Budd Boetticher | Ride Lonesome / 1959

burning the past

by Douglas Messerli

 

Burt Kennedy (screenplay), Budd Boetticher (director) Ride Lonesome / 1959

 

Boetticher’s Ride Lonesome begins where most Westerns end, with its bounty-hunter hero Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott) catching up with the murderer Billy John (James Best). Billy, thinking he has outwitted Brigade, is waiting for him, threatening a showdown before revealing he has hidden his men behind nearby rocks, and warning Brigade that if he doesn’t turn around and leave, he’ll be killed. The wily Brigade, however, admits that he may die, but not before he “cuts” Billy John “in half.”

     The dim-witted criminal calls off his men, commanding them to tell his brother and his gang that he has been captured, and throughout the rest of the movie, we await the arrival of Frank and his men to save his younger brother.

 

     Meanwhile, Brigade moves forward with his prisoner to the nearby way station. But as in The Tall T, they realize that something is wrong as they discover two other outlaws, Sam Boone and his long-time partner Whit (James Coburn), have taken charge of the place. Inside waits Mrs. Carrie Lane, before she enters the scene, rifle in hand, in an attempt to run them all off; her husband, evidently, has gone to round up some missing horses, leaving her alone. She obviously is a hardy and seemingly unintimidated pioneer woman, ready to defend her domain—until a coach comes crashing into the station, its driver and all passengers killed, evidently, by the nearby Indians. Suddenly, it is apparent that her husband is in danger, and that, if Brigade wants to move forward to Santa Cruz with his prisoner, he must join forces with the outlaws.

     An overnight stay at the way station reveals the increasing attraction of the men to Mrs. Lane, in particular Boone, who has “seen…in her eyes” that she is “the kind that got a need.” To Boone’s description of Carrie as a beautiful thing to look at, Brigade replies, with the laconic wit of Burt Kennedy’s writing, “She ain’t ugly.”

     While the group awaits the Indians, it becomes apparent that Boone and Whit have gathered at the way station to await Brigade; Boone wants to take Billy John in for the reward, not of money, but of amnesty (a word which has taken him a long time to comprehend). For like Usher in The Tall T, Boone wants to settle down on a small ranch he’s purchased (“I got me a place. Ain’t much—not yet it is.”); amnesty will free him from his past crime and his role as a gunfighting outlaw; but, obviously, before they can take in Billy John it is clear that he must kill one more time.

      When the Indians finally arrive the next morning, it is not to fight but to trade a horse for Mrs. Lane. Brigade pretends to play along with them, hopeful that when he refuses the horse as an insufficient price, they will ride off. Warning Carrie not to show any fear in front of the Indians, they ride forward in pretense of the trade; when the chief presents the horse, however, Carrie suddenly breaks down: the horse, she recognizes, is her husband’s.

      Brigade and his small group ride off, hoping to outrun the Indians, to another burnt-out way station, a feat they achieve, killing the Indian chief as the other Indians escape. In the run, however, Carrie’s horse has fallen, and Ben spends the night watching the horse, hoping that he can convince it to stand again, while the others urge him to simply shoot it. When, come morning, it finally stands, Boone summarizes the situation: “Looks like we don’t need to shoot him either.”

      Their leisurely movements forward brilliantly reveal the potential dangers through composer Heinz Roemheld’s music, which begins as an almost familiar tune accompanying the movement of an ambling horse, but which gradually sickeningly spirals down into the minor scale before returning to its original cowboy-like melody. Repeated over and over throughout the movie, we sense the dread of all those concerned.

      When the group finally beds down near an old hanging tree, Boone realizes he must act. Trying to explain to Carrie his position:

 

                               boone: I got ‘a kill him.

                               carrie: Two dogs fighting over the same bone.

 

      Yet Boone and Whit have come to realize that Brigade’s trip to Santa Cruz has been an inordinately slow one, as he meanders toward his destination in the open, for all—Indians and Frank and his gang—to witness. In a conversation with Carrie, Brigade’s actions become apparent: it is not Billy John in whom he is interested, but his brother Frank, who years earlier—when Brigade was sheriff—abducted Brigade’s wife, hanging her on the tree beneath which they now stand.

     When Frank and his men finally do catch up, Brigade has strung Billy to the same tree and is ready to hang him if the elder brother does not come forward alone. Frank has little choice: if he shoots, Billy will be hung, and if doesn’t, he will be killed by Brigade. The outcome is inevitable.

      To his horrific crime of the past, Frank has nothing to say but, “I ‘most forgot.” History, as it is for Boone and Whit, is something to be forgotten. Only moral men such as Brigade can allow memory to guide their acts.

       Having achieved his goal, Brigade allows Boone to take in the prisoner and possibly redeem his life, and, as Boone and Carrie ride off to the civilized world, Brigade can be seen burning the hanging tree: the past is laid to rest at last. 

    

Los Angeles, October 14, 2008

Reprinted from Reading Films: My International Cinema (2012).