{ "id": "epfdfcg6v8", "slug": "ride-the-high-country", "title": "Ride the High Country", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure", "label": "Action and adventure films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980", "label": "Westerns before 1980", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979", "label": "Released 1961 to 1979", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000: Released 1961 to 1979", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure", "label": "Action and adventure films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980", "label": "Westerns before 1980", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979", "label": "Released 1961 to 1979", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Ride the High Country (1962), Sam Peckinpah's second feature, a Western starring Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as aging lawmen guarding a gold shipment; Scott's final film, Metascore 92.", "snippet": "Ride the High Country (1962), Sam Peckinpah's second feature, a Western starring Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as aging lawmen guarding a gold shipment; Scott's final film, Metascore 92.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.action-adventure.westerns-before-1980.yr-1961-1979", "markdown": "# Ride the High Country\n\n**Ride the High Country** is a 1962 American Western directed by [Sam Peckinpah](https://www.edgepedia.org/sam-peckinpah), in which an aging ex-lawman hired to transport a gold shipment is secretly plotted against by his old friend and partner. It was Peckinpah's second feature film, his first after the low-budget *The Deadly Companions*, and it starred [Joel McCrea](https://www.edgepedia.org/joel-mccrea) as Steve Judd and [Randolph Scott](https://www.edgepedia.org/randolph-scott) as Gil Westrum, two veteran Western actors appearing together for the first time.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country) • [2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY) • [3](https://www.walkerart.org/reader/walker-film-and-video-flashback-1977-ride-the-high-country-and-point-blank/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | Opened June 20, 1962 in New York City on a double bill with the Italian production *The Tartars*; provisional title *Guns in the Afternoon*[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY) |\n| Director / writer | Sam Peckinpah; screenplay by N. B. Stone Jr.; produced by Richard E. Lyons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY) |\n| Leads | Joel McCrea (Steve Judd) and Randolph Scott (Gil Westrum), who reportedly flipped a coin for top billing[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY) |\n| Career landmark | Randolph Scott's final film (1898–1987); Mariette Hartley's screen debut as Elsa Knudsen[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY) |\n| Technical credits | Cinematography by Lucien Ballard, editing by Frank Santillo, 94 minutes[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY) |\n| Critical standing | Metascore 92, \"Universal Acclaim\" (11 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative); 89% Tomatometer and 83% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/) • [1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country) |\n| Themes | The end of the Old West, honor in a corrupt society, friendship and betrayal among aging men[3](https://www.walkerart.org/reader/walker-film-and-video-flashback-1977-ride-the-high-country-and-point-blank/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nThe time is the early 1900s, when the Old West is giving way to the new. Steve Judd, an ex-lawman living on the fringes of poverty but keeping his dignity, is hired to escort a gold shipment from the mining town of Coarse Gold to a bank. He engages his old partner Gil Westrum, who has been performing in a traveling carnival as a shooting-game host, and Westrum brings along the young drifter Heck Longtree (Ron Starr). Unknown to Steve, Gil and Heck intend to steal the next gold transport.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country) • [5](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/ride-the-high-country-67875/)\n\nEn route, the three riders spend the night at the farm of Joshua Knudsen ([R. G. Armstrong](https://www.edgepedia.org/r-g-armstrong)), a religious fanatic whose daughter Elsa ([Mariette Hartley](https://www.edgepedia.org/mariette-hartley)) is planning to elope with her fiancé Billy Hammond ([James Drury](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-drury)). Elsa joins the group so she can marry Billy at the mining camp, leading to complications that culminate in a final shoot-out in which Steve and Gil reconcile their differences.[5](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/ride-the-high-country-67875/) The Hammond brothers, including Henry (Warren Oates) in an early role, form the family of drunken miners who menace Elsa after the wedding.[6](https://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/classic/ridehigh.shtml)\n\nJudd's moral code is stated in a line he adapts from the [Gospel of Luke](https://www.edgepedia.org/gospel-of-luke): \"All I want is to enter my house justified.\" When Westrum finally abandons the theft scheme, Judd tells him, \"You just forgot it for a little while, that's all.\"[7](https://www.perisphere.org/2023/05/12/no-country-for-old-men-ride-the-high-country-1962-and-the-ballad-of-cable-hogue-1970/)\n\n## Production\n\nThe 30 March 1961 *Daily Variety* announced the first collaboration between Scott and McCrea for MGM. The 14 September 1961 *Los Angeles Times* reported that the project had been assigned to the newly contracted director Sam Peckinpah.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY)\n\n**Locations.** Filming began on location at Mammoth Lake, near [Bishop, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/bishop-california), but a freak snowstorm forced the production to shut down, and Peckinpah was ordered to move the cast and crew to the MGM backlot at Bronson Canyon in Hollywood to complete the film.[8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/947/ride-the-high-country) Other shooting took place on locations in and around Los Angeles, including Malibu Canyon and the Twentieth Century Fox back lot.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/133535/behind-the-camera)\n\n**Studio troubles.** Studio production head Sol Siegel had faith in Peckinpah and offered him the rare chance to make the first cut of the picture. After sleeping through a screening of the rough cut, an executive named Vogel declared it the worst picture he had ever seen and barred Peckinpah from the studio.