Long before he became the befuddled NRA rube caught in Michael Moore’s dubious documentarian/contrarian crosshairs, Charlton Heston had a respectable Hollywood career. He built it on chiseled-jaw turns in biblical epics The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, later dystopian sci-fi operas like Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green, and a slew of other genre productions that demanded an action-oriented lead. Westerns were another dramatic outlet and Will Penny sits squarely as Heston’s defining turn in such role. Directed and scripted by Tom Gries, the film tracks the circuitous path of the titular character, an aging, itinerant and illiterate cowboy who gradually finds himself confronted by a crisis of self. It’s revisionist in its attention to realism and self-reflection, but Gries balances the psychology with a fair share of traditional Western action and melodrama. His visual sense owes much to John Ford and Budd Boetticher with regular wide shots of Eastern Sierra locations and detailed attention paid to recreating the harsh and filthy conditions of frontier life.
A protracted prologue sketches a character study of Penny and his cohort as they escort a herd from trail to sale. Heston plays him close to the chest and the film is all the better for it. He’s a man of few words guided by pragmatism forged through a life lived mainly alone. His friendships are few and fleeting and it’s difficult to draw a bead on his personality in the beginning. With thick moustache, facial scruff and a five gallon hat clamped down over his pate, he bears uncanny resemblance to Warren Oates at a distance.
Gries fleshes the cowboy contingent out with a near-perfect cast of character actors including Slim Pickens, Clifton James, Robert Luster, Anthony Costello, and later Ben Johnson. A youthful Lee Majors plays Blue, the closest thing Penny has to a confidant, with an easy aw-shucks manner and Anthony Zerbe completes the trio as Dutchy, a largely ineffectual immigrant cowpoke with a faulty accent. The three soon run afoul of Preacher Quint and his familial band of outlaws. Donald Pleasance’s Quint is typical of the actor’s more over-the-top performances, comically devout and prone to violently psychotic outbursts. Bruce Dern and George Rutherford play his loutish and lascivious sons to the hilt. While certainly entertaining, Quint and his crew are caricatures and personify one of the film’s flaws.
Repeated run-ins with the Quint family frame Penny’s peregrinations as do encounters with a widow and child played by Joan Hackett and the director’s son Jon. The latter relationship gradually leads to Penny’s personal crisis as the closed-off manner in which he’s lived his life comes under assault with the realization of other alternatives. Heston handles the transition in outlook beautifully, conveying the awkwardness of a man used to solitude awakening to the pleasures and perils of emotional company. Hackett does a decent job on the other side of the equation as well, capturing the fish-out-of-water elements of her character coupled with a budding fondness for an individual far removed from her realm of experience or comfort.
These earnest and occasionally over-drawn human moments don’t detract from the quotient of western-calibrated violence. The film features unexpectedly gory altercations, even flirting with rape and child murder. One scene dips into the disturbingly surreal, depicting a deranged hoedown by the Quints where Pleasance lets his freak flag fly maniacally to the wild accompaniment of Jew’s harp and harmonica. Gries script has some great darkly comic touches too as when Penny and Blue stop off for a whiskey binge, leaving a gut-shot Dutchy bleeding out in the wagon. Shots poured, this exchange follows:
“How’s it taste?”
“Dunno, but it definitely burns a dollar’s worth.”
Aside from the purple acting of Pleasance, the film also has several other faults. The story’s time frame is difficult to ascertain, but the presence of plastic rain slickers seems totally incongruous with the otherwise carefully constructed 19th century milieu. The closing credits deliver another debilitating minus as the hackneyed strains of crooner Don Cherry’s “The Lonely Rider” demolish much of the depth of the decidedly downbeat denouement, though the misstep is not enough to diminish it completely. Heston is but a shell of his former self these days and an easy target. This film harkens back to happier times when he could readily hold his own and is one of the finest in his cinematic folio.
Posted by derek on February 22, 2008 10:41 AMNever been able to take Heston seriously in anything, I'm afraid. He almost fucks up one of my favourite films, Touch Of Evil, drags Major Dundee into the dust and I could never deal with him as Moses, Ben Hur or George Taylor. He also had a strange obsession with Shakespeare's Mark Antony, it seems.. I can count three films in which he appears as MA. Haven't seen any of them, though. And after Brando, wouldn't want to.
Thanks for the review, though, Derek - certainly looks like something I'd pick up if I saw in the bargain bin
Heston’s definitely an acquired taste & he often wields the pork shoulder with a mighty swing, but that’s part of what I like about him. It’s also what makes this one stand out in his filmic folio since the ham quotient is surprisingly low. I hear you on Touch of Evil, he’s totally unbelievable as a Mexican cop. I’ve long wondered why Welles cast Montalban instead? Dundee’s got problems far larger than Heston, IMO, though. And Spartacus kicks Ben-Hur’s butt.
I still really like this homage to the man. On-point & pretty hilarious to boot.
Posted by: derek at February 27, 2008 10:55 AMWill Smiths may come and go: Charleton Heston and Vincent Price will always be my Omega Men.
Posted by: walto at February 29, 2008 11:28 AMIndeed, but who wins in the knock-down-drag-out between Heston & Price?
Posted by: derek at February 29, 2008 4:23 PMAs an amateur organist myself, how could I not choose Mr. Phibes?!
Posted by: walto at February 29, 2008 7:43 PM"I’ve long wondered why Welles cast Montalban instead?". You don't no much about film history, it seems, Derek, as it's the other way around. It was Charlton Heston who proposed to the studio that Welles will not only play the part of the dirty cop in it, but will also DIRECT "Touch Of Evil". And he has make the executives of the studio understand than, if they refuse, he'll walk out of the project of this "little thriller" (Heston dixit).
