Programmed August 2021
The Ranown Westerns
Featuring Taylor Hackford’s documentary Budd Boetticher: A Study in Determination A crucial link between the classicism of John Ford and the postmodern revisionism of Sam Peckinpah, the string of westerns made by Budd Boetticher and actor Randolph Scott in the late 1950s—known as the Ranown cycle after Scott’s production company—represent one of the great director-star collaborations in Hollywood history. All written, with the exception of Decision at Sundown and Buchanan Rides Alone, by expert screenwriter Burt Kennedy, the films made the most of their lean production values, achieving an expressively stripped-down stylistic purity that served to heighten their psychological tension. With Scott cast in each film as a taciturn loner pitted against a memorably complex adversary, the Ranown westerns display an extraordinary thematic and stylistic coherence that mark them as the work of a true, underappreciated auteur.
6 films
No longer streaming
