In the opening scene of the 1957 western The Tall T, a man on horseback is spotted from afar by a boy and his father, prompting the elder homesteader to fetch his rifle. The audience shares their uncertainty, seeing this figure through a telephoto lens from a great distance, but when the stranger gets closer to the ranch, he’s recognized by the boy as an ally.
It’s the film’s hero, Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott), a fellow rancher, and the gun is therefore set aside. The Tall T is the first in a series of westerns grouped under the name Ranown (after producer Harry Joe Brown and Scott’s production company) that director Budd Boetticher made in the late ’50s and concluded with the release of Comanche Station in 1960, and in this inaugural scene, Boetticher establishes a crucial theme and visual pattern of this spiritually unified set of potboilers.
It’s the film’s hero, Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott), a fellow rancher, and the gun is therefore set aside. The Tall T is the first in a series of westerns grouped under the name Ranown (after producer Harry Joe Brown and Scott’s production company) that director Budd Boetticher made in the late ’50s and concluded with the release of Comanche Station in 1960, and in this inaugural scene, Boetticher establishes a crucial theme and visual pattern of this spiritually unified set of potboilers.
- 10/2/2023
- by Carson Lund
- Slant Magazine
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