Bud Boetticher rides again, with scribe Burt Kennedy ridin' shotgun. Toss in rugged Randolph Scott (whose face, it's been suggested, was carved from stone) and Richard Boone, Henry Silva, and Skip Homier as three dry-gulchers up to no dang good and you've got yourself another classic. As ever, Boetticher's economy of motion serves him (and his cast) in good stead. He doesn't even clutter the scenery with bodies: when the boy and his father are murdered, they're dumped into a well- "out of sight, out of mind," as Boone's loquacious character might see it. (His attempts to engage Scott in conversation just so he won't have to listen to the insipid banter of his two cohorts is hilarious. Henry Silva is particularly loathsome as the sleepy-eyed, cold-blooded killer who'd shoot a man just to see the expression on his face when he did it. Homier, as his tag-along buddy a couple of rounds short of a six-shooter, is just as bad.) Scott sums it up best when he points out that "there's some things a man can't just ride around." Bravo.
Review of The Tall T
