STACK Mar #137

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26 MARCH 2016
EXTRAS
man when he dies? The clothes of pride. And
they’re not one bit warmer to him than when
he was alive”.
The story continues with complex twists
and turns until a redeemed Westrum returns
to join his old friend, and together they face
the murdering Hammond brothers in a final
showdown – face to face – just like the old
days. As the gunsmoke clears, the Hammonds
are all dead and Judd has been fatally gut shot.
There follows a memorable scene of
Westrum gently saying to his dying partner,
“Don’t worry about anything Steve, I’ll deliver
the gold, just like you would have”. Judd’s
reply perfectly epitomises the strength of
his belief in his friend: “Hell, I know that. I
always did. You just forgot it for a while, that’s
all”. Friendship and trust remain the highest
values of these two men, and whatever their
circumstances, those values must never be
betrayed. This lies at the very core of this
splendid, elegiac western.
Ride the High Country was one of the best
films released by any of the Hollywood studios
during 1962, albeit MGM failed to see that
at the time. It was written and directed by
36-year-old Sam Peckinpah, who had cut his
cinematic teeth writing dialogue for movie
scripts and directing numerous episodes of TV
westerns.
When 64-year-old Randolph Scott viewed
the final cut of RtHC, he decided that this
would be the perfect swan song for him,
stating: “I want to retire from the screen on a
high and I’ll never better my performance as
Gil Westrum.”
Peckinpah sensed he had delivered an
exceptionally good movie and waited in eager
anticipation for the response from MGM
executives. But when it was shown to MGM
president Joseph Vogel, he fell asleep within
the first ten minutes, his snoring practically
drowning out the soundtrack. He snorted
himself awake half way through, decided then
and there that the film wouldn’t make a single
buck, and promptly exited the screening room.
Peckinpah was furious, spitting out “It would
have helped if the fat son of a bitch had stayed
awake!”
Subsequently, MGM spent very little on
advertising, virtually throwing away Sam’s
picture by attaching it to the bottom half of a
summer double feature aimed primarily at the
drive-in market.
This particular incident was the root cause
of Peckinpah’s escalating antagonism toward
the money men associated with the motion
picture industry – a hatred he would carry
throughout his entire movie career.
The following year, film producer Jerry
Bresler had managed to interest his old friend
and actor, Charlton Heston, in a major project
he had arranged with Columbia Pictures.
Chuck Heston was then the top leading man
in Hollywood after starring in a plethora of
money-making epic films.
Bresler had a 40-page treatment of a story
about a Union cavalry officer, Major Amos
Dundee, who, at the closing stages of the Civil
War, is posted to a remote outpost in New
Mexico to guard a prison full of Confederate
soldiers.
When the Apache slaughter a company
of Dundee’s men and farm settlers, he puts
together a makeshift army of regulars and
Confederate prisoners and leads a punitive
expedition into Mexico to destroy the
renegade Apache band.
Heston was keen to take the starring role
of Amos Dundee and asked the producer
who he had in mind to direct this “Dundee”
project. Instead of directly answering Heston’s
question, Bresler ran Peckinpah’s film, Ride the
High Country, for him. When the film ended,
Heston turned to Bresler and said, “Whoever
directed that movie, you damn well hire him
for Dundee”.
Their decision that night would result in a
classic movie being completely ruined by the
Columbia studio executive, and its director
blacklisted for three years.
To be continued...
Ride the High Country was one of the
best films released by any of the Hollywood
studios during 1962, albeit MGM failed to see
that at the time.
Sam Peckinpah