- Will Penny
Infobox Film
name = Will Penny
caption =
director =Tom Gries
producer =Fred Engel Walter Seltzer
writer = Tom Gries
starring =Charlton Heston Joan Hackett Donald Pleasence
music =David Raksin
cinematography =Lucien Ballard
editing =Warren Low
distributor =Paramount Pictures
released =16 February 1968 (Finland)10 April 1968 (USA)
runtime = 108 minutes
country = USA
language = English
budget = $ 1,400,000
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0063811"Will Penny" is a 1968 western film directed by
Tom Gries starringCharlton Heston andDonald Pleasence . It was based upon an episode of the 1960Sam Peckinpah television series "The Westerner" called "Line Camp," which was also written and directed by Tom Gries. Heston mentioned that this was his favorite film which he appeared in.Plot
Will Penny (
Charlton Heston ) is an aging cow hand who at the end of a long trail hires on to ride the boundary of a ranch over the winter. He immediately comes across a woman (Joan Hackett ), Catherine Allen, and her son using one of the remote cabins to over-winter, having been deserted by her unfaithful husband. Penny lets them stay in the cabin, despite his boss's instructions to give them a week to move out. Later, Penny runs afoul of a sadistic family called the Quints, led by Preacher Quint (Donald Pleasance ) after he kills one of the Quint sons defending his comrades. While out checking the territory, Penny is ambushed and savagelybeaten up by the Quints, who leave him for dead. Penny manages to drag himself back to the cabin, where he is slowly nursed back to health by Catherine, with whom he has little choice but to stay afterward. As Christmas and winter pass, the lonely Penny and sexually repressed Catherine fall in love, and Penny begins to develop fatherly feelings towards the young boy Horace. The three have lived together as a family unit, during which Penny has caught poignant glimpses of everything that has been missing from his own nomadic, rootless life. For a while it seems there is a possibility that he can settle down with the woman and child and continue this happy arrangement. Part of Penny desperately wants to put down roots and end his lonely existence as an itinerant cow hand. Ultimately, however, Penny realises that he is simply too old (nearly 50) and too set in his ways to ever settle down in a domestic setting. Deeply regretful about what he is leaving behind, he rides away from the woman and child, never to return - though not before having to face the Quints again, and this time defeat them with help from fellow ranchers.Production
The film features a
David Raksin and Robert Wells song "The Lonely Rider" with vocals by Don Cherry. The exteriors were filmed inInyo County ,California , USA.Cast
*
Charlton Heston as Will Penny
*Joan Hackett as Catherine Allen
*Donald Pleasence as Preacher Quint
* Ben Johnson as Alex (Flat Iron Ranch foreman)
*Lee Majors as Blue
*Bruce Dern as Rafe Quint
*Slim Pickens as Ike Walterstein
*Anthony Zerbe as Dutchy
* Matt Clark as Romulus
*Jon Gries as the Boy Horace (button) G. AllenReviews
"The admirable thing about the movie is its devotion to real life. These are the kind of people, we feel, who must really have inhabited the West: common, direct, painfully shy in social situations and very honest." —
Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19680605/REVIEWS/806050301/1023]"..."Will Penny ranks as a superior Western for a multitude of reasons. Heston, so often required to play larger-than-life characters throughout his career, here delivers a sublime performance in a role that is the exact opposite." — Reel.com DVD review [http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=7243&buy=closed&PID=10101011&Tab=reviews&CID=18#tabs]
External links
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19680605/REVIEWS/806050301/1023 Roger Ebert review]
* [http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=7243&buy=closed&PID=10101011&Tab=reviews&CID=18#tabs Reel.com DVD review]
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