Powerful

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

"Ride Beyond Vengeance" is an interesting western in part because it was made when the Production Code was almost over. Although there are a few places where you can see that the Production Code is holding things back completely, the movie all the same is surprisingly mean and violent at times. The scenes where Chuck Connors' character executes his plans for vengeance will most likely raise the eyebrows of viewers even in this day and age. However, I will admit that Connors' plan is mighty slow to unfold at times - it might have helped if Connors' character had more people on his "to kill" list to keep the movie constantly suspenseful. Still, I will admit that as slow as the movie is at times, the story never gets to the point of being boring. And the movie does end at a point that is not totally predictable, so you'll be wondering throughout how things will be wrapped up. Though I don't think this movie was trying to ape spaghetti westerns that were coming out of Europe at the time, those who like spaghetti westerns will find extra interest, because in many ways this Hollywood western plays like one.

Ride Beyond Vengeance casts Chuck Connors as a returning buffalo hunter returning to his wife after an eleven year absence. Sounds a whole lot like the plot premise for the Iliad and Connors does go through some trials just like Ulysses did.Eleven years earlier Connors married Kathryn Hays who faked a pregnancy to get her aunt Ruth Warrick to consent to the wedding. Hays is a few steps up the social scale from Connors. Anyway he hauls out and says he'll make a fortune and return.But like Ulysses he stays away and on his return is set upon and actually branded with a running iron. The three who do it are a pair of bottom feeding sadists Bill Bixby and Claude Akins and also Michael Rennie who's a rich man courting Hays because he and everyone else think her husband is dead.Connors ain't dead and when he wakes up he's going to take care of business the way Ulysses took care of all of Penelope's prospective suitors.This no frills B western has a fine supporting cast to Connors and Hays. In very telling bits are Joan Blondell as a bordello madam and Gloria Grahame as an unfaithful wife having an affair with younger Bill Bixby. It's a flashback to the Forties and Fifties when Grahame was the big screen's number one trollop.As for Bixby and Akins the two of them are incredible studies in villainy. Akins who in his big screen career played some of the biggest low life villains ever really hits rock bottom here. He overacts outrageously, but all to good effect.Bixby is the first one who Connors catches up with and his devolution as a human being may contain his finest big screen performance. Later on Frank Gorshin in a small bit himself gives a description of Bixby's final moments that will unnerve you for days.Ride Beyond Vengeance is one brutal and savage western which no way would have made it in the days of those cowboy heroes for Republic. This is one western recommended highly for adults and forbidden for little kids.

