User Reviews

"All the beasts in the forest are mine and the cattle on these thousand

hills".

THESE THOUSAND HILLS was a Fox western made in 1959! But calling it a western in the true sense is something of a misnomer! For although it is set in the west in the 1880's it contains little or no familier "western" action to speak of. In fact you could count on one hand the number of shots fired in the entire picture! That said, and despite all of its western trappings, it is still a reasonably good drama well played by a good cast. Based on the best selling novel by A.B.Guthrie Jr. a decent screenplay was fashioned from it by Alfred Hayes and it also had some beautiful Cinemascope location Cinematography by Charles G. Clarke. The solid direction was by the gifted Richard Fleischer for Davis Weisbert's glossy Eastmancolor production.

An ambitious cowboy (Don Murray) longs to make something of himself and his dream is to have his very own ranch. A dance hall girl Callie (Lee Remick giving the film its best performance) who falls for him gives him the money to get started. This together with some help from the bank sees him becoming one of the biggest cattle ranchers in the territory. But he wants to become more. He begins to avoid Callie. He is elected to the school board and woos and marries the banker's niece (Patricia Owens) and now he is well on his way to becoming a senator. But when his good friend (Sturt Whitman) is lynched and Callie is beaten up by her boyfriend Jehu (Richard Egan) he realises his ambitions now mean little. In the picture's climactic set piece near the end he confronts Jehu for a well executed fist fight.

Don Murray is fine in the lead! Although he didn't make a lot of them Murray was an acceptable western hero! His best one was "From Hell To Texas" (1958)! His shy reticent persona could be likened to a young Glenn Ford but the actor never really distinguished himself in film. His senator Brigham Anderson in Otto Preminger's brilliant political drama "Advise & Consent" (1962) is probably the best thing he did! Hard to believe he celebrated his eightieth birthday in 2009.

Despite a couple of appalling indoor exteriors for night camp scenes and stock footage of cattle drive sequences from the studio's earlier "The Tall Men" (1955) THESE THOUSAND HILLS is an absorbing enough tale well told and well played. The film is also well buoyed by a marvellous score by the underrated Leigh Harline. A haunting title song by Harry Warren and Ned Washington is sung over the opening and end credits by Randy Sparks. Harline interpolated the song into his score which orchestrally is quite beautiful...............

THE MOON WHEN IT'S PALE

LIGHTING THE TRAIL

TUGS AT HIS HEARTSTRINGS

HE LEARNED TO LIVE

AND LEARNED TO LOVE

THESE THOUSAND HILLS.

Don Murray plays Latt Evans, an ambitious cowboy who puts himself in the fast lane for success in Montana's cattle country. There is a very good supporting cast in this story with Stuart Whitman as his friend, Albert Dekker as a banker and Patricia Owens as the banker's niece. Lee Remick plays her usual strong role as Callie, another friend of Evans. Richard Egan plays an uncharacteristically villainous role and does it pretty well.

"Remember", Evans' trail boss tells him, "people change. They don't turn out like they started." He realizes that people make decisions and that these decisions have implications for them and others around them. The boss knows Evans better than he knows himself.

In his desire to get ahead Evans loses sight of what's important in life. He works two jobs on the cattle drive that brings him to Montana. He spends a hard winter poisoning wolves. In the end it is a friend's generous loan which gives him what he really wants, his own ranch. Almost too late, he realizes in a scene reminiscent of "The Virginian" that it is friends that really matter.

There are two women in Evans' life and both Remick and Owens do well in their roles. Remick's character is much better developed in the script. She is more than slightly tarnished woman in the traditional Western morality. Albert Dekker advises Evans to stay away from the bordello if he is serious about making something of himself. Callie appreciates her status in the community. "I'm not worth it," she advises Evans at one point when he is about to pick a fight for her. Although she loans Evans the money to get him started she expects nothing for it. The loan is repaid and he owes her nothing more. Even the note Evans receives at the end asking for help was written by someone else.

Patricia Owens plays the banker's niece and eventually becomes Evans' wife. Her character is respectable compared to Callie. She doesn't understand Evans' friendship with Callie, but she tries to do so. Unfortunately, the film does not do her character justice. Evans says that he loves her, but her character gets such short shrift that it's hard to tell why. Is it because she's respectable and Callie's not? I'd like to think there's more to it than that and Owens' role certainly hints at some depth to her character.

The fight at the end probably ranks in the top ten in screen fist fights. It is reminiscent of "The Spoilers", except that this time the mud is in glorious color.

The ending is only partially satisfying. There are too many loose ends. The relationship between Evans and his wife is clarified in the ending, but Callie's fate is left to the imagination. Evans will testify at her trial. "Will it be the truth?", his wife asks. "Yes", he responds. "Then you testify", she says. What happens to Evans' position in the community and his political aspirations in light of his support for a prostitute? The viewer can reach his own conclusions about these issues, too. Perhaps that's appropriate. Evans does what he thinks is right. Who can argue with that?

When I picked it out of the sale bin, "These Thousand Hills" looked like a routine, unselfconscious western of the 1950's. I bought it because it had a good cast including two actors I really like, Lee Remick and Richard Egan.

