Ride Lonesome

Despite his long Hollywood career in every genre, Randolph Scott is best remembered as the lanky, laconic, taciturn loner of his many Westerns. The best of these were his seven collaborations late in his career with director Budd Boetticher (and usually screenwriter Burt Kennedy) known as the Ranown cycle (Scott’s production company), critically acclaimed by scholars of the Western.

In Ride Lonesome, bounty hunter Brigade (Scott) is bringing killer Billy John in, but his real quarry his Billy’s brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef), who murdered Brigade’s wife years ago on a hanging tree; Billy is his bait. Along the way he picks up two gregarious outlaws and a widow. Boetticher brilliantly uses the Cinemascope widescreen not only for the “wide open” west (the Sierras) but to emphasize the isolation of his characters against a vast, inimical landscape.

Part of our Cinemascope series.