Ride the High Country
NR, 94 min.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Randolph Scott, Joel Mccrea, Mariette Hartley, Edgar Buchanan, R.g. Armstrong, Warren Oates, L.q. Jones.

Thiseight-part film series dedicated to a reassessment of Sam Peckinpah’scareer is curated by local access TV’s Show With No Name and runs throughDec. 16. Also featured in the series are rare screenings of some ofPeckinpah’s TV work and a monograph specially put together for this seriesby some of the top writers on Peckinpah in the country. Ride the HighCountry is certainly one of Peckinpah’s finest films – if not his best.It’s a beautifully shot Western about two aging gunfighters who arebeginning to feel as though they’ve outlived their time. Indeed, this wasRandolph Scott’s final film and Mariette Hartley’s first – appearing in arole many call Peckinpah’s most sensitive female portrait. (NR, 94 min.)Also showing at this kick-off screening is the 35mm, Oscar-monimateddocumentary, The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage by noted Peckinpahchronicler Paul Seydor.

This article appears in October 8 • 1999.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.