and she had a very appealing and attractive presence. Ron Starr receives a lot of criticism on this site, but seemed to be doing nothing wrong. He wears a disgruntled expression, but that's part of his role. Although there are several fist-fights, as well as shoot-outs, raging drunkenness, and the girl's unlamented father is shot (off-screen), it still doesn't give the impression of a specially violent movie, at least not in comparison with some of Peckinpah's later efforts.The wedding scene was demented. The face-off with the bad guys, anticipating the ending of The Wild Bunch, at the end of the story strikes me as totally improbable and utterly unrealistic, rather like the wacky race with the camel in the opening minutes. Do camels really run faster than horses ? Much of the rest of the film seemed real. This may be due to the photography and the calm scenery. A strange mixture.

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.