The Randolph Scott of webmasters, BetterCallChris, has sent that internet varmint packing *and* restored the site’s Search Box while doing so.
Please recommence searching, e-pards.
Thanks, Chris!
An additional service announcement: when performing a search, the search engine returns its results in OLDEST to NEWEST order.
When searching for a more common name or phrase, one could receive results that start with posts from 2010 (!) and end with posts from 2025.
15 Responses
Thanks Bud and RR, and special thanks to Better Call Chris ! ! ! !
Sorry, I have no funny, witty, or profound comments regarding the Randolph Scott comparison, as I don’t have any real connection with Randolph Scott.
I’ll have to rewatch “Ride the High Country” (1962, 4 stars) and “Ride Lonesome” (1959, 2 stars). I watched both of them in 2017-2018, and I don’t remember much about either one of them.
I remember “Ride the High Country” was good (I gave it 4 stars). It’s on Jeff’s Top 17, and Bud identifies it as his #1 favorite.
I didn’t like “Ride Lonesome” (2 stars). Lee Van Cleef was in it, among a lot of good actors, and I texted friends and said, “Not even Lee Van Cleef can save this movie.”
That’s interesting. Jeff was a fan of Ride Lonesome, and many readers here really like it (myself included). Definitely worth another go, Overdrive. You might want to consider first watching Seven Men From Now, the first collaboration between Scott and director Budd Boetticher (and also a good movie) then if you like it work forward from there through their other collaborations including Ride Lonesome.
Wow. ‘Ride Lonesome’ is one of my favorite Westerns ever. I love the interplay of the characters especially Pernell Roberts and James Coburn. Like most of the Boetticher-Scott films it is a masterpiece of its kind.
I did not catch the relation with Randy but that’s great news!
Nowadays Randolph Scott has not the status he deserves especially among the younger aficionados.
He probably never reached the heights of Cooper, Wayne, Stewart, Fonda, Peck, Ford, Mitchum, Holden, Douglas or Lancaster, Widmark who all did not do only or mostly westerns and maybe that’s one of the reasons why (but he did not care). As a matter of fact Scott made other films (even comedies and musicals and of course war and action) but not as well known or famous as his westerns, where year after year and becoming older, he will keep on polishing his image of quintessential steely, hieratic, heroic, seasoned, righter of wrongs cowboy. That is why he is remaining as one of the greatest in the Pantheon of Western.
And he was very popular during his pretty long career and a huge star during the early 1950s.
I rank him very high, beside of a Joel McCrea (not a coincidence to see them both in Ride the High Country).
He is more than excellent in his Boetticher’s films, all of them could be included in any list of the best westerns ever in my opinion (always hard to distinguish one from an other as they are all built almost according to the same pattern but it is part of the fun rewatching them), and Peckinpah’s first masterpiece, Ride the High Country indeed. Gordon Douglas’ The Nevadan is a very good one too. Frontier Marshal The Spoilers (maybe his only truly badman role) and Coroner Creek are some other older very good westerns to watch. To the Last Man is quite interesting too.
I am not looking to convince you but to consider some other screenings in which you may find some qualities.
Jean-Marie, since I compared the ‘critical error’ which impacted the site to Lee Van Cleef, I compared the webmaster who fixed it to Randolph Scott… the two actors are linked in my mind due to ‘Ride Lonesome’.
Indeed !
Great news! Thanks for all the upkeep of the site!
I’ll definitely give “Ride Lonesome” (1959, 2 stars) another chance. Sometimes it happens that way–you watch a movie you have high hopes for, and for whatever reasons, whatever factors, you don’t connect with it.
I gave my #1 movie of all time, all genres–Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” (2019)–2 stars when I first saw it. HOWEVER…I couldn’t forget the movie for the next 4 days–especially the last 30 minutes. And playing in my head for 4 days was The Five Satins’ “In the Still of the Night” (1956, opens and closes “The Irishman”). SO….
4 nights after the first viewing, it was the end of 2019, and I rewatched “The Irishman,” and I FELL IN LOVE ! ! ! ! !
Yes, I’ll certainly gave “Ride Lonesome” (1959) another watch.
Bud, I’ll also watch “Seven Men From Now” (early-mid 1950s?), which makes the Favorite Westerns Lists of Bud, Paul, and Chris Evans.
Like I said, I remember “Ride the High Country” (1962, 4 stars) was good. I’ll absolutely rewatch that one.
“Ride the High Country” makes Jeff’s Top 17–and it’s also on the Favorite Westerns Lists of Bud, Chris Evans, Nicholas Anez, and Kevin.
Bud goes so far as to call it his #1 Western.
“Ride Lonesome” (1959) makes the Favorite Westerns Lists of Paul, Chris Evans, and Kevin.
I’ll certainly give it another watch.
It was RR, not Bud, who said I should watch “Seven Men From Now” (1956), in the comments above.
Like I said, it makes Bud’s Favorite Westerns List, (and the lists of Paul and Chris Evans), and I will watch it.
MAN, you guys have seen so many movies I haven’t seen ! ! ! (I didn’t get started on movies until 2015, in my 40’s). Hey, it’s a fun problem to have ! ! !
🙂
One of the most seducing asset of the 7 (Jeff has surely noted the coincidence…) Ranown pictures (after producer Harry Joe Brown and Scott’s production company) directed by Budd Boetticher is their formidable gallery of quite often charismatic villains.
1956 Seven Men from Now – Lee Marvin, John Larch, Barry etc.
1957 The Tall T – Richard Boone, Skip Homeier, Henry Silva.
1957 Decision at Sundown – John Carroll
1958 Buchanan Rides Alone – Craig Stevens, Barry Kelley, Peter Whitney
1959 Westbound – Andrew Duggan, Michael Pate
1959 Ride Lonesome – Pernell Roberts , Lee Van Cleef, James Best, James Coburn
1960 Comanche Station – Claude Akins, Skip Homeier .
Difficult to decide who is the best between Boone and Marvin, then Pernell Roberts and Akins…
Yeah, the Budd baddie is definitely the standard by which all oater antagonists are judged. Occurred to me just the other night while watching ROUGH NIGHT IN JERICHO that Dean Martin was essentially trying his hand at playing an affable but still amoral Boetticher villain (unfortunately JERICHO’s director Arnold Leven is no Budd).
Mike
You should be interested by Jeff’s
Best of the badmen essay
https://jeffarnoldswest.com/2023/02/the-bad-guys-2/