Buchanan Rides Alone

The grand run of Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher westerns stumbles a bit in this serio-comic outing featuring a town of villains who get more than they bargained for when they tangle with a man named Buchanan they underestimate to their grief. Buchanan (Scott) rides into Agry Town, on the border between California and Mexico, looking to make tracks to his West Texas home. But the Agrys are tough customers who rile easily. Buchanan finds himself facing the brunt of their nastiness after saving a Mexican from their brand of vigilante justice. Scott does a lot of smiling here, more than any of his other Boetticher-directed vehicles, of a piece with the more amiable if still dangerous mood of the film. The comedy is established early when we see Scott take stock of his new surroundings. Everyone in Agry Town is fairly corrupt and mean of spirit, particularly the three Agry brothers who control the town. "Ain't there anybody in this town who ain't an Agry?" Buchanan marvels. No one cares about the boy whom the Mexican kills, "it was inevitable" is all the father cares to say, and you see he's right. But since the kid was an Agry, it doesn't matter he was up to no good. They decide to lynch the Mexican quick, not to mention Buchanan for helping him. Buchanan, it turns out, was carrying $2,000 that the fat sheriff, Lew Agry (Barry Kelley) wants for himself. Lew's fatter brother, Amos (Peter Whitney), is sore because he wants a bigger share of the loot, but Lew enlists his help to double-cross town boss Simon Agry, the dead man's father, out of money he hopes to extort from the Mexican's rich dad. Them Agrys themselves don't have much going for them other than sordidness. The westerns Scott made with director Boetticher usually had fascinating villains in them, ruthless men of character and sand, who made these adventures memorable. Here, the only interesting characters are played by Craig Stevens, as the one Agry honcho who looks like he eats a salad now and then, and L. Q. Jones as a gunman who cottons to Buchanan because he's from West Texas, too. It's wrong to dock a movie because it's not "Ride Lonesome" or "Seven Men From Now;" few are in that class. "Buchanan Rides Alone" does have its moments, mostly comic, like a trial scene where Buchanan amuses the jury with the story of his ramrod livelihood or a scene where Jones offers some heartfelt words over the corpse of an ex-partner who probably shouldn't have stole from him so often. Buchanan has a scene where he's trying to get his money back from the sheriff, who tells him it's in a safe. Shoot me, the sheriff says, and you won't get your money. "You know something, sheriff, it just might be worth it," Buchanan replies. But like julian-er-allen says in a January 2013 review here, this is "very much the poor relation" in the Scott-Boetticher clan, more so than the oft-criticized "Decision At Sundown" which has style and passion missing here. Scott seems stiff and awkward too often, and the story stagnates into a series of captures and escapes. There's an especially ridiculous section in the last half-hour where Buchanan and his friends leave some bad guys with their horses and guns. It's hard to care as much as you should when the hero himself doesn't seem too swift. The ending is a right hash of a good idea, centering on a bag of money which really shouldn't matter as much as it is made to here. The point may be that corruption corrupts everyone, even the good guys, but it's so underplayed it doesn't connect to anything. It just drags. Add to that a television-western set design even Lucian Ballard's lenswork can't save and generic musical underscoring, and you have a disappointing example that even great filmmakers and actors have their off days. "Buchanan" is kind of fun, in a low-key way, but it's nothing like what you have a right to expect from this team.

source: Buchanan Rides Alone

The title "Buchanan Rides Alone" sounds like a comedy western. To some extent it is but not without serious undertones highlighted by the final scene where overt greed motivates all the characters to risk life and limb for a saddlebag full of money. The comedy partly stems from Burt Kennedy ("Support Your Local Sheriff!") having a hand in the script. Talk about municipal corruption! The entire town of Agry (similar to Angry), California, is fueled by backstabbing and crookedness. It's brother against brother or Agry against Agry. The only loyalty shown in the entire movie comes from the gunslinger, Carbo (Peter Gunn's Craig Stevens), who stands behind his boss, Judge Simon Agry, all the way. There is also a loyalty to Texas shown by Pecos Hill played to perfection by L.Q. Jones. Pecos shoots his partner, Lafe (Don C. Harvey), rather than killing Tom Buchanan (Randolph Scott) as ordered for the simple reason that Tom is from West Texas. The usually indomitable Scott walks through "Buchanan Rides Alone" as if he wasn't for sure what was going on. He even looks puzzled when about to be hanged by the neck until dead. This reminds the viewer of Humphrey Bogart in John Huston's "Beat the Devil," who hadn't a clue as to what type of movie Huston was having him walk through. So he played the role of Billy Dannreuther in a dead serious manner. The result made the farce even more farcical. Scott's reading of his lines in "Buchanan Rides Alone" adds to the hilarity, whether intentional or not. The village idiot, Amos Agry (Peter Whitney), at times makes more sense than his two brothers, one the sheriff and one the judge. He's also not quite as greedy as the others. He's happy with mere pocket change. Scott, trying to help his Mexican friends, ends up nearly dead. He's greedy too but is happy with just a small spread of his own. In the end he is satisfied to turn the town over to the winner of the family feud and ride away from it all.

