This collection of five films from the Criterion Collection showcases the bulk of collaborations between under-the-radar B-Western director, Budd Boetticher, and longtime Western hero, Randolph Scott. The films included are The Tall T, Decision at Sundown, Buchanan Rides Alone, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station. All five films feature Randolph Scott as the lone wanderer with his own moral code to live by, and relatable villains. We’ll take them one at a time.

The Tall T
This one is based on a story from Elmore Leonard, the writer of many classic Western tales, such as 3:10 to Yuma, Valdez is Coming, and Last Stand at Sable River. Scott plays Pat Brennan, a rancher with a “place of his own” that he hopes to build up into something great. We see him wandering through the opening credits and stopping at a way station to begin our story. The place is operated by a man and his little boy, and Brennan promises to bring the little boy back some candy when he returns from visiting the nearby town. Unfortunately, after leaving the town, Brennan loses his horse and is forced to hop on a stagecoach with the daughter of a rich mining baron and her new husband. The coach stops at the way station where three men, Frank Usher, Billy Jack, and the unfortunately-named, Chink, have taken over and murdered the man and his boy. Richard Boone plays Frank Usher, and while his young henchman are a little too trigger happy, Usher has a code of ethics similar to Brennan, only he’s willing to let innocents die to get what he wants. Through their conversations, they both realize that, in another life, they might have been friends.

Usher is looking for a big payout so he can live the life he wants, and he seems to have stumbled into it when the newlywed husband turns out to be a craven, self-serving piece of trash. He admits his wife’s father is rich and is willing to go and deliver a ransom note to the baron in exchange for his own freedom. Once the plan is set in motion, and the husband is no longer needed, he gets a bullet in the back, courtesy of Frank Usher. The justification being that the husband was no-good for abandoning his wife, and at that point, it’s hard for the audience to disagree.

The film has a tight runtime of 78 minutes, and Burt Kennedy’s script is an economic tension-builder that matches the best of them and shows us what makes the post-World War II Westerns such a joy to watch.

Decision At Sundown
The second film in this set takes the tropes of these Westerns and turns them on their head. Scott, this time, plays Bart Allison, a man who rides into the town of Sundown with one thing on his mind: vengeance. He’s after the man he blames for his wife’s suicide, Tate Kimbrough, and he’s not leaving until he kills him. Lucky for Allison, Kimbrough has the entire town of Sundown in a vice grip, and they aren’t too happy with the way he’s running things.

Once Allison arrives in town, the movie jumps right into the action. Allison stops Kimbrough’s wedding and a shootout ensues. The rest of the movie is a true Western standoff – the town is completely quiet, all doors are shut, and the heroes and villains yell at each other from around the corners of buildings. However, in that time, we learn that Bart Allison is far from the hero we expect from Randolph Scott. He is fueled and blinded by his hatred. He refuses to believe his good friend, Sam, when he is told that his wife was not a good woman to begin with and never loved him. His code of ethics has been swapped for revenge, and revenge alone. And when even the sheriff of Sundown gets in his way, well, that’s just too bad for the sheriff.

Kimbrough is obviously not a good guy, so we’re happy at the thought of him getting his comeuppance, but it doesn’t happen. Kimbrough is allowed to escape as Allison deals with the loss of his friend, Sam, and the realization that what he said about his wife was true. In the end, multiple people are dead, Allison fails in his mission, and the town of Sundown is freed. The town, of course, is happy to celebrate, but for Allison, there is nothing to do but mourn his losses. He leaves Sundown, refusing their thanks, and alone once more.

Buchanan Rides Alone
In this film, Randolph Scott is Tom Buchanan, and you guessed, he rides into town alone. Agry is not a town you want to ride into and stay very long, even the townspeople say so. As soon as Buchanan passes the bridge from Mexico into Agry, he is greeted by a suspicious sheriff who aggressively gets Buchanan off his horse and patted down. Buchanan soon finds that Sheriff Lew Agry isn’t the only unfriendly soul in town, nor is he the only one the town is named after. Lew has two brothers, and while he is sinister, scheming one, his brother, Amos, is too dimwitted to do anything beyond run the hotel, and his other brother, Simon, is the most respected of the brothers and the town judge.

