Rosanne Boyett
“A book is a dream that you hold in your hands,” Neil Gaiman
This small paperback by Robert Nott includes numerous photos from “Ride the High Country,” a black-an-white Western film released in 1962. The movie was distributed on the international market as Guns in the Afternoon.
The author offers extensive background information about the career of Sam Peckinpah, who directed Ride the High Country, plus in-depth portraits of the film’s stars, Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott. Movie goers were entranced with both actors because each seemed to epitomize the Code of the West. McCrae and Scott were regularly featured in Westerns that reinforced the popular belief that the cowboy was king of the Wild West.
“Ride the High Country” is a tale about morality, honor, and duty. The protagonists are a retired lawman, a performer from a traveling carnival and his sidekick along with a young woman who hopes to join her fiance at a gold mine. Seeking to escape her abusive family the naive woman ends up with a redneck miner who beats her.
This is an important Western because the subplot is focused on an unsophisticated woman’s life in the remote West where females were considered chattel during the rough and tumble gold mining era.
The film was widely acclaimed as one of the top ten movies of 1962. It was released the same year as Lawrence of Arabia, The Longest Day, Cape Fear, To Kill a Mockingbird, Advise & Consent, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Music Man, Gypsy, Lonely Are The Brave, The Manchurian Candidate, and Long Day’s Journey into Night.
“You might argue that 1962 was just about the best year in American film since 1939,” concluded the author.
He explained that the cultural norms of the early 1960s were an extension of the 1950s, which emphasized youthful innocence. Nott commented that Elvis Presley’s gyrations during his musical performances were one of the exceptions to the social standards of that era.
The genre of Westerns originated in the 1930s during the silent film era and later included two sub-genres.
Spaghetti Westerns, which emerged in the 1960s, were films produced in Europe. These movies featured wellknown American actors. More than six hundred European Westerns were made from 1960-78. Oaters, another sub-genre, focused on cowboys, frontier life, and the rugged landscape of the West.
“Leo the Lion was still roaring, but MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) was dying like an aging lion when it produced and released Ride the High Country in 1962. The heyday of the [Hollywood] studio system was coming to an end,” wrote Nott.
Westerns no longer generated dependable revenue for filmmakers by the latter part of the 20th century. Films about the California gold rush, 1848–1855, minimized the brutal violence that was inherent in the thirst for wealth. Native Americans and Mexicans were often depicted as the villains in these films.
The racist narrative along with the romantic depictions of the West during the Anglo/European territorial expansion were no longer popular. Hollywood filmmakers changed the genre in the 2000s to reflect more contemporary and complex themes. The United States Library of Congress recognized Ride the High Country in 1992 as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The Library of Congress selected this film for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Ride the High Country is considered one of the 50 all-time classic Westerns, according to cinema critics.
Westerns continue to evolve as each new generation of filmmakers has adapted the genre to reflect contemporary cultural values.
Robert Nott was a reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper for more than 25 years. He covered the arts, public education, historical pieces, veterans’ affairs and state government – including NMHealth during the COVID pandemic.
He has written three books, The Films of Randolph Scott; Last of the Cowboy Heroes: The Westerns of Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy; and The Films of Budd Boetticher.
Nott and Max Evans co-authored Goin’ Crazy with Sam Peckinpah and All Our Friends.
Robert Nott has served as NMHealth Communications Director since June 2024, according to Patrick Allen, Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Health.