Soldier of fortune and jack of all trades Randolph Scott rides in from Mexico to the border town of Agryville which is run by three brothers, all greedy and of varying intelligence. Judge Tol Avery, Sheriff Barry Kelley and hotel owner Peter Whitney. They are three really low specimens of humanity, only differing in their type of depravity. They've got another young Agry in William Leslie who is Avery's son, a real punk who gets killed by Manuel Rojas in a gunfight. But with the town being named Agryville Rojas is not exactly assured due process and when Scott steps in to keep the Agrys and their hired guns from beating Rojas to death, he gets arrested as well as an accomplice. But these Agrys are a really scurvy lot and Avery decides there's more money to be made by ransoming off Rojas to his father who is a rich Mexican don. And he's not going to cut in his brothers. So this Agry family double dealing is what gets Scott free and of course the cowboy hero does what a cowboy hero always does. Buchanan Rides Alone is probably one of the weaker of the Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher films, it could have used a lot better script. Still Scott is his usual heroic self and he's got a touch of humor in this one. In fact the business where you see all the town businesses with the Agry name on it, must have inspired Mel Brooks to use Johnson on all establishments in Blazing Saddles. There are two other prominent roles, Craig Stevens who works for Avery, but plays a lone hand and L.Q. Jones in one of his earliest roles as a young cowboy who proves to be a friend indeed for Randolph Scott. For fans of Randolph Scott and good B westerns.

This is one of the best westerns I have ever seen, I have seen many Randolph Scott's B westerns which I found just OK, but this one is very entertaining and with interesting characters too. I think "Buchanan Rides Alone" deserves 8.5 stars. The plot is very good and it has some interesting little turns, Randolph Scott is the lead in here but the supporting cast gets a lot of time on screen too, I would have liked to see more of the Abe Carbo character and I think that the little role of Barbara James as Nina the judge's Mexican housekeeper could have been better exploited. The time fly by very fast maybe because it only last 78 min, but I think that this film deserved to last at least 20 minutes more because the plot and the characters had the potential for much more. The action scenes are good . This is an underrated movie that deserves better recognition, it must be at least a cult movie. Tom Buchanan is a gunman who is returning to his home in Texas after having earned a lot of money fighting in the Mexico Revolution but he will find troubles for helping a Mexican who was getting a beating in a California town that is run by the 3 Agry brothers................... I recommend this movie to all of you who are fans of western films, you wont regret it.

The fourth collaboration between Boetticher and Scott does not quite measure up to its predecessors but is enjoyable enough. Scott plays an easy-going stranger passing through a town run by a dastardly family. Of course, he has a run-in with the family and ends up in jail. Stevens, who played Peter Gunn on a popular TV series that started the same year as this film came out, plays a somewhat shady character here. L.Q. Jones, who made a career out of playing nasty villains, gets to play a clean-cut good guy here. Unlike the previous films in this series, this one has no female characters; it would have perhaps benefited from having a love interest for Scott.

Perhaps the only really unjustified feature of this Western is the title. They should have kept the original, "The name's Buchanan" - a line which crops up sufficiently often in the first five minutes to verge on becoming a catchphrase for the title character. One thing Buchanan *doesn't* do is ride alone. For a cowboy hero - particularly one played by Randolph Scott! - he's an unusually cheerful and sociable type, who picks up friends and allies almost everywhere he goes. I don't believe I've ever seen Randolph Scott smile so much in all the rest of his films put together - and it has much the same shock value as a grin on the face of Leonard Nimoy. But it's mainly the humour that sets this film apart from a hundred other unpretentious B-Westerns. The plot twists don't hurt, either. This slender piece bears as many stings in the tail as the final chapters of a Hercule Poirot mystery. Tables are turned by one side upon the other so often that it verges upon the ridiculous; a point milked to wry appreciation by the script. The other interesting point is that Buchanan himself has little influence over the course of events. He merely (albeit adroitly) rides the tide, as the bickering Agry brothers provide the main engine for the plot. This film is far less of a one-man star vehicle than many Westerns of its era. To a degree, it might even be suspected of spoofing the genre. I spotted only one technical blooper: as the sheriff(?) leaves the jail after demanding the keys, the far side of the street, for one brief aberrant moment, appears to consist of red-brick houses with paned-glass windows! Young de la Vega's horse really is a beautiful animal, on the other hand - the beast fully bears out the script's claim that the de la Vega horses are some of the best-bred in the country. Judging by the stunts, it was also presumably a trained performer - I wonder what its 'day job' was? :-) To summarise: a cheerful, swift-moving Western with a touch of dry humour that helps it to stand out among a host of other B-movies. If you've watched 'Unforgiven' too many times, until your guts feel like treacle - if you can't take one more coarse joke from 'Blazing Saddles' - then try 'Buchanan' for a breath of fresh air, and watch Randolph Scott for once in his life having fun!

