Description: Ride Lonesome, the fifth film in the Ranown cycle, is both the best and most representative of the whole series, which has been called the most remarkable convergence of artistic achievement in the history of low-budget moviemaking. Director Bud Boetticher captures the alienation and loneliness of an America faced with the Cold War and the daily threat of nuclear annihilation. Shot in seventeen days for under a half-million dollars, Ride Lonesome is a masterpiece of cinematic minimalism.
Veteran screenwriter Kirk Ellis brilliantly unpacks the themes, narrative, visual language, and editing in this seminal film. In Ride Lonesome Ellis not only shows how this one film embodies a turning point for the Western, but he also explores the unique vision and contributions of director Boetticher and his writing partner Burt Kennedy.Brief description: Kirk Ellis is the multiple Emmy-winning screenwriter of HBO's John Adams, the Apple TV+ limited series Franklin, and other works of historical drama, including Anne Frank: The Whole Story and Into the West. He is the author, most recently, of Ride Lonesome, one of the inaugural volumes in UNM Press's Reel West series.
Review Quotes: Ride Lonesome offers fresh insight into the careers of screenwriter/director Burt Kennedy and legendary film auteur Budd Boetticher, as well as a blow-by-blow account of the making of Ride Lonesome, one of the great American films. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Western movies.--W. K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film