Will Penny (1968)

Director:

Tom Gries

Writer:

Tom Gries (writer)

Release Date:

10 April 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Romance | Western

Tagline:

The Brute in Everyman Was Also in Him - And the Love and the Violence

Plot:

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by a husbandless woman and her young son.

Plot Keywords:

Cabin | Mountain | Aging | Cowboy | Snow

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Charlton Heston	...	Will Penny
Joan Hackett	...	Catherine Allen
Donald Pleasence	...	Preacher Quint
Lee Majors	...	Blue
Bruce Dern	...	Rafe Quint
Ben Johnson	...	Alex (Flat Iron Ranch foreman)
Slim Pickens	...	Ike Walterstein
Clifton James	...	Catron
Anthony Zerbe	...	Dutchy
Roy Jenson	...	Boetius Sullivan
G.D. Spradlin	...	Anse Howard
Quentin Dean	...	Jennie
William Schallert	...	Dr. Fraker
Lydia Clarke	...	Mrs. Fraker
Robert Luster	...	Shem Bodine
Dal Jenkins	...	Sambo
Matt Clark	...	Romulus Quint
Luke Askew	...	Foxy
Anthony Costello	...	Bigfoot
Gene Rutherford	...	Rufus Quint
Chanin Hale	...	Girl
Jon Gries	...	Horace (button) (as Jon Francis)
Stephen Edwards	...	Town boy

Directed by
Tom Gries

Writing credits
Tom Gries		(writer)

Produced by
Fred Engel	....	producer
Walter Seltzer	....	producer

Original Music by
David Raksin

Cinematography by
Lucien Ballard

Film Editing by
Warren