Five Tall Tales: Budd Boetticher & Randolph Scott At Columbia, 1957-1960
Details by Film
The Tall T
Streaming Options
Decision at Sundown
Streaming Options
Buchanan Rides Alone
Ride Lonesome
Streaming Options
Comanche Station
Streaming Options
The Tall T
Between 1956 and 1960, director Budd Boetticher, and star Randolph Scott made a series of remarkable, slyly subversive, studio-produced westerns that brought a new spark to the genre and became known as the ‘Ranown Cycle’.
In The Tall T, co-starring Richard Boone, Maureen O’Sullivan and Henry Silva, Scott is a rancher kidnapped along with an heiress, and held for ransom by three murderous outlaws.
A ruthlessly efficient western thriller, The Tall T established the success of the Scott/Boetticher team.
Decision at Sundown
The third collaboration between star Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher is a tense and morally ambiguous psychological western about a man consumed by hate and craving revenge.
Scott’s Bart Allison, vows to kill town boss Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) on the day of Tate’s wedding. As events escalate Allison finds himself trapped in a violent stand-off with time running out and blood on his hands.
Buchanan Rides Alone
Budd Boetticher’s collaborations with star Randolph Scott are ostensibly small-scale B-movies, but are now revered as some of the finest adult westerns produced in that period.
Tom Buchanan (Scott) is a man returning to his Texas home, who rides into a feud between several members of the criminal Agry family. When he helps a young Mexican take revenge on one of them, Buchanan soon finds himself up against the whole Agry clan.
The most witty and comedic film in the ‘Ranown’ series, this absurdist twist on the western is one of Boetticher’s most thoroughly enjoyable films.
Ride Lonesome
Vengeful bounty hunter Ben Brigade (Scott) captures the notorious, psychotic outlaw Billy (James Best), to trap the gunman’s equally deranged brother Frank (Lee Van Cleef), the man who murdered Brigade’s wife. He enlists the help of two other vigilantes (Pernell Roberts and a young James Coburn in an early screen role), but who have plans of their own for Billy...
Dense, complex and wonderfully ambiguous, this suspenseful western drama is perhaps the most revered of the Boetticher/Scott collaborations, and has been cited as a major inspiration by filmmakers including Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese, and by critics as one of the finest American westerns of the 1950s.
Comanche Station
The final film in the revered, influential series of collaborations between director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott, 1960’s Comanche Station is their most poetic, accomplished and pessimistic work.
Here, Scott saves a woman kidnapped by Comanches, and whom he believes is his long-missing wife. When a band of other mercenaries turn up on their trail, he must fight to get both of them home alive.
This brooding and almost mythical western is the culmination of a prolific collaboration that would influence filmmakers from the French New Wave to Quentin Tarantino.
Release Information:
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Audio commentary with film historian Jeanine Basinger
- Audio commentary with writer and film historian Jeremy Arnold
- Audio commentary with filmmaker Taylor Hackford
- Budd Boetticher on the Ranown Cycle (1999, 38 mins): excerpts from Eckhart Schmidt’s unreleased documentary Visiting... Budd Boetticher
- The John Player Lecture with Budd Boetticher (1969, 74 mins): archival audio interview conducted by Horizons West author Jim Kitses at the National Film Theatre, London
- Limited Edition exclusive 80-page book containing newly commissioned essays by Pamela Hutchinson, Glenn Kenny, James Oliver, Neil Sinyard and Farran Smith Nehme, archival interviews with director Budd Boetticher and screenwriter Burt Kennedy, a critical anthology, and full film credits
- Clint Eastwood on ‘Comanche Station’ (2009, 7 mins): the iconic actor and filmmaker discusses the influence of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott
- The Guardian Interview with Elmore Leonard (1997, 78 mins): archival audio recording of the celebrated author of the short story upon which The Tall T is based in conversation with Adrian Wootton at London’s National Film Theatre
- A Man Alone: Edward Buscombe on Randolph Scott (2018, 17 mins): the acclaimed author and editor of The BFI Companion to the Western discusses his admiration for the iconic star
- Kim Newman on the Ranown Cycle (2018, 29 mins): an appreciation and analysis by the critic and author of Wild West Movies
- The Guardian Interview with Budd Boetticher (1994, 95 mins): an extensive filmed interview conducted by film historian David Meeker at the National Film Theatre, London
- Martin Scorsese on ‘The Tall T’ (2008, 7 mins): the renowned filmmaker discusses Boetticher’s enduring influence and legacy
- Taylor Hackford on ‘Decision at Sundown’ (2009, 6 mins): the distinguished filmmaker examines Boetticher’s film
- Martin Scorsese on ‘Ride Lonesome’ (2009, 6 mins): the renowned filmmaker discusses the influence of Boetticher’s films
- Christopher Frayling on Budd Boetticher (2018, 20 mins): the renowned writer and cultural historian discusses the work of Budd Boetticher
- Super 8 version: original cut-down home cinema presentation
- Taylor Hackford on ‘Buchanan Rides Alone’ (2009, 10 mins): the distinguished filmmaker examines Boetticher’s film
- Isolated music and effects track
- Isolated music and effects track
- Playing in the Open (2018, 14 mins): an audiovisual essay by Cristina Alvarez Lopez
- Isolated music and effects track
- Original theatrical trailer
- Original theatrical trailer
- Original theatrical trailer
- Isolated music and effects track
- Isolated music and effects track
- Original theatrical trailer
- Original theatrical trailer
- Image gallery: promotional stills and publicity material
- Sam Hamm trailer commentary (2013, 3 mins): a short critical appreciation
- Image gallery: promotional stills and publicity material
- John Sayles trailer commentary (2013, 3 mins): a short critical appreciation
- Image gallery: promotional stills, on-set photography and publicity material
- Image gallery: promotional stills and publicity material