Ride Lonesome (1959) Budd Boetticher, director

It looked beautiful, in color, wide screen. The movie didn't treat the Indians as badly as some other westerns. There were two relatively minor gunfights and a couple of modest stand-offs that ended when one guy wimped out. Mostly dialogue scenes. The night scenes were day-for-night which was kind of nice for a change.

Randolf Scott is a bounty hunter taking a young fellow in for murder. Pernell Roberts and James Coburn join him along with Karen Steele as the widow of a stagecoach station master. Lee Van Cleef as the murderer's brother coming to rescue him.

I like it now, but when I was a kid, I was home alone a lot. I'd be playing with my cars with the TV on, often with a western like this on which helped turn me off to the genre.

In the 1980's, they showed the westerns of Budd Boetticher at the University of Oregon. At the time, I was baffled why they were showing what I thought were middling '50's cowboy movies. Seattle critic Sean Axemaker was a student there at the time and wrote his thesis on them. I don't know if he coaxed them into showing the movies or they showed them and he jumped on them for his thesis, but they're now available on the Criterion Channel so I guess I was wrong.