The Tall T (1957) + Decision at Sundown (1957) + Buchanan Rides Alone (1958) [The Criterion Collection]

The Tall T (1957) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051047/

Director: Budd Boetticher
Writers: Burt Kennedy, Elmore Leonard
Stars: Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Sullivan

Based on a story by Elmore Leonard, this collaboration between director Budd Boetticher, actor Randolph Scott, and screenwriter Burt Kennedy is a model of elegantly economical storytelling charged with psychological tension. Here, Scott is the easygoing rancher who, along with the newlywed daughter (Maureen O’Sullivan) of a wealthy mining baron, must use his wits to stay alive when he is taken hostage by a band of ruthless stagecoach robbers. He is memorably matched by Richard Boone’s dangerously charming, nearly sympathetic villain in a performance that exemplifies the fine moral shading that distinguishes the Ranown westerns.


Decision at Sundown (1957) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050296/

Director: Budd Boetticher
Writers: Charles Lang, Vernon L. Fluharty
Stars: Randolph Scott, John Carroll, Karen Steele

Randolph Scott boldly subverts his upstanding image in this stark, often startlingly bleak tale of revenge and a man’s misguided quest for redemption. He plays the mysterious stranger who, consumed by hatred for the man he blames for his wife’s suicide, rides into the corrupt town of Sundown hell-bent on vengeance. There, both he and the townspeople face a reckoning that forces them to confront disturbing truths about themselves. All but annihilating the myth of the righteous western hero, Decision at Sundown edges the Ranown films into increasingly dark, despairing territory.


Buchanan Rides Alone (1958) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051437/

Director: Budd Boetticher
Writers: Charles Lang, Jonas Ward, Burt Kennedy
Stars: Randolph Scott, Craig Stevens, Barry Kelley

Welcome to Agry Town, a corrupt border outpost presided over by a pair of rival brothers whose bottomless greed corrupts everything in their orbit. Into this moral cesspool rides drifter Tom Buchanan (Randolph Scott), who soon finds himself railroaded for murder and, alongside a vengeful young Mexican vaquero, forced to take a stand for justice. The noir-tinged narrative—replete with twists, double crosses, and the kind of richly drawn villains who are hallmarks of the Ranown westerns—moves with entertaining economy toward a memorably ironic climax.


Extras:
- New 4K digital restorations by Sony Pictures Entertainment, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- Introductions to the films by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Taylor Hackford
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Jeanine Basinger on The Tall T
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing



The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher:
The five briskly entertaining, vividly performed westerns made by director Budd Boetticher and strapping star Randolph Scott in the second half of the 1950s transcend their B-movie origins to become rich, unexpectedly profound explorations of loyalty, greed, honor, and revenge. Often grouped under the name Ranown (after producer Harry Joe Brown and Scott’s production company) and colorfully scripted by Burt Kennedy and Charles Lang, these films seem to unfold in a world unto themselves, staking a claim between traditional westerns and the subversive genre revisionism of the 1960s—and representing the crowning achievement of the underappreciated auteur Boetticher.