The Tall T (1957)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Budd Boetticher

Writers:

Elmore Leonard (story)
Burt Kennedy (screenplay)

Release Date:

2 April 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

Taut! Torrid! Tremendous! T Is for Terror!

Plot:

Having lost his horse in a bet, Pat Brennan hitches a ride with a stagecoach carrying newlyweds, Willard and Doretta Mims...

Plot Keywords:

Ransom | Newlywed | Outlaw | Bet | Stagecoach

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Randolph Scott	...	Pat Brennan
Richard Boone	...	Frank Usher
Maureen O'Sullivan	...	Doretta Mims
Arthur Hunnicutt	...	Ed Rintoon
Skip Homeier	...	Billy Jack
Henry Silva	...	Chink
John Hubbard	...	Willard Mims
Robert Burton	...	Tenvoorde
Fred Sherman	...	Hank Parker (as Fred E. Sherman)
Christopher Olsen	...	Jeff (as Chris Olsen)

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 | USA:Approved (certificate #18272) | UK:U | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Producers-Actors Corporation

Trivia:

During filming it was called "The Captives" (Elmore Leonard's original story title) and/or "The Tall Rider". Just prior to release someone (no one knows, or will say, who) changed the name to "The Tall T". No-one connected with the project knew what the title referred.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the gang arrives at the camp site, Randolph Scott dismounts from the wrong side of his mule and nearly knocks Mrs. Mims from her precarious perch.

Quotes:

Pat Brennan: You got a fine boy there, Hank. He knows his stock. He'll make a first rate station man one day.
Hank Parker: Not if I can help it, he won't. Ain't a fit life bein' stuck out in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself, knowin' nobody but stage drivers and shotguns. Ain't no fit life at all.
Pat Brennan: Always thought you were happy at it.
Hank Parker: Well...
Pat Brennan: [excepts a gourdful of water from Hank] Thanks.
Hank Parker: ...I was. When Jeff's mother was alive, I was. Alone, it's different. My retire time comes up next fall and I'm gonna take it. A man shouldn't oughta be stuck off by hisself in this kind of country, Pat. It ain't natural!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in C'era una volta il West (1968)

An Early Adult Western Worth Watching!

This 1957 Western follows in the tradition of "Rawhide" (1951). Once again we find a group of people that are being held by a band of thieves while waiting for their next stage to rob. This time Randolph Scott has taken over the Tyrone Power role of the hero in the earlier film. Scott must wait for the appropriate opportunity to make his stand against the evil band of killers (Richard Boone, Skip Homeier, and Henry Silva). Maureen O'Sullivan (who once portrayed Tarzan's Jane of the movies) finds herself in the unusual role of portraying a "plain jane" who has recently married a scoundrel. The newlyweds are on their way to their honeymoon when they are captured by Boone and his gang of cut throats. O'Sullivan's husband tries to use his new wife and her father's fortune as a bargaining chip to buy his way out of his predicament...but the killers wind up killing him along with the stage station's owner and his son. The hapless victims all seem to be killed off one by one and thrown into a well. Margaret O'Sullivan's only hope is for Randy to somehow save her. Scott uses the gang's individual weaknesses to get the drop on them .... and what is to come is one of the most brutal Westerns made during that period of film making. This film serves as a transitional bridge between the old Ken Maynard (man in a white hat who only drinks milk) bloodless Western and the grimy, realistic sweat stained Spaghetti Western that is destined to come. A fine cast and a disciplined script makes it everything one could hope for in a Western!!!