The Tall T (1957)

Randolph Scott is rancher Pat Brennan, who heads off to the ranch where he used to be top hand hoping to buy a seed bull.

Instead, he loses his horse on a bet trying to get the bull and has to hitch a ride on a stage travelling from Contention to Bisbee.

Inside the stage are Mrs. Doreta Mims (Maureen O’Sullivan) and her husband Willard, who married her for her father’s money.

And waiting at the stage station are three bandits, led by Frank Usher (Richard Boone).

Hoping to save his life, Willard Mims tells the bandits who his wife is, suggesting they hold her for ransom.

Brennan winds up being taken captive, too, not because he’s needed really, but because Usher sees something in him that he’d like to become.

Question is, will that something be enough to save his life or the life of Mrs. Mims?

Brennan suspects not. While waiting for the ransom money to arrive with the three bandits and Mrs. Mims, Brennan begins looking for a way out of the mess he’s gotten himself into.

Review:

The second of seven Westerns Budd Boetticher made with Randolph Scott as the star, this is a wonderfully efficient and entertaining little film.

And as amiable as the opening is, it quickly turns violent, with three good characters — including a young boy and Arthur Hunnicutt as a wily old stage driver — winding up dead with their bodies dumped down a well before the film hits the 25-minute mark.

Maureen O’Sullivan, who played Jane in six Tarzan films in the late 1930s through the 1940s, was in her mid-40s when this film was made. She’s plays the role of a homely woman, rescued from the life of a spinster by a man who loves her father’s money much more than he loves her.

Skip Homeier and Henry Silva play the other bad guys. Silva is especially effective as a young hothead with eight notches on his gun. He can’t wait to add number nine and number ten.

Only the scene in which Scott forcefully kisses O’Sullivan strikes a false note.

Directed by:
Budd Boetticher

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
Robert Anderson … Jace
Christopher Olsen … Jeff
Fred Sherman … Hank Parker

Runtime: 78 min.

Memorable lines:

Stage driver Rintoon, about Mrs. Mimms: “She was scheduled to be an old maid til Willard come along. She’s as plain as adobe wall.”

Frank Usher to Brennan: “That boy puts his wife on the stake, then wants to kiss her goodbye. Can you figure me that one?”

Brennan, after losing his horse on a bet, watching an old friend get killed and being kidnapped by Frank and his gang: “It hasn’t been my day.”

Frank, to Brennan: “Well, I sure don’t know why I like you Brennan. You talk back, you act proud when you should be bowing down. I don’t know why.”

Chink: “Just happens there’s over 10 head of female to every man in Senora.”
Billy Jack: “Who said?”
Chink: “I said. Oughta know. I guess I romanced over half of ’em. Been there yet if I hadn’t pulled a leg muscle.”

Pat Brennan, before kissing Doretta: “Sometimes you gotta walk up and take what you want.”

Arthur Hunnicutt as Ed Rintoon, Pat Brennan’s longtime friend in The Tall T (1957)

Robert Burton as Tennvoorde, the rancher who wants Pat Brennan to work for him again in The Tall T (1957)