**_Realistic Western about an Aging Cowboy's Last Chance at Love & Family_**
Charlton Heston stars as loner Will Penny, an aging cowboy who takes a winter job riding line on a vast ranch. He runs afoul of a family of psychotic rawhiders while discovering love and a sense of family for the first time in his nigh fifty years of life.
"Will Penny" (1967) gives the viewer a good peek at what it must have been like to be a cowboy out West in the late 1800s. Needless to say, the lifestyle is anything but glamorous.
Most everything works great here: locations, cast, story, writing, etc. With three exceptions: The score is boring & dated. In the 60s there were numerous great Western scores that stood the test of time ("Duel at Diablo," "Bandolero!," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "MacKenna's Gold" and "The Magnificent Seven," to name a few), but the score to "Penny" is a badly-aged dud. Yet it DOES fit the film's theme.
Also, the villains are somewhat contrived. Donald Pleasence is impressive as the over-the-top psycho patriarch of the rawhiding family and Bruce Dern is always reliable as a villain, but -- I don't know -- this whole side plot just seems tacked on to supply action and menace to a story that might have been better without it.
The heart of the story is Penny's discovery of love & family. It's implied in the story that he was an orphan as a child and simply fell into the loner cowboy lifestyle to survive. He has never known true love or had a real sense of family. Before meeting Joan Hackett's character, his experiences with women were limited to shallow hook-ups with prostitutes.
Penny learns he has a knack for fatherhood and likes it. The boy clearly looks up to him and loves him.
It's almost as if God sees Penny's noble character through all the grime and gruff cowboy exterior and throws him a pot of gold in the form of the love of Catherine and her boy. Will he take advantage of this opportunity of happiness and fulfillment, despite the risks? Will he even recognize it as an opportunity? Unfortunately, the ending leaves a sour taste.
So I detract points for the pizazz-less score, the forced villain subplot and the ending. Otherwise this is a worthwhile Western, similar to "Monte Walsh" with Lee Marvin and Jack Palance that debuted a few years later.
The film runs 1 Hour, 50 minutes, and was shot in Bishop & Inyo County, California.
GRADE: B
Just about everyone had a go at the ageing cowboy role, and this one is Charlton Heston’s attempt. He is the eponymous gent working with his pals “Blue” (Lee Majors) and “Dutchy” (Anthony Zerbe) on an huge range where they are supposed to chase away any undesirables they encounter. That’s all going fine until “Blue” bags himself an elk. Dinner think they. I think not says preacher “Quint” (Donald Pleasence) as he and his gang of meandering hoodlums engage in a bit of a shoot out. The three know they will be lucky to escape alive, but when one of them kills the son of the pastor a grudge match of biblical proportions begins. With “Dutchy” injured, they head for town and that’s where they splinter. “Will” now heads up into the snow-capped mountains where he encounters the stranded “Catherine” (Joan Hackett) and her young son “Horace” (John Francis/Gries) in a remote log cabin. As it turns out, these are two of the sort of folks he ought to be evicting so he gives them a week and moves on, only to fall foul of the angry “Quint” who leaves him for dead. With his only hope now being to crawl back to the safety and warmth of the house, he is tended by them both and soon - well you can guess the rest. It is a bit formulaic and no, there’s not a great deal of jeopardy from the last half hour but Pleasence always could manage the maniacal well and here is no exception as he quotes scripture as if it were venom itself. The cinematography of their freezing location complements the story well and there is just enough chemistry between Heston and the quite natural Hackett to keep this grittily real rather than slushy as it builds to a denouement that I thought just a bit rushed. There’s a fine selection of supporting professionals here including Slim Pickens, Ben Johnson and Bruce Dern as the even more bonkers than his pa “Rafe Quint”, and it’s a revenge western with a degree of humanity that is worth watching.
