Ride the High Country (1962) is one of Sam Peckinpah's most enjoyable Westerns. The story is about Steve Judd (Joel McCrea), an aging lawman and his former friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) who agree to transport gold from a Sierra Nevada mining town. Steve, however, doesn't know that Gil intends to steal the gold.

Ron Starr, Mariette Hartley & Randolph Scott © Warner Home Video

When Steve Judd agrees to take on the assignment of transporting gold from the Sierra Nevada mining town of Coarsegold, he knows he'll need a second hand. Immediately he runs into his old friend Gil Westrum. The men team up for the job, but they have spent years apart, so they don't know each other well. Gil has other ideas about the gold and knows he'll need an accomplice as well. When he sees the reckless young Heck Longtree (Ron Starr) punch his way out of a bar fight, he invites him to be the third man.

As the men begin their ride, they find a house along the way. Joshua Knudsen (R. G. Armstrong), a religious man and his grown daughter, Elsa (Mariette Hartley), offer the men a night in the barn and a meal. It's quickly apparent that Elsa is not happy with her father's tyrannical rule. Heck takes a liking to her, but it's obvious by this time that Heck would take a liking to any girl. Anyway, Elsa informs Heck she's engaged to Billy Hammond (James Drury), a miner up in Coarsegold.

Peckinpah was a man who read the Bible a lot and interestingly, a lot of Bible versus or moral saying show up here and there in the film. When the riders unsaddle to go inside the house, Heck says about Elsa, "Think of all that going to waste up here."

Ron Starr & Randolph Scott

  © Warner Home Video

Gil retorts, "Like the fellow said, gold is where you find it."

Steve adds, "If it's not yours, don't covet it."

Gil tells Heck, "Don't worry boy, the Lord's bounty may not be for sale, but the devil's is, if you can pay the price." This sets the theme of the movie immediately as good versus evil. Once inside the house Gil and Heck look at a plaque on the wall that reads, "When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the lowly is wisdom."

dinner scene

© Warner Home Video

As Steve and Gil settle down for the night in the barn, they talk about the old days when they were both gun slingers, and Gil gets in a dig in about a gal Steve could have had but let slip through his fingers. Again, more of Peckinpah letting us get to know who these men are, as does the line spoken by Gil to Steve in regards to his righteous attitude, "You know what's on the back of a poor man when he dies? The clothes of pride, and they're not a bit warmer to him then when he was alive. Is that you want?"

Steve replies, "All I want is to enter my house justified."

When the men saddle up to leave the preacher's house, Heck tries to convince Elsa to come along, but she refuses. The men take off and Gil keeps reminding Heck about their bargain. Trouble is, Heck is beginning to take a liking to Steve and his honorable ways. Especially after they get in a scrap, and Steve teaches Heck that he can still get the best of young hooligans.

After the men ride out, Elsa and her father have another squabble, after which she packs up and rides off. When she finds the men, Heck is happy to see her, but Steve lets him know right off the bat she's off limits. She informs them she just wants them to escort her to Billy in Coarsegold.

Only a short scene unveils the collecting of the gold, but once the men have their bags, they're ready to give Elsa over to her betrothed. Within minutes of saying "I Do," Billy's wild and uncouth brothers make Elsa realize she's in danger and out of her element. One scream brings Heck and the men to the rescue, and once again the four them hit the trail back to low country.

One day out and the men are attacked by Billy and his brothers, and the shoot out ends up with Steve getting shot. Throughout the film Peckinpah packs his movie with one moral message after another, including one to Heck about not leaving his trash behind. In fact one classic film reader told me this film partly shaped his own morals.

Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott were on the verge of getting their gold watch by this time in their career and 100s of movies to their credit. But they showed movie fans the stuff they were made of by offering perfect performances, and ones highly more interesting than anyone else in the movie. And would have thought that the favorite actor, Scott, would be played against type before he was ultimately a hero? Why Peckinpah, of course, who used the age card to advantage several times in the film, like when Steve escapes into a bathroom to put on his glasses to read a contract.

Ride the High Country's" cinematography by Lucien Ballard, is part of the attraction of this film and Warner's remastering adds more brilliance.

"This is Sam's first great movie and also a western," said author David Weddle, on the commentary on the DVD. "Ride the High Country," is extraordinary original and quite conventional and much of the pleasure in the movie consist in seeing how Peckinpah plays with the conventions sometimes turning them back on themselves."

Although most people recognize The Wild Bunch as a better Peckinpah film, I actually enjoyed Ride the High Country more. The DVD has some great insights into the film and Sam Peckinpah.

Ride the High Country is part of Warner's Sam Peckinpah's Legendary Westerns Collection that also includes three new-to-DVD films: The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid Two-Disc Special Edition - which offers both the 1988 Turner Preview version of the film and a newly-edited 2005 version based on the director's notes and insights from his colleagues. The collection also features the acting debut of musical legend Bob Dylan, who also composed the film's score. Also included in the collection is  The Ballad of Cable Hogue.

Special Features Disc 1:

• Commentary by Peckinpah biographers/documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor - Sam Peckinpah: The Western Films A Reconsideration, Garner Simmons, Peckinpah A Portrait in Montag, David Weddle, documentation and author of If They Move...Kill €˜Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah. These four historians have an obvious passion about Peckinpah and his work, and it shows in this highly engaging commentary accompanying the film. It's hard to ascertain who is who when they speak but the material is great.

• A Justified Life: Sam Peckinpah and the High Country - a featurette with memories from Fern Lea Peter, Peckinpah's younger sister. She talks about her grandfather who started a lumber mill on Peckinpah Mountain, above San Francisco. She explains other family members and how they lived. Her other grandfather became a member of the House of Representatives. Family photos show some of these family members. Peter's laughs when she reveals her mother throught their dad was a lawyer (he did become one later), but found out he was just a cowboy who didn't eat with the proper fork, like her mother was trained.

Peter explains there was a real town called Coarsegold and that she thinks Steve Judd's character thinks, acts and says a lot of things that their father, David did. She talks about Sam's early years and problems he had later on.

• Sam Peckinpah trailer gallery

• James Dean trailer gallery

• Languages: English, French and Spanish (feature only)

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Writers: N. B. Stone, Jr.

Rating: Unrated

Classic Movie Guide Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

DVD Release Date: 1/10/2006

Run Time: 94 minutes

Studio: Warner Bros. Home Video

Format: Color