Monte Hellman and Nicholson tried make something different in this dry western where has a always fine Warren Oates on an outstanding performance,in other hand Millie Perkins as a mysterious girl who came from nowhere and no name and later appear a gunfighter and all them in pursit the unknown killer.....the final scene has a enigmatic ending,missundertood maybe....but a unique certanly!!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7

Willett Gashade (the late, great Warren Oates) and Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins) are two cowboy associates, hired by a mysterious young woman (Millie Perkins) who refuses to give her name. The assignment, ostensibly, is to travel with her to a faraway town, but she's clearly got an agenda that bemuses them. The stakes get raised when a newcomer joins them on the journey: a hired gun named Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson), who similarly chooses to be rather cagey.Under appreciated filmmaker Monte Hellman is just one of many who began his career working for the legendary Roger Corman. With Corman as the (uncredited) executive producer, and Nicholson and Hellman as producers, this was filmed simultaneously with another indie Western, "Ride in the Whirlwind", but released separately. It's a very spare film, with a minimum of major roles, and it's one that takes full advantage of some strikingly desolate locations.Carole Eastmans' screenplay takes great care not to spell everything out for the viewer, although by the end it's not too hard to connect all the dots. The result is an intelligent, meticulously made film with a very enigmatic, and atmospheric, quality about it. Performances are superb from the star quartet. Oates has a quietly powerful presence. Hutchins is very animated and engaging. Some fans of the film don't care for Perkins, but this viewer feels that it's actually a testament to her ability since her character is clearly not trying to be likable; he can see that she's bearing some sort of grudge. And the young Nicholson, still a few years away from achieving genuine stardom, shows off that charisma that always served him so well. The ending, a slow motion shoot out among some rocks, is very stylishly done.This is very much essential viewing for fans of the cast and director.Eight out of 10.

After 10 minutes of that forced march across a lunar landscape, I popped a six-pack, hoping it would be enough. It wasn't. One thing for sure, producer Corman and company got their meager money's worth. After all, how many other $1.50 movies provoke this kind of reviewer discussion 50-years later.Now, I'm not going to recap the storyline (what there is of it) nor dwell on its details. Others have done that much better than I can. What I want to offer is a point of view that I think shapes much of the movie, and can be used to maybe understand better its maddeningly elliptical nature.So which is the movie—profound, pretentious, maddening, boring, or maybe just plain puzzling. At the risk of seeming a mush brain, I think it's all of these. But I'm most in sympathy with those folks who paid to see a conventional western and got this elliptical trip through heck instead. One thing for sure, the dialogue only ate up about a nickel's worth of the total expense. But if the crew was so cramped for funds, I'm wondering how come they went on expensive location. Usually, these cheapo's would film guys riding around LA's scrublands and then into a studio cow town, and then be forgotten. Not so, here. Instead, it's a blinding tour of Utah's purgatory part. A perfect setting for what may or may not be a story.Be sure to catch the first 15-minutes, because that's where most of the plot questions are dealt with to the extent that they are dealt with at all. The trouble is these hints at answers come before the questions, which causes confusion if you haven't paid close attention. And I should thank those reviewers who took time to clarify many of the more puzzling parts that slipped past me. Anyway, don't expect many answers from the long ride part, which is just that, a long ride and a lot of dead horses—a good, if unpleasant, touch given the heat and exposure.Clearly, director Hellman and writer Easton have seen a batch of New Wave French movies. The influence here is clear. Theme predominates over story. I suspect that's why so many folks object to the film. Hollywood and commercial movies traditionally emphasized storyline above all, and if themes emerged, that was a bonus. Then too, conventional filmmaking didn't like to leave viewers with loose ends. Outstanding questions got wrapped up in the end, so the audience left unprovoked, with an optimistic view that things always turn out right in the end.Now, I take the theme here—if there is one—to be an existential one of a particularly French variety. Anyway, if I recall my philosophy class correctly, existentialism means that existence precedes essence, or, at the risk of oversimplifying—sheer existence is basic-- all else like truth or personal identities are concocted afterwards. Now, in the movie, we're confronted with characters whose identities remain puzzling, especially the woman, Billie and the bearded man. Plus we know very little about Coley or Willett. Instead, we're simply confronted with their raw existence, in much the same way as Coley and Willett are confronted by the raw existence of the woman, Billie, and the bearded man. The fact that so little of the personal is explained means that interaction occurs between people who simply exist rather than people who are known to us.What makes this generic brand of existentialism slant in a particularly French direction are two things. Among other points, the French philosopher J-P Sartre makes two pithy claims, namely that 'Hell is other people' and that 'life is absurd'. Clearly these two themes are not exactly game winners for commercial filmmakers. As to the former, however, given the constant badgering between the characters as they move through the hellish terrain, the first claim is at least suggested by the dour screenplay. Except for Willett's kindly gesture toward the dead Coley, there's precious little kindness among the travelers. And for the generally inoffensive Coley, hell really is other people.As to Sartre's second claim, that life is meaningless, that's of course suggested by the ultra- bleak ending, as Billie staggers hopelessly down what can be taken as a brutal road of life to no apparent meaningful end. Ditto the others who perish in a similar lack of glory, and we wonder what's it all for. If this sounds pretty bleak, so is a movie that I can't imagine playing in a downtown theatre of the time.Naturally, viewers don't have to take such claims as true of the real world in order to take the film as reflecting these philosophical points of view. Anyhow, I did find the movie interesting enough to think of it as shaped by these rather esoteric terms. Nonetheless, I certainly don't blame folks for reacting negatively to what I take as an exceptionally non-western western, and maybe even anti-movie movie. Meanwhile, I've got some empty six-packs to discard.

A reluctant bounty hunter (Warren Oates) and his naive hireling (Will Hutchins) are hired by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) to help her track down an unknown man. Along the way they're joined by the sadistic gunman (Jack Nicholson) she's hired to finish the job. Rancor and jealousy undermine the group as they pursue a quarry that may well mean death for them all.It's an interesting attempt at a psychological western that I think doesn't completely work. What really undermines the movie isn't so much Hellman's slow pace, which I had no problem with, but rather some poor casting of the leads. Perkins can barely speak her dialog without looking like she's reading off a queue card, and Hutchins is just one of the actors on this film who seems to be hopped up on amphetamines or something. On the other hand, there's absolutely no problem with Oates or Nicholson, two excellent actors having a good time playing off each other. In Oates' and Hellman's masterpiece, "Two-Lane Blacktop", the contrast between the good and the amateur actors in the film actually enhanced the cinema experience because it was a good parallel to the characters. But in this one it just feels like Hellman's odd fascination with Perkins (who starred in quite a few of his more serious films) is undermining things.Right up to the rather rushed existential ending, which anybody with half a brain can see coming a mile away, and the whole scene with Perkins rushing up the hill after this man (reminiscent of Jennifer Jones in "Duel in the Sun"), the film kept me glued to the set. It's an interesting film because it's so much more low-key than most American westerns of the time period. It's a departure from the big epics of the time and it's not as gimmicky and busy as the Italian westerns (although the music is reminiscent of the spaghetti style). For those seeking a more character-oriented western, this is a very god bet. I only wish they had enough money to hire a couple better actors to compliment Nicholson and Oates.