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PLOT: Will Penny (Charlton Heston) is an aging cowpoke who runs afoul of a sadistic family of frontier drifters, the Quints (Donald Pleasance, Bruce Dern and Gene Rutherford when he kills one of their clan (Matt Clark) to protect his friends Blue (Lee Majors) and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe) after the end of a long cattle driver. While trying to get the injured Dutchy to a doctor, he encounters a husbandless woman, Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett) and her son Horace (Jon Gries, son of director Tom Gries), with the woman not thinking very highly of him for leaving Dutchy in the wagon during winter. While Blue sees to Dutchy, Penny moves on ahead and gets a job as line rider for a flat iron ranch; he goes out to get the lay of the land and finds Catherine and her son using the shack that's supposed to be his after being abandoned by their guide. Since no one but employees are allowed on the property he gives her one week to move on. Shortly after that, Penny is ambushed by the vengeful Quints; left for dead, Penny manages to get back to the cabin, where he is nursed back to health by Catherine and Horace. Without his horse he doesn't have much choice but to wait till the winter passes before he can get back to the flat iron ranch and move on. During that time Penny and Catherine bond as he begins to see into a world he never knew existed; alas, it is not to be, for Penny feels he is too old for her and too old to start over and moves on yet again - but not before circumstances force him to face the Quints again and defeat them once and for all.
Charlton Heston, an actor often unfairly, even viciously criticized for either his acting, his politics or both, cited "Will Penny" as one of his personal favorites from the pantheon of films he made, and it's easy to see why. It is a thoughtful, insightful film offering an unromantic yet not cynical view of the Old West. It is, simply put, a "just the facts ma'am" look at the Old West. The Old West may have been pretty to look at, but it sure wasn't easy to live in.
It also gives Heston, usually cast as a larger than life hero in some grand epic film or something of the science fictional nature, the rare chance to play an ordinary man, a man simply trying to get by, doing the best he can with the only job he knows how to do; people who only know him as the guy who yells "Damn You All To Hell!" at the end of 'Planet of the Apes' should watch this film and see the tragic yet hopeful nobility he brings to Penny; it truly was one of his best roles but somehow it never got the recognition it deserved, which is a shame. Joan Hackett is equally good as Catherine, the lonely, soft spoken single mother who longs for a better life for herself and her son.
However, as good as the film is, it does have one nagging flaw: the Quints. With Bruce Dern, Gene Rutherford and Donald Pleasance in particular as the hypocritical patriarch Preacher Quint, all over acting rather badly in their roles, the Quints come off as cartoon characters rather than realistic antagonists. While it is definitely satisfying to see this clan of sadistic frontier trash killed in the climax of the film, the cartoonish quality of the three performances makes them feel out of place with the film's more realistic and somber tone.
Still, a fine film at the end of the day. Do not miss this forgotten classic!
score 10/10
DarthBill 20 August 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2478412/ |
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13-3-2021 12:05:05