When Simon’s son, Roy, the town hothead and drunk, is shot and killed by Juan de la Vega, a Mexican who had a personal vendetta against Roy, Tom Buchanan gets roped into the town’s politics, and it’s up to him to get de la Vega out of trouble. The brothers Agry’s war amongst themselves sucks in the entire town, as well as the lives of Buchanan and de la Vega, presenting several twists and turns along the way. It all culminates in a nail-biting shootout involving hostages on both sides of the same bridge Buchanan crossed when he entered the town and a saddlebag with $50,000 smack dab in the middle.

Because of how this movie zig-zags throughout and the intense finale, Buchanan Rides Alone may be my favorite out of the Ranown films I’ve watched so far. This one clocks in at 80 minutes, so again, it’s short and sweet, tightly-paced, with several interesting, flawed characters to keep viewers invested. A great film to show those who are skeptical of the Western genre.

Ride Lonesome
Randolph Scott stars as Ben Brigade, a bounty hunter who is after more than just the money when he tracks down and captures wanted criminal, Billy John. In his attempt to get Billy to Santa Cruz, Brigade runs in with a couple of outlaws with their own motivations and a woman who is all alone in the harsh western country. Together, they have to outrun Indians and a band of outlaws (the leader of which is Billy’s brother, Frank), until Brigade’s true intentions are made known.

The film consists of many twists and turns, and the entire time, it’s hard to keep track of the alliances and loyalties between the characters. The film banks on misdirection. Even one of the outlaws, Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts), at the end of the film, claims to Brigade, “Ain’t it funny how a thing can seem one way and turn out another?” Brigade can’t help but agree. Neither can we. Even as the ending comes, and all loose ends are tied, and all the good guys have gotten what they wanted, the film still plays on this misdirection. It was a comedy in the classic sense, right? The happy ending? And then the final shot of the film happens, and you realize what a truly cold revenge story this was.

Burt Kennedy’s script sense shines once again, as the characters are mostly fleshed out, except for the villain, Frank. Even though he’s played by the great Lee Van Cleef, he remains forgettable. The woman and Native American characters are treated the same, but that’s at least a bit more common of the genre. Ride Lonesome is certainly not the best film in this collection, but it is an entertaining one, and probably carries a lot more rewatch value than some of the others.

Comanche Station
In the final film between Scott and Boetticher, Scott plays Jefferson Cody, another man alone on his own personal mission. He rescues a woman from a tribe of Comanches, and rides off with her only to be waylaid by a trio of outlaws – the evil Ben, the scheming Frank, and the dimwitted Dobie. They all ride together for a time, and during that time, Ben and Frank come up with separate plans for how to make off with the woman and a $5000 reward for her safe return. Dobie, of course, follows along but doesn’t come up with any plans of his own or really approve of Frank or Ben’s methods. Cody, meanwhile, claims to know nothing about the reward; he is rescuing the woman, Nancy Lowe, for his own reasons.

Similar themes run rampant in Comanche Station as does through the others in this collection – loyalty, personal honor, the fine line between hero and villain, and it’s chockfull of a few twists and turns along the way. Why is Cody risking his life for Nancy without a thought of the financial reward? Can Nancy believe him when he claims to have no prior knowledge of the reward? What secret is Nancy hiding herself? Are any of the outlaws to be trusted? The finale is as much shocking as it is endearing.

This film and the previous one, Ride Lonesome, were both filmed in CinemaScope, so you get some beautiful wide landscapes of the open range, as well as that sunburned color look, so they look best in the 4K format on the biggest screen you can handle. Scott is often framed to reflect his larger-than-life hero image. The script is once again precise and tight, even if, at this point, it’s familiar territory.

Looking back on the whole collection, I don’t think I would marathon these films in one or two sittings. They benefit from being allowed to breathe. As I alluded to in the paragraph above, by the end of the series, it begins to feel repetitive. The same basic premises, with just enough of a twist to justify being their own releases, and Randolph Scott basically plays the same character in each one (except for Decision At Sundown).

Having said that, I still recommend this set or at least these movies to anyone who likes Westerns, early Revisionist cinema, or wants something to watch under an hour and a half. They look great, especially in Criterion’s new 4K release, and they’re an excellent cap to Randolph Scott’s impressive career. He retired after Comanche Station, only to come out of retirement for Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country before retiring again, for good, but in my opinion, these films are the better closure for his lifetime of moviemaking.

You can purchase the set here from Amazon.