Charlton Heston maintains that this was his favorite of all the westerns he ever made, although the film is less a western than a character study. Set in Montana in the 1880s, with winter approaching, Penny and fellow cowpokes Blue (Lee Majors, in his true screen debut, although he had an uncredited part in Straight-Jacket four years earlier) and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe, who bears a strong resemblance to Jack Black) try to find employment. They are ambushed by the demented Preacher Quint (Donald Pleasence in a spectacular performance; those who know him primarily from his Halloween films will be amazed by his turn here), one of whose sons is killed by Penny. Penny subsequently finds work riding the line of a ranch looking for trespassers and squatters, when he discovers a cabin inhabited by Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett), whose guide deserted her as she was traveling with her son to Oregon to meet her husband. In revenge for killing his son, Quint stages another ambush and wounds Penny -- and as Catherine nurses him back to health, he finds himself falling in love.

After the first ambush, at about the 27-minute mark in the film, is one of our favorite unintentional scenes of all time. Will has placed the wounded Dutchy in an open wagon, hitches up a horse and starts on a half-day journey to find a doctor, when they pause at a roadhouse (of sorts) along the trail. While he is inside, a boy overhears his story and runs outside to see. Even in the 1.85:1 widescreen, the wagon is out of the frame, offscreen to the right; what we see instead is the horse, head bobbing up and down, lips flapping, as we hear "Yarrrrrrrrr, it hurts!"

The film grossed very little at the box office ($1.3 million), and deserved better. Filmed in Inyo County, California in both the high Sierras and Death Valley, the cinematography is stunning, rivaling that of classic John Ford films, and the characterizations are more realistic than one might expect of a period western. The public evidently preferred instead to spend its Heston dollars on Planet Of The Apes, which was released at the same time.

The opening fifteen minutes or so contain one of the most realistic depictions of the "cowboy life" seen to that time, although when the cook -- Slim Pickens -- calls the men for food, one can't help chuckling, as his character is not very far removed from his Blazing Saddles persona.

All in all, this is one of the most enjoyable "classic" westerns you'll find; the genre was soon to change forever as the so-called "Spaghetti Westerns" made their way to the U.S., beginning with 1964's Per un pugno di dollari (released in the U.S. in 1967 as A Fistful of Dollars, after filming on Will Penny had wrapped).

Heston sings pieces of "Get Along Lil' Doggies" over the film's opening credits, and (more substantially) "Deck The Halls" later in the film; if you're planning on include these songs in a "driving music" compilation that you're putting together, we also suggest anything sung by Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon, Shatner's "Row Row Row Your Boat" campfire song from Star Trek V, and John Carradine's "Night Train To Mundo Fine" from Red Zone Cuba. As a bonus, this tape may also be used to extract confessions from crime suspects.

Film Synopsis:

Hollywood legend Charlton Heston stars as Will Penny, an aging cowboy on a hard-luck streak. He's out of work, out of money, and staked out to die in the desert by a gang of ruthless outlaws. Moments before death, Will is taken in by a beautiful young woman named Catherine (Joan Hackett), who is heading west with her young son to join her husband. As Catherine nurses Will back to health, he catches a glimpse of a lifestyle he's never known. Suddenly, Will has two more problems to deal with: He's madly in love with another man's wife, and the outlaw gang is on its way back to finish him off.

Technical

Video:	Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
Audio:	ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono FRENCH: Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles:	English, Closed Captions
Chapters:	12

The 1.85:1 widescreen presentation (with anamorphic enhancement) is serviceable, and is improved over the previous laserdisc transfer. Weaknesses in the color -- some scenes are too low in contrast, and others veer towards either orange or green -- appear to be faults in the original negative. The audio (including the score by David Raksin, which is an unusual one for western films but nevertheless seems "right") is undemanding, and appears flawless. There is a French soundtrack on an alternate audio channel.

Supplements

• Remembering Will Penny (13:21)
• The Cowboys of Will Penny (3:27)

There are two included featurettes. Evidently, a single featurette -- "Remembering Will Penny" -- was filmed specifically for the DVD with actor Charlton Heston, Jon Gries (who played the young boy H.G. Allen, and was the son of writer/director Tom Gries), and western historian Miles Hood Swarthout; a three-minute portion dealing with the film's cowboy actors was then excised and appears here as a seperate featurette, "The Cowboys of Will Penny." Both are fullscreen, with inserted letterboxed scenes; the actors appear to hold the film in very high regard, and the discussion is more interesting than most featurettes of this sort.