Absolutely brilliant

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

There seems to be an aura of reverence for the Boetticher/Scott Western collaborations by any number of fans, but each time I see one I come away with the impression that I just watched a fairly competent movie but nothing really special. Ditto here with "The Tall T", I liked it well enough but it doesn't break new ground for the genre. What impressed me were the little things, like the mules instead of horses pulling the stagecoach in the early going; that was different. And the description of Randolph Scott's horse, it was a claybank; I never heard that one before. The term was used a couple of times, once by the young kid Jeff when he saw Pat Brennan (Scott) riding toward the way station, and later on by Rintoon (Arthur Hunnicutt) asking Brennan where his claybank was. It sounded cool, but I couldn't figure out what made it a claybank, it looked like a fairly average looking horse to me.So Brennan finds himself in a desperate situation against an outlaw bunch headed by Frank Usher (Richard Boone). The other two desperadoes were kind of interesting, a cocky murderer by the name of Chink, admirably portrayed by Henry Silva, and a somewhat less than self confident gunman played by Skip Homeier. The dynamic here involves the seed of distrust Brennan plants with Chink when Usher takes off to secure a ransom demand from the wealthy father of a newlywed passenger (Maureen O'Sullivan) on the stage they just held up. Then Brennan conjures up a scenario for the kid intimating that the new widow Mims (Maureen O'Sullivan) might be open to a tryst with her husband put away by the bad guys.The way Brennan takes out these two is convincing enough, but when Usher returns, I didn't quite understand why Brennan just didn't ambush him from the get-go. He had the time to set up for it, but instead allowed the competition to be met on fairer terms. From an earlier conversation between the two men, it was pretty transparent where this one was going, so I guess a more climactic showdown was called for. Personally, I would have taken the safer route.One thing about Scott though, his character never loses his cool, even after learning about the station agent and his son in the well. You could tell he was seething but circumstances didn't warrant getting killed over it. You have to admire the man's supreme confidence and positive outlook on life, especially when it's all over and he confidently assures Doretta - "Come on now. It's gonna be a nice day".

The second of the seven Boetticher/Scott Westerns is another excellent and welcomed addition to the glut of mostly unremarkable Fifties Westerns. In fact, one could cull the herd to this...all of the Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher Films and a dash of John Ford for contrast. That would be about the best of the best. With a few exceptions, the rest are Time-Passers, Fillers and Posers.Anyway, this is considered by most the best of the Bott/Scott Movies, but that is completely subjective because they are all equal as well as eloquent. Characters that have depth and chiseled personalities firing up the Screen with Dialog that snaps, most of them Written by Burt Kennedy.Here is a tense, taut, terrifying treatise on the importance of Home, belonging, Companionship, and Honor and it is all done with a restrained Machismo from the "Hero" and brutality and betrayal from the "Villains". The above mentioned Movies are Dialog and Philosophically driven against powerful Landscapes that more often than not become encroaching entrapments that tighten as the tension unfolds.We see here two Face-Offs that must have had the Hays Code Consideration raising eyebrows. Add to that the Off-Screen killings that linger in the mind of the Viewer and certainly clearly separated, without ambiguity, the Moral Divide between the chosen paths of Participants.

Randolph Scott is arguably at his peak in The Tall T. Close to sixty when the film was released, he is one of only a handful of leading men in Hollywood that could still parlay his looks up to that (by Hollywood standards) advanced age. Scott was blessed with good scripts in the Fifties. His films with director Budd Boetticher (such as Seven Men From Now and Buchanan Rides Alone) were heads above most of the oaters of that time.You will notice Scott as Pat Brennan begins the film as a very happy-go-lucky fellow, not a role Scott often did; in fact I can think of no other movie where he is such a likable sort. He loses a spur-of-the-moment bet early on, yet he remains cheerful despite that loss. But after the capture of the stagecoach on which he is a passenger by a serious gang of cutthroats, things take a decided turn for the worse. His fellow passengers (and hostages) are a pair of newlyweds. Even the dynamic between these two becomes interesting.In spite of the serious disadvantage Pat has, he presses his captors at all times, looking for opportunities to correct the situation. How he manages to work through his (their) plight is for you to observe. There is a scene of terrific violence in the closing moments, and Scott's remonstration to bystander Doretta (the newlywed, played well by Maureen O'Sullivan) is sage advice.The Tall T was filmed, like many Westerns, in the beautiful Alabama Hills just east of Mount Whitney. There is no other location like it, and I can usually, sometimes instantly, recognize that area from just a few frames of a film.Any Randolph Scott Western is worth viewing, this more so than most.Rating: Three stars

Bud Boetticher rides again, with scribe Burt Kennedy ridin' shotgun. Toss in rugged Randolph Scott (whose face, it's been suggested, was carved from stone) and Richard Boone, Henry Silva, and Skip Homier as three dry-gulchers up to no dang good and you've got yourself another classic. As ever, Boetticher's economy of motion serves him (and his cast) in good stead. He doesn't even clutter the scenery with bodies: when the boy and his father are murdered, they're dumped into a well- "out of sight, out of mind," as Boone's loquacious character might see it. (His attempts to engage Scott in conversation just so he won't have to listen to the insipid banter of his two cohorts is hilarious. Henry Silva is particularly loathsome as the sleepy-eyed, cold-blooded killer who'd shoot a man just to see the expression on his face when he did it. Homier, as his tag-along buddy a couple of rounds short of a six-shooter, is just as bad.) Scott sums it up best when he points out that "there's some things a man can't just ride around." Bravo.