Ride Lonesome

Ride Lonesome is a 1959 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and James Coburn in his film debut. This Eastmancolor film is one of Boetticher's so-called "Ranown cycle" of westerns, made with Randolph Scott, executive producer Harry Joe Brown and screenwriter Burt Kennedy, beginning with Seven Men from Now. Plot Bounty hunter Ben Brigade captures Billy John, who is wanted for murder, to bring to Santa Cruz. Billy instructs Charlie, a member of his gang, to notify his brother Frank, a notorious outlaw, that he has been apprehended. Along the trail, they come upon an eerily deserted stagecoach way station, where they are greeted by outlaw Sam Boone and his partner Whit. Carrie Lane, the absent station master's wife, emerges holding a rifle and orders the men to leave. As a stagecoach approaches in the distance, Brigade suspects that Boone and Whit have come to rob the coach, which then crashes into the corral, revealing that the driver and passengers have been massacred by Mescalero Indians. After burying the dead, Brigade and the others hole up at the station, waiting for the Indians to attack. When Carrie, whose husband left to round up some horses scattered by the Indians, voices her concern about him, Brigade snorts that he was a fool to leave her. Boone tells Brigade that he and Whit did not plan to rob the stage, but to capture Billy and earn the award of amnesty for all past crimes. In the morning, Brigade orders Carrie to ride with them to pick up her husband. A band of Indians appears on the horizon and Brigade rides out to meet the chief, who wants Carrie for his squaw and offers to trade a horse for her. Insisting that they play along, Brigade presents Carrie, who recognizes the horse offered in exchange as belonging to her husband and screams, prompting the Indians to ride off. The group is pursued by the Indians and takes cover at an adobe shack over the rise. When the chief comes for Carrie, she kills him with her rifle, and the remaining Indians disperse. In the morning, Billy holds a stolen rifle of Boone's on Brigade but is tricked into relinquishing it when Boone tells him that it is unloaded. Boone begins to believe that the bounty hunter wants Frank to catch up to them. Nervous about an armed confrontation with Frank, Whit suggests ceding Billy to Brigade and riding off, but Boone insists on staying.