The Tall T (1957)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

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)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robert Anderson	...	Jace (uncredited)

Directed by
Budd Boetticher

Writing credits
Elmore Leonard		(story)
Burt Kennedy		(screenplay)

Produced by
Harry Joe Brown	....	producer
Randolph Scott	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Heinz Roemheld

Cinematography by
Charles Lawton Jr.		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Al Clark

Art Direction by
George Brooks

Set Decoration by
Frank Tuttle		(as Frank A. Tuttle)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Sam Nelson	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Ferrol Redd	....	sound (as Ferol Redd)

Music Department
Heinz Roemheld	....	conductor
Mischa Bakaleinikoff	....	musical director (uncredited)

Other crew
David Breen	....	assistant to producer
Henri Jaffa	....	technicolor color consultant

Production Companies

• Producers-Actors Corporation

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1957) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Film-Verleih (1957) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• GoodTimes Home Video (1990) (USA) (VHS)
• Comet Video (????) (USA) (DVD)

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:

Anachronisms: As Brennan rides into town, after the meeting with the station keeper and his son, he passes the stage, which is standing in the street. Behind the stage, in the street behind, there is a parked car.

Quotes:

Pat Brennan: Did you love him?
Doretta Mims: I married him.
Pat Brennan: That's not what I asked.
Doretta Mims: Yes! Yes, I did.
Pat Brennan: Mrs. Mims, you're a liar. You didn't love him, and never for one minute thought he loved you. That's true, isn't it?
Doretta Mims: Do you know what it's like to be alone in a camp full of roughneck miners, and a father who holds a quiet hatred for you because you're not the son he's always wanted? Yes, I married Willard Mims because I couldn't stand being alone anymore. I know all the time he didn't love me, but I didn't care. I thought I'd make him love me... by the time that he asked me to marry him, I'd told myself inside for so long that I believed it was me he cared for and not the money.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Budd Boetticher: An American Original (2005) (V)

Classic of its kind.

SPOILERS.

If you're attracted only to black-and-white dramas shot in the rain in Slovenia, you probably won't like this one.

It's a no-nonsense El Cheapo Western shot on a low budget, an elementary piece of exposition of masculine honor, with Boetticher, Scott, Kennedy, Richard Boone, and movie flats -- all at the top of their forms.

What distinguishes the half-dozen or so Westerns that came from Boetticher and Scott is not so much the plot, which is generally simple, but the slight twists in character and the occasional grace notes in the dialogue.

You have to love this dialogue. "Cookin'? That's WIMMIN's work!" And, said by Scott in all sincerity, "There are some things a man can't ride around." And, "There are ten head of wimmin for every man in Sonora. Course, most of them is just hurrah gals." And, "I'm not gonna get shot in the belly just 'cause you're feelin' sorry for yourself." And, "Why don't you just say it out in words?"

Basically the story has Scott and O'Sullivan (who, twenty years earlier had been Tarzan's delectable mate) held hostage by Boone and his two shallow young companions, Billy Jack (Skip Homeier) and Chink (Henry Silva). Boone, although a vicious murderer, is not entirely unsympathetic. He feels forced to "run with" these coarse companeros who live from moment to moment. They don't even know their own ages. They've been beaten and mistreated since they were kids. ("You run with them," says Scott reprovingly.) Boone, on the other hand, is sick of their talk about wimmin and such. He is lonely, has no family or wummin waiting for him. "Talk," he orders Scott at gunpoint, "about anything!" He dreams of someday having a spread of his own, with a couple of cattle, working the ground.

But the code -- I mean the movie code of the 1950s, not the Western code -- is an unforgiving one. He is, after all, a murderer. When O'Sullivan's cowardly new husband is given permission to ride off to freedom and desert his wife, Boone turns away and mutters, "Bust him, Chink." The coward's name is Willard Mimms -- Arthur Honeycutt draws out the vowel and imposes a dipthong on it when he pronounces the name -- "Mee-yums." We know Mimms is toast five seconds after we meet him.

Richard Boone is great as the heavy with the daydreams. In a particularly violent climax he is blinded by a shotgun, twirls around entangled in a burlap sheet, and collapses. Scott shows his range in this movie. He laughs at the beginning and becomes grim after being taken hostage. He even forcefully smothers O'Sullivan in passionate kisses. And I thought he only like horses and mules. Commanding too is the performance of Henry Silva, in pink shirt and suspenders. He's clever, the way a sewer rat is clever. He slouches when he walks, and he stands hipshot. His expression hardly ever varies. And his voice is matter of fact, even when he's eagerly anticipating dumping yet another body in the well.

It's quite a lot of fun, shot as it is in Movie Flats. That's Mount Whitney in the background, the highest peak in California's Sierra Nevada. The highest peak in the lower 48 for that matter.