Synopsis
Taut! Torrid! Tremendous! T Is for Terror!
An independent former ranch foreman and an heiress are kidnapped by a trio of ruthless outlaws.
1957 Directed by Budd Boetticher
An independent former ranch foreman and an heiress are kidnapped by a trio of ruthless outlaws.
I 3 banditi, L'Homme De l'Arizona, Los cautivos, Um Kopf und Kragen, Foglyok, Presa valuosa, Напрежение, Resgate de Bandoleiro, 西部警长, Szlachetny T, O Resgate Do Bandoleiro, Muž z Arizony, 톨 T, Ο Τέξανος, 反撃の銃弾, Большой страх
“- You know what is going to happen to you?
- I think so.
- Are you scared?
- Yeah.”
A honest movie about some plain men.
One of the most unadorned great movies. Some people walk around time waiting for the inevitable (death) to happen. Every scene between Scott and Boone is as close to perfect as anything the ever come out of a Hollywood studio.
Howdy yall, you may have heard of The Wide A or The Big D or maybe even The Awkward Q, but now it's The Tall T. As a friend has more eloquently stated, we have returned to the genre that has brought us together (us cohosts that is) and to which we named the pod after. If anything, come listen to Ben's visceral passion on the Ranown Cycle as well as his admiration for Randolph Scott, who is assuredly slept on as a western favorite. We are grateful to any of you fine people who have taken time out of your life to listen to us and ponder movies with us. We hope it continues for a while longer! Without further ado, come celebrate the 50th episode of The Searchers Film Podcast with us! Our next episode is gonna be an Ozu!!!
71/100
The first Boetticher I saw, 20 years ago (on a double bill with Buchanan Rides Alone). That experience was a revelation, so I was flummoxed this time by how ordinary the film initially seems—very much a B Western, generically plotted and visually undistinguished. What I'd forgotten is that these films are defined by their complex villains (just as Mann's Westerns are defined by their complex heroes; for obvious reasons, the latter approach tends to come into focus more quickly). Richard Boone isn't in the same scarily charismatic league as Lee Marvin (who singlehandedly lifts Seven Men From Now onto another level), but Usher's respect for Brennan's rectitude, mirrored by the contempt he expresses toward his fellow outlaws, soon undermines…
“The Tall T” is a legend about a man who would prefer to stand small in the chapters of Western history.
The second entry of the Ranown cycle by Bud Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott, “Tall T” is a probe of affability in a land where a smile could get you shot.
Pat Brennan — the roaming, sometimes do’well - can’t be called a take-down of the drifting white hat, or of the shadowy outlaw. He’s just a man. A man alone, but one that seems to survive and even thrive in his own total neutrality.
This dedicated middle of the road-ness makes “Tall T” into just about that in terms of the Western canon. It’s a trot. Not…
"A man should have something of his own". Only there's nothing to be had, just some frontier people dancing around death and the yearn for this unreachable something. The quietest most unadorned of the great westerns, Scott's blank face play off ideally everyone but particular Richard Boone who is remarkable good throughout.
Is there a surer sign you're about to have a good time than opening credits that state 'Based on a Story by Elmore Leonard'? Somewhat surprised to say find that I prefer "Seven Men from Now" to this one—I think the revenge-driven story gives that one the singleminded focus of a bullet—but "The Tall T" is another assured piece of Western storytelling, darker and more violent and Leone-esque than one would anticipate from Fifties Hollywood. (You could drop Henry Silva's nihilistic outlaw Chink into just about any Spaghetti Western and he'd fit like a glove).
Randolph Scott is allowed to be a little bit warmer here, which suits him—he's probably not a great actor but he's a terrific Movie Star, like if back when you were a kid someone had trained a camera on your dad's most honorable and competent friend.
the prototype for leone and peckinpah, already here you see a ruthless pragmatism and fully-formed fetishization of violence for its own sake. there's an understanding here that all of these characters, good or bad, are equally capable of dying, no one is afforded a special status by the narrative, no one is exempt from trauma. a borderline misanthropic film, the western circling the drain of nihilism that it would later fully plunge into. there's some things you just can't ride away from.
A gang of outlaws hijacks a stagecoach but instead of gold they find only a newlywed couple and a local rancher who lost his horse. Undeterred, the gang leader decides to kidnap the passengers and ask for ransom, especially when he learns that the bride is the daughter of a wealthy mine owner.
Out of all the Randolph Scott westerns, and there are a lot of them, "The Tall T" is arguably his best and one of the most atypical. Despite the wild west background, it has a claustrophobic feeling. And while it doesn't shy away from violence and the regular gunplay, it involves mainly a battle of wits between our hero, Brennan, and the chief villain, Usher. The former…
“Would I save my own skin and leave my wife here?”
“I think you would”
remarkably honest — every man in this is selfish, violent and has a wonton disregard for the land they inhabit and the animals they ride; shocking how misanthropic this is for the 50s
So close in structure to 7 Men From Now it’s practically a remake, with Randolph Scott as another stoic loner cowboy who stumbles across a recently married couple — in both cases, the man is a motormouthed coward unworthy of his simple, forthright wife — and then gets caught up in a violent struggle with a gang of outlaws. There are some parts that are better about The Tall T, particularly Richard Boone’s no-nonsense performance as a man who has fallen on the wrong side of the law purely out of necessity, and who likes Scott’s character more than either of the cowpokes in his gang of stagecoach hijackers. Overall, though, I’d give the edge to 7 Men which is as lean and tough as a piece of frontier jerky.
The personalities of both the white hat (Pat Brennan, played by Randolph Scott) and the black hat (Frank Usher, played by Richard Boone) seem to indicate a clear repudiation of the over the top racist (character named Chink [?!]) and sexist (“Cooking’s woman’s work!!”) elements of this film. These issues exist in practically all westerns, but The Tall T seems to consciously choose the explicit over the implicit. Usher discusses how his young posse have been trash since they were mistreated as young children, and Brennan rightly calls him out for his hypocrisy.
Brennan’s hard-born but genuine optimism characterizes him as the rare cowboy: neither the raging villain nor the tormented, violence-for-the-right-side hero. But then he grabs a woman and gives her one of the most intense “man swoops woman’s head down to position for first kiss/head mash,” after saying something about sometimes you have to take it!
So yeah. It’s a decent western, but nothing ground-breaking. Cowboys gonna cowboy.