So, it's Heston who CAST Welles as director and offered him his last chance to do a film in Hollywood - A chance who turns ad the end as a catastrophe for Welles when the editing was taken from his hand and some additionnal scenes been shot by somebody else and add in the purpose to clarified the plot.
And even after that, the film was nearly buried alive until the Belgium cinematheque select him for the Film festival that went with the Brussels Universal Exposition of 58 where "Touch Of Evil" wins the competition.
The future cineast from the "Nouvelle Vague" starts to claim from this moment that "Touch Of Evil" was simply the best film ever done(Godard, Demy) and save the neck of Welles as a film's director, at least in Europe, for the next decade.
Thanks for the pedantic correction, PLM, though I’m not sure extrapolating my error to an ignorance of film history writ large is all that fair. Either way, sounds like we’re both fans of Touch of Evil so please join me in raising a glass to ol’ Six-gun Chuck. Any ensuing bar tab is on me since I still owe you for the “basset clarinet” catch too. ;)
Incidently, who was the future cineast who claimed the film was the best ever done?
Posted by: derek at March 7, 2008 12:52 PMHeston also fought both for and against Peckinpah on Major Dundee (he threatened to quit if the producers fired Sam, but ended up brandishing a sword against the director himself!), but that doesn't make his acting any better, in my opinion. I quite agree with you that Touch Of Evil is a total fuckin' masterpiece.. but where did Godard and Demy say it was the best ever made, though? In the Cahiers du Cinéma? I thought Viaggio in Italia was one of JLG's favourites..
Posted by: Dan Warburton at March 7, 2008 11:24 PMSorry for the "pedantic correction", Derek, but I'm always amazed by the lack of "cinématographique" culture from the people (professional or not) who write about cinéma, this days. The story of "Touch of Evil" has been told by Welles hundred of times, by Heston also and in books that Peter Bogdanovich, Joseph McBride and others has written about Welles.
And sorry for my NOT fluent english, has I should have write cineast with an "s" as I was talking about Jean-Luc Godard & Jacques Demy (at that time, two of the future directors of the "Nouvelle Vague" yet to come, even if both have direct, by that time, some short films.)
Dan, both of them have write or declare than "Touch Of Evil" was the greatest film they ever seen. Godard has done this few times during his early career about others films, too. In this case, I suppose they was a certain purpose to say such a thing : helping the film to be shown and Orson Welles to go on.
Godard certainly likes a lot "Viaggio in italia" and have a lot of admiration for Rossellini but it was Jacques Rivette (who wrote the most insightfull critic about the film at the time), Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, first of all, who claim (or write) their admiration for "Viaggo".
Sorry to be pedantic again, guys.
My familiarity with Touch of Evil consists of having seen it 3 or 4 times over years, so I’ll gladly cop to general ignorance on the backstory. No book learnin’ to speak of on the subject either, so I suppose that does translate into a “lack of “cinematographique” culture”. Quiz me on Aldrich, Fuller or Peckinpah and I’ll hopefully redeem myself.
Posted by: derek at March 9, 2008 3:44 PM"both of them have write or declare than "Touch Of Evil" was the greatest film they ever seen."
I take your word for it, was just wondering where - in the Cahiers du Cinema? Those cats were very good at making Best Of lists, and when they liked something they invariably went overboard.. reminds me of the NME's Paul Morley, who used to describe almost every new release he heard as "the greatest album ever made".
Watched Godard's Masculin Feminin last night, and thought of your comments. I think JLG was certainly influenced by Welles' conception of sound - characters cutting each other off, speaking on top of each other, drowned out by ambient noise. Time to revisit "Touch Of Evil" again, if only for Marlene's immortal line "your future's all used up"..
Fuller, eh, Derek? Got the Criterion early films set, enjoyed I Shot Jesse James very much, underwhelmed by Baron of Arizona, haven't got to Steel Helmet yet. My favourite Fullers are still Pickup On South Streetn and 40 Guns.
I think JLG was certainly influenced by Welles' conception of sound - characters cutting each other off, speaking on top of each other, drowned out by ambient noise.
Sounds more like Altman to me ;)
That Criterion Fuller set is a mixed bag w/ Steel Helmet easily being the best of the bunch, IMO. Still have yet to see a decent print of White Dog.
And in a noir contest between Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil my fealty
still resides with the former.
Have you had a chance to check out Boetticher yet, Dan?
Posted by: derek at March 10, 2008 5:36 AMKiss Me Deadly vs Touch Of Evil.. yeah, tough call. I'll stick with Orson on balance, for sentimental reasons. Alas, no, still haven't got to Boetticher though I think I saw Seven Men From Now ages ago. And Lee Marvin is a major hero..
My pal Patrick Boeuf was raving about Delmer Daves' 310 to Yuma. How do you rate that, D?
Pretty high on the totem pole as pyschological westerns go. Glenn Ford and Van Helflin are a magical pairing. Haven’t been able to bring myself to see the remake with Bale and Crowe as result.
One of the vintage movie houses here in town had a recent screening of Kiss Me Deadly, so great to see it again esp. under such circumstances. The first ten minutes are noir perfection wrapped in a knowing subtext of self-satire. It’s kind of like Paul Cain’s Fast One in that respect.
Posted by: derek at March 10, 2008 8:54 AMFinally saw Will Penny and it's great.
The next day, Charlton Heston died. Curious...
Posted by: clifford at April 6, 2008 8:20 PMYou think the two events are related? Every time Clifford checks someone's work out, they check out? Shit, don't listen to my new album Cliff :)
Yep Derek, got the original 310 to Yuma and thrilled? Absolutely awesome movie, acting, script, camera workk, the lot.
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