Saturday 22 June 2024

Ride In the Whirlwind (1966 Monte Hellman & co-scr)

And the other writer of this simple and direct western is its co-star, Jack Nicholson; the two of them also produced this independent B movie (for Roger Corman) which runs just an hour and a quarter. We start bang in the action with (Harry) Dean Stanton's gang pulling off a stagecoach robbery, then three cowboys turn up to their shack riding through to Waco. During the night a posse of vigilantes surround the shack and Nicholson and his buddies are mistaken for part of the gang and go on the run.

Rough justice is quickly dispensed by this gang of vigilantes.

Nicholson and Cameron Mitchell get away, find farmers George Mitchell (no relation), Katherine Squire and Millie Perkins and have to steal the guy's horses to survive. Which they know is wrong, but it's do that or die.

It has good little touches, like an attempt to play chequers, and the last slow fade out is an enigmatic ending.

Photographed by Gregory Sandor and edited (uncredited) by Hellman, who also shot The Shooting back-to-back with this one, also with Nicholson.




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