Usually in these Ranowned westerns Scott really DOES ride alone, but he doesn't here. Yes, he's just passing through town, but after his initial encounter with the hostile residents he's always accompanied by someone else. On the whole it's barely above the routine. Scott could almost have been replaced by Audie Murphy. There is a tense shoot out at the end, but before that we have several gangs of mutually antagonistic thugs running from place to place in Agry Town. Lew is looking for Amos, who is looking for Simon, who is looking for Roy. It's like a merry-go-round with a discordant calliope. Ordinarily, the Boetticher/Scott movies were as successful as their villains were colorful. (Lee Marvin, sighting down his six-shooter while holding it sideways and saying, "Pow." Pernell Roberts advising his companero who is ogling Karen Steele's bosom, "I said look at her eyes.") In this one there is no amusing heavy but the movie is as good as most of the others because the humor comes as much from Scott himself as from anyone else. I must say I almost enjoy it more when he's the glum, determined spoilsport -- but, okay. "What're we gonna do now, Buchanan?" someone asks him. And he comes up with something like, "Foist we take care of the hawses. Then I -- I don't know!", and he slouches offscreen during a dissolve. Nothing is to be taken too seriously. If for no other reason, we are tipped off to this by Scott's unusual hat. It's not his usual broad-brimmed washed-out coronet, but a blue felt thing with a silly narrow brim that resembles some sort of mutated 1940 fedora. And it's a good thing he's given funny lines because the heavies aren't funny at all, or remarkable in the slightest way. The Boss Tweed of Agry Town is bland and inoffensive, like a Canadian. His pudgy nondescript face is made for radio. The cheerful, equally corrupt sheriff is a stock part and played without wit. There are one or two of those noble Mexicans who always keep their word. No women except Boss Tweed's housekeeper -- named, not inappropriately, "Nacho." Craig Stevens has the wardrobe and the looks of a good heavy but doesn't have much screen time and is basically a Canadian. L. Q. Jones has an amusing part. He figures in one of those signature Boetticher scenes -- the heavy burying somebody in a scruffy part of the desert. I don't know how Boetticher managed to squeeze so many of them in. Jones has just had a minor disagreement with a dislikable partner and shot him twice. Unable to bury him in the waterlogged sand, he plops the body on the fork of a tree, removes his own hat, and says a few words over the mortal remains. Words like, "Lew, you always was a good guy. But you did have your faults. Like cheatin' at stud. And emptyin' my pockets when I was drunk." Boetticher was a most unusual guy. He spent much of his career on a kind of Hollywood vision quest searching for enlightenment. At one point he found himself alone and broke in Mexico, scrounging money for a bowl of beans. It's one thing to do that in your teens or 20s. It's a kind of adventure in self-testing then. But to find yourself in that position, as Boetticher did, when you're in your 40s and have no resources to fall back on is an experience that makes for a good deal of nervousness in any normal human being. Boetticher may have been a minor artist, but he was a respectable one.

Randolph Scott is heading to West Texas when he happens to pass through a horrible town. The place is mostly run by a single family and the sheriff is as corrupt as they come. Well, despite this, Scott tries to accept it all in good humor and put up with it--after all, he'll only be there one night. It's hard, though, as the son of the town's boss is a drunk who has vowed to kill Scott for no particular reason. Surprisingly, someone else ends up killing this angry drunk before Scott even has to worry about this. However, no matter how much he tries, the sheriff and his crooked friends are determined to rob Scott blind and kill him. So when the murder of the boss' son does occur, even though it's obvious that Scott wasn't involved, the sheriff is bent on hanging him. And, when Scott is acquitted, the sheriff robs him and "escorts" him out of town--to be killed. Scott miraculously survives and is determined to get back to this hellish town and make them pay (apparently he took the whole "rob him and kill him" thing personally). While this is a very simple idea for a film, once again the combination of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott results in a film that is so much more than what you'd expect with the material they were given. It isn't that it's a bad script, it's very good, but due to the excellent direction and the great tough but decent character Scott once again plays, it transcends the genre. In a genre that usually included pointless Indian fights, two idiots shooting it out on main street and the other typical clichés, this one manages to be different...and a lot better. By the way, one reviewer referred to this as a film filled with humor. I sure didn't see anything funny in this film and wonder if perhaps they are thinking about some other movie.

Excellent and funny story of Agry-town, a place where everything costs ten dollars and a man can be hung for being on the right side of a fight -- but the wrong side of the law. Hypocrisy and the essential weakness of human nature are humorously juxtaposed with Scott and his friends' hardboiled masculine ethic. Only the ending is a disappointment -- rushed and somewhat confused. Lang's writing is good and very barbed but somewhat predictable as the famous Ranown cycle winds down with this film. The Pacific Film Archive here in Berkeley CA has been showing these films for the last few years, and in 2000 I and my mother had the chance to meet the director, the very charming, funny, and intelligent Bud Boetticher, and also the people who are restoring these movies for Columbia. They're doing a wonderful job, and hopefully soon we'll all be able to enjoy restored, less yellowed prints of these classic films (especially the incredible "Seven Men from Now") on DVD. Put any pressure you can on Columbia, folks, let them know you want to see these films on DVD, because the restoration is already well underway -- we just need to let them know there's an audience out there!