[9](https://www.tcm.com/articles/133535/behind-the-camera) According to Marshall Fine's biography *Bloody Sam*, Peckinpah personally supervised Mariette Hartley's wardrobe and hairstyle and instructed the studio tailor to pad her chest more fully.[8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/947/ride-the-high-country)\n\n## Reception and standing\n\nDespite studio indifference, the film was, in the words of *Los Angeles Times* critic Michael Wilmington, perhaps the one time in Peckinpah's career that he enjoyed an uncomplicated, nearly universal critical response; the movie was instantly hailed as a modern Western classic.[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/) On Metacritic it holds a Metascore of 92 from 11 reviews, all positive.[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds 89% on the Tomatometer from 19 reviews and 83% on the Popcornmeter from more than 2,500 audience ratings.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country)\n\nCritics singled out the two leads. Bosley Crowther of *The New York Times* wrote that McCrea and Scott, \"symbols of a waning era who eventually clash over right and wrong, mesh perfectly, with the latter getting the drollest lines.\"[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country) [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael) of *The New Yorker* called it \"perhaps the most simple and traditional and graceful of all modern Westerns.\"[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/) The *Guardian* noted that the film incorporates the themes of *The Wild Bunch*, the end of the old West, friendship and betrayal, but is more moving than that blood-soaked epic, largely because of its two leathery veteran stars.[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/)\n\n## Place in the Western genre\n\nReleased at the tail end of the Western genre's classical period, and, in one account, virtually thrown away by MGM, the film has often been read as an elegy for the Western itself.[5](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/ride-the-high-country-67875/) Encyclopedia.com records that it was acclaimed a classic within months of its release, and that with it Peckinpah staked his claim to the mantle of Great Western Director, heir to Ford, Mann, and Boetticher, before striking out on a more equivocal path in *Major Dundee* and *The Wild Bunch*.[10](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/ride-high-country)\n\nThe casting carried its own commentary. Both McCrea and Scott had starred almost exclusively in Westerns since the late 1940s, and the scene in which Judd confronts Westrum dressed as the carnival's \"Oregon Kid\" plays as a joke about two exhausted Western personas.[7](https://www.perisphere.org/2023/05/12/no-country-for-old-men-ride-the-high-country-1962-and-the-ballad-of-cable-hogue-1970/) Critics have also seen the film as a bridge between the classical and revisionist Western: it uses familiar types, the upright lawman, the bad man who becomes good, the brash youngster who learns wisdom, while muddying the traditional genre's codes and foreshadowing the darker moral complexities of Peckinpah's later work.[10](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/ride-high-country) • [11](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2014/cteq/ride-the-high-country-the-once-and-future-sam/) • [1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country) Its hallmarks of style, moving POV shots, quick cuts, and off-center close-ups, already manifest in its colorful, smooth surface.[4](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/)\n\n## Availability\n\nIn the United States the film can be streamed on [YouTube TV](https://www.edgepedia.org/youtube-tv), or free with ads on YouTube Free, Plex Player, and Tubi TV, and can be rented or bought on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home.[12](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/ride-the-high-country)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Ride the High Country, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ride_the_high_country)\n2. [Ride the High Country (1962), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/19660-RIDE-THE-HIGH-COUNTRY)\n3. [Walker Film and Video Flashback, 1977: 'Ride the High Country' and 'Point Blank', Walker Art Center](https://www.walkerart.org/reader/walker-film-and-video-flashback-1977-ride-the-high-country-and-point-blank/)\n4. [Ride the High Country critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ride-the-high-country/critic-reviews/)\n5. [Ride the High Country, Movie Synopsis and Plot, Showtimes.com](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/ride-the-high-country-67875/)\n6. [Combustible Celluloid review: Ride the High Country (1962), Jeffrey M. Anderson](https://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/classic/ridehigh.shtml)\n7. [No Country for Old Men: Ride the High Country (1962) and The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), Perisphere](https://www.perisphere.org/2023/05/12/no-country-for-old-men-ride-the-high-country-1962-and-the-ballad-of-cable-hogue-1970/)\n8. [Ride the High Country, TCM article](https://www.tcm.com/articles/947/ride-the-high-country)\n9. [Behind the Camera, TCM](https://www.tcm.com/articles/133535/behind-the-camera)\n10. [Ride the High Country, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/ride-high-country)\n11. [Ride the High Country: The Once and Future Sam, Senses of Cinema (Tony Williams, October 2014)](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2014/cteq/ride-the-high-country-the-once-and-future-sam/)\n12. [Ride the High Country streaming, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/ride-the-high-country)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Westerns before 1980 › Released 1961 to 1979*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Ride the High Country\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Ride the High Country](https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country](https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Ride the High Country\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/ride-the-high-country. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Ride the High Country, Sam Peckinpah's second feature, a Western starring Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as aging lawmen guarding a gold shipment; Scott's final film, Metascore 92." }