Instant Favorite.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The great thing about "The Tall T" is that, unless you are one of those people who reads up on a movie before seeing it, you have no idea where it is going for the first 20 or so minutes. As you shouldn't; it spoils some of this film's brilliance otherwise.We meet Brennan (Randolph Scott) in the middle of his day; passing the time with the manager of a stage post and his son, riding into the town of Contention, going to a ranch to try and buy a seed bull off its owner. All this time, director Budd Boetticher and scriptwriter Burt Kennedy are setting you up for the real story, which begins when Brennan comes back to the stage post to discover something wrong…And if you haven't seen this movie, stop right there and watch it before continuing. You'll thank me later.You can find a lot of opinions here and elsewhere as to whether "The Tall T" is Boetticher's best movie in his Ranown cycle of westerns featuring Scott. I don't think it's my favorite, but it may well be the most challenging and rewarding of them, just for the way it unfolds so meticulously from amiable oater to become so dark and tense. At bottom, it's a Hemingway-esque reflection on a life of solitary action as seen through the very different perspectives of two men, Brennan and Usher (Richard Boone), both of whom seek to use the same woman, a Mrs. Mims (Maureen O'Sullivan), to opposing ends.A question keeps coming up in these reviews: Why does Usher keep Brennan alive? It's an important question, one the whole movie hinges upon. Watching their first meeting again, the moment becomes pretty clear. Brennan's stoic bravery impresses Usher, whom we learn later hasn't been around a lot of decent people in a while and kind of misses that. There's an early exchange, where Mr. Mims tries to talk his way out of trouble with Usher, saying he won't breathe a word about any lawbreaking. Usher asks Brennan if that goes for him, too."If I said yes, you wouldn't believe me," answers Brennan.Usher grins, more than a little: "Yeah, it's dumb even talking' 'bout it, ain't it?" You can see he's impressed by Brennan, and more so a bit later on when Brennan owns up to being scared about his situation.This is a fantastic acting forum for both Scott and Boone, actors who benefited most when saying less. Brennan is the classic man of few words, even early on when "The Tall T" is putting on its falsely amiable front. Later, making conversation with his fellow captive and their captors, Brennan is even more terse: "It hadn't been my day." Or this three-word verdict on one character that says it all: "He ain't much." My favorite, when addressing one bad guy played by Henry Silva who brags he just killed his seventh victim: "When you figure on eight and nine?"Usher is cruel, but more from habit than bent. He responds to Brennan's tough honor with palpable respect, and even shows kindness to Mrs. Mims. But he's a cruel man, still.The movie isn't without flaws. The music is overbearing and the ending too perfunctory. But the visual design and cinematography by Charles Lawton, Jr. are splendid, suggesting a bullfighting arena as Jeanine Basinger points out in her excellent, cant-free DVD commentary. O'Sullivan and Silva along with Skip Homeier as Usher's other henchman all give excellent support, making this a film that with its actors, as with its dialogue, does more with less.

I looked forward to seeing this film in the pantheon of the Scott-Boetticher films. I had so much enjoyed SEVEN MEN FROM NOW and anxiously awaited my viewing of this. Not to be a nitpicker but Scott looks less interested and the supporting cast other than Richard Boone who is fine lets the film down a bit. I think the presence of Gail Russell and Lee Marvin in MEN tips the scales. Also it has the same plot contrivance of traveling lady with a weak husband that works so much better in the SEVEN MEN film. Maureen O Sullivan's performance is almost out of the silent film era. She is way over the top in a few scenes. This film is not bad by any means and holds your interest but just doesn't quite measure up to standards.

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

Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott) has a small spread that he works by himself, miles from nowhere. On a ride into town to buy a bull, he stops by the stagecoach station for some easygoing conversation, and promises to by the stationmaster's young son some candy. Once in town, he meets an old friend, the coach driver (always-awesome Arthur Hunnicutt) who is in the process of insulting sleazy Willard Mims (John Hubbard) for marrying into money in the form of plain-jane old maid Doretta (Maureen O'Sullivan), daughter of the richest man in the area. Instead of buying a bull from Tenvoorde, his old boss, Brennan allows himself to get suckered into betting that he can ride it and thus win it for free, but instead loses his horse and gets a dunking. He's walking back towards the coach station when he gets picked up by a private stage, driven by muleskinner Ed (Hunnicutt) and carrying the newlywed Mims. Unfortunately, something has happened at the station....After a couple of reels of easygoing fun and character development, we're in a different world as The Tall T rapidly shifts from lighthearted and almost comedy mode to a grim hostage drama, as Brennan and the Mims have to figure out how to stay alive after being captured by Frank (Richard Boone) and his two gunslinging helpers Chenk (with an i) (Frank Silva) and Billy Jack (Skip Homeier). A simple enough plot, but as with Seven Men From Now Boetticher and screenwriter Burt Kennedy kick this tale up several notches by making the chief outlaw every bit as interesting and watchable as Lee Marvin's Masters was in the previous film. Frank is closer to Brennan's age, clearly fairly smart and somewhat educated, always ready with a flip, brief comment - in fact in the early scenes his to-the-point dialog almost mirror's Scott's usual taciturnity - and he clearly sees a kinship between himself and the rancher, which helps to keep Brennan alive and the story with it.As in the earlier film, the woman has made a poor choice of husbands, though in this case we know pretty much from the start that Sims is despicable, and it's quite clear that he values his own skin more than this plain-jane he's married just for her father's dough; he is the one who comes up with the idea to ransom them all for daddy's money, and is quick enough to leave when offered the chance, without her. When he gets his, it's clear that the outlaws consider him lower than themselves, and Frank says as much to Brennan. Brennan has no answer - honor to him is felt and lived, not talked about; he knows that Frank isn't - or wasn't - as low deep down as his two henchmen (especially Silva's truly psychotic character, played with gusto by this specialist in scumbags) - but he knows that as Frank stays with them, he's brought down to their level, not keeping them from sinking. And this is what seals his fate, ultimately; if there was a chance for redemption there, he long since passed it by.Beautifully filmed in Lone Pine, CA - the same location as Seven Men From Now and two further films in the series - once again Boetticher is in command of all the elements. The performances are uniformly fine, with Boone especially fantastic - the violence is quick, sometimes unexpected, no more than necessary but all the more potent for that. The score by Heinz Roemheld is stirring and romantic and seems to belong to a "bigger" film, but then this film is bigger than its budget and running time would suggest. Another terrific entry in the cycle.