Terrific film. It just works from its opening credits, beautifully shot and haunting melacholic theme tune. Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott are perfectly cast in the leads (did this inspire Larry McMutry's Lonesome Dove), Mariette Hartley is a different female heroine (still pretty but smart, unconventional), the brothers are a terrific rogues gallery: handsome but sketchy James Drury, LQ Jones, Warren Oates, etc. Ron Starr is a little more stock as the kid but that's fine.
The location work looks gorgeous (mines, snow, towns with cars). It's got these old 1950s trappings with Peckinpah's freshness (brothel scene, end of West). The story is simple but effective - great jolt when Hartley's father is killed - and the ending is guy cry nirvana.
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