"Ride Beyond Vengeance" is a gritty, violent, but far from unsavory frontier western revenge saga starring Chuck Connors that could almost be mistaken for a Spaghetti western, except for its polished production values, its humane characters, and its offbeat ending. Hollywood wasn't making westerns like this until a few years later after the Spaghettis had taken violence to more intense, savage levels. In fact, in 1968, Chuck Connors followed a stream of American leading men who migrated to Europe to cash in on the Spaghetti western craze and played in a forgotten but rip-snorting little shoot'em up called "Kill Them All and Come Back Alive." Derived from Al Dewlen's novel "Night of the Tiger," "Ride Beyond Vengeance" begins in the contemporary Texas town of Cold Iron when an exhausted census taker (James MacArthur of CBS-TV's "Hawaii 5-0") visits a cafe and points out to the man behind the counter (Arthur O'Connell of "The Poseidon Adventure") that three names are popular with the town's folk. The narrator explains the relevance of those names and links them to a legend about a vengeful man who went on a rampage in Cold Iron when it was a frontier berg. Veteran TV director Bernard McEveety, who helmed episodes on virtually every major TV western series, including "Gunsmoke," "Branded," "Laredo," "Bonanza," and "Rawhide," takes us back to the past as O'Connell begins his narration about the turbulent events that rocked Cold Iron to its roots.The first set of flashbacks open with rugged Chuck Connors sporting a shaggy beard and riding a horse through the wilderness. We learn that he had left his hometown eleven years and also had deserted his pretty wife. During that decade he lived as a buffalo hunter and earned $17-thousand dollars shooting and killing the beasts for their hides. On his way back to Cold Iron, Jonas (Chuck Connors of "The Big Country") spots a campfire. Although he finds nobody at the camp, he helps himself to the coffee and then notices a roped calf nearby. At that point, things take a turn for the worst. Three men emerge from the brush and get the drop on him. Crazy, pistol-toting Elwood Coates (Claude Atkins of "Return of the Seven"), handsome, well-dressed Johnsy Boy Hood (Bill Bixby of CBS-TV's "My Favorite Martian"), and local banker Brooks Durham (Michael Rennie of "The Day The Earth Stood Still") accuse Jonas of rustling cattle. Naturally, our innocent protagonist denies their allegation. Coates wants to string up Jonas. Brooks persuades them not to hang Jonas, but Johnsy Boy devises something rather sadistic instead of hanging. He wields a branding iron and sears a T-shape mark into Jonas' chest and our hero passes out. McEveety shows us the branding iron from Jonas's point of view so that the glowing end is hovering in our faces.We learn from another flashback in writer/producer Andrew J. Fenady's screenplay that Jonas came from the wrong side of the tracks and married a town girl, Jessie (TV actress Kathryn Hays), despite the protests of her wealthy mother. Jessie lied to her Aunt Gussie (Ruth Warrick of "Citizen Kane") and told her that she was pregnant in order to wed Jonas. Eventually, Jonas gets fed up with living with his aunt. He hates the fact that he cannot find a decent job and must do the work of a boy for the pay of a boy. Jonas tries to convince Jessie to leave her aunt and start life anew, but she refuses to abandon her ailing aunt. Jonas rides off and Jessie discovers that her wealthy mother was up to her ears in debt and Jessie has to rely on Durham to help her survive.Eventually, Jonas recovers from the branding and discovers that his $17-thousand dollars is missing. He rides into Cold Iron and finds Johnsy Boy, follows him into the brush, and threatens to brand him as Johnsy had branded him. At the last minute, as Jonas is about to relent, Johnsy Boy seizes the branding iron, brands himself and disappears howling mad insane into the wilderness. Later, Elwood learns about the missing money and he tries to kill Brooks. Elwood gets into a knuckle-busting fight with Jonas and they destroy the local saloon before Jonas shoots him. Brooks confesses to the townspeople that he stole Jonas' money. When everything is said and done, Jonas lets Brooks live and leaves the town and his wife again.Director Bernard McEveety must have relished this opportunity to make a grim, unrelenting western as opposed to the family friendly western fare that he had done for prime-time television. Everybody uses some profanity, primarily "Hell" and "bastard," and Fenady's flavorful dialogue is rift with interesting slang. "Ride Beyond Vengeance" isn't exactly memorable, but it is gripping throughout its 101 minutes and boils over with melodrama. Bill Bixby and Claude Atkins shine as venomous villains. Atkins' ruffian character carries on a conversation with an imaginary character called 'Whiskey Man.' McEveety stages a standard knock down, drag-out brawl in a saloon between Atkins and Connors that was a little rougher than usual. The supporting cast is almost too good for this minor western. In the process seasoned Hollywood celebrities like Joan Blondell and Gloria Grahame are squandered in peripheral roles as is Frank Gorshin who has one big scene where he describes the grisly death of Bill Bixby's character, particularly how Johnsy Boy's guts resembled blue snakes. The atmospheric title song by Glenn Yarbrough has some catchy lyrics. Writer/producer Fenady went on to produce the John Wayne epic "Chism," but "Ride Beyond Vengeance" surpasses "Chism" in terms of its violence and its villains. Most but not all of the action takes place in a Hollywood western set that looks too polished for it to be a Spaghetti western. Nevertheless, Connors makes a convincing, sympathetic hero who loves cats. Not bad for its kind.

A seldom played film, this western has superb characterizations, good casting, a good story, but sometimes poor camera work and editing. Films have come a long way since the 1960s, excluding computer graphics, but different angles and lingering shots on some scenes would have brought this film to the top, both by 1960s and today's standards. It would also have increased the 100min run time. Possible cost factors for this camera work are a slightly shorter-than-needed budget and/or a short shooting schedule. Obviously some scenes show that the camera capability existed. The cast is made up of several big names with some of them having an impressive history in the profession by the time of this film's release. The camera and editing quality notwithstanding, their expertise in the art shine through.*** POSSIBLE SPOILERS *** The film contains some memorable scenes and portrayals: the angry focus of Jonas (Chuck Connors) while fighting with personal naive goodness, the latent evil within Johnsy Boy (Bill Bixby), Chuck Connors accosting Bill Bixby in the woods, the story telling in the bar by Tod (Frank Gorshin - who also played Riddler in the Batman series the same year), the clinging despair of Bonnie Shelley (Gloria Grahame) willing to do anything, Jessie's (Kathryn Hay) strong emotional rollercoaster changes, Mrs Lavender's (Joan Blondell) orbital character sketches, the borderline sanity of Elwood Coates (Claude Akins), Brooks Durham (Michael Rennie) riding along the edge of good and bad, the secret dream of Maria (Marissa Mathes) and onscreen smoking [it is still rare to see a woman in a western smoking a cigarette], Paul Fix (as Hanley) without teeth (reunited here with fellow 'Rifleman' Connors). There are others but that's enough here. *** END POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***There's also a short appearance by a fairly young Jamie Farr, a decade after his film debut and a decade before his MASH series fame.This ‘revenge' western story doesn't follow standard plot strategy so characters don't behave, and events don't progress, as one expects them to in a 'safe' storyline. This results in mixed emotional responses by the viewer, with different emotions possible on multiple viewings. There are many good things about this movie but the lacking camera work and editing keep it from rising to being a really good film. Watch it for the wonderful characters and player's performances. Pass it up for the overall screen delivery, but do so at your own risk. This film rarely plays and is not available on video as of this writing so you may wish to pop in a tape in order to catch the nuances from highly professional performance artists at their craft.