However after a fairly standard start, the big surprise was that the story took a left-hand turn at the midpoint, exposing darkness within the good guys, and giving the drama psychological shadings that may even have had William Shakespeare shouting, "Author! Author!".

Don Murray stars as Lat Evans, an ambitious young cowboy who wants to own a ranch of his own. He partners with Tom Ping, an easy-going cowboy played by Stuart Whitman, who saves his life early in the movie. They encounter Jehu, played by Richard Egan, a ruthless rancher destined to become their enemy. They also meet a couple of saloon girls, one of them, Callie, played by Lee Remick, falls in love with Lat. She gives him her life savings to buy the ranch.

With this start, Lat is successful. He begins to associate with the town's classier citizens, and leaves Callie to marry Joyce, a banker's niece played by Patricia Owens. Lat also begins to look down on people, once his friends, who he now thinks beneath him; eventually he falls out with Tom. Events unfold that lead Lat to regret his actions. He sets out to put things right with a final confrontation with Jehu.

Not your average oater that's for sure, but the story, obviously condensed from the original novel, plays out over a period of time, and it was a lot to cram into 96 minutes.

The opening scenes of the cattle drive are spectacular, which is just as well as the set design of the town and the interiors is uninspired, not much above the look of the studio-bound television westerns of the time.

Top-billed Don Murray gives a pretty good performance for an actor who looked perennially youthful throughout his career; he was thirty when he made this but looks younger.

Lee Remick is the standout. A year before, she had burst onto the screen in "A Face in the Crowd". That film was in black and white, this one is in colour. The black and white camera loved her, but the colour camera adored her. Great roles were ahead, but it's fascinating to catch her just before that happened.

Then there is Richard Egan. While this was a supporting role he was a scene-stealer. He had a great voice and more teeth and muscles than just about any other actor. He had similarities to Burt Lancaster, but he never made it as big. He just didn't exude that sense of danger that gave Burt the edge as a star.

I remember reading that Charles Bronson had backed down from a potential fight with Richard Egan while working on the TV series "Empire". Charlie was smart, it wouldn't have been pretty. Egan was not only bigger, but had also taught hand-to-hand combat in the army during World War 2. He may not have exuded Lancaster's sense of danger on the screen, however he really was dangerous.

"These Thousand Hills" gave complex motivations to its characters, as did many of the urban dramas at the time. It took a different approach than most westerns, and for the most part it succeeded.

Episodic and often boring, this Western saga of ambition, greed, lust and betrayal lacks in strong character development and passion. Don Murray, on the quick rise after "Bus Stop", seemed to fall off a mountain cliff with this one, playing an ambitious cowboy who longs to make something of himself but seems more like an over ambitious kid with the drive but not the dream. He creates an instant enemy in more mature rancher Richard Egan, gets a loan from alleged town bad girl Lee Remick, betrays her by marrying banker's niece Patricia Owens, and in spite of maturing, still seems to be a boy playing a man's game as he takes interest in local politics. Along the way, his actions bring on a wave of violence in his Montana community, but in 90 minutes, there's nothing but snippets of situations, and many plot related questions go unanswered.

I'm sure this looked gorgeous on the big screen, but it's a huge emotionally empty mess when viewed. Perhaps the mistake is in the editing, as there seems to be chunks of important plot missing. That makes the characters rather undeveloped and weakens the overall impact and their performances. I read that Lee Remick considered this her weakest film, ironic considering that she's the most interesting character in the film. Richard Egan, so noble in the same year's "A Summer Place", plays an absolutely despicable character here, but then again, Murray's character isn't all that likable either. In the wake of other epic westerns with much soap opera as part of their plot, this one is perhaps the most banal, and even with a catchy theme song and musical score, is as empty as they come.

This film is often overlooked in Richard Fleischer's impressive filmography ;it is certainly unfair ,for the main character is interesting and the whole cast is up to scratch.

An uneducated cowboy (Don Murray ) has big ambitions ; he looks like Theodore Dreiser's Clyde in "an American tragedy " which spawned "a place in the sun" (1950): the scene when Callie (Lee Remick ) is waiting for Lat with her cake while he's having dinner with posh people will remind you of Shelley Winters ' celebration of Monty Clift's birthday .Callie gave everything but a saloon gal is not a respectable lady a nouveau riche marries.

Lat is a nice guy with whom the viewer sides ;but slowly but inexorably , his careerist mind surfaces, and he's shown in a much less flattering light . Not only he treats Callie , the girl whose savings allow him to buy his ranch, with contempt ,but he also turns his back on his partner ( Stuart Whitman) ,a true friend who saved his life (whereas he could have sold the pelts instead),by refusing to be his best man for the bride is not a fine upstanding woman .

Perhaps the last part may seem too moral,but "compulsion " ,Fleischer's excellent follow-up would be too ; Tom 's(Whitman)brief remonstrance before being hanged is pivotal ,because it's the beginning of Lat's soul-searching ; when she was in pain ,Callie did not even call him ,it speaks volumes about the gal's self-denial : though she does not die-but her future looks bleak- , her character is akin to Shirley Mc Laine's in Minnelli 's "some came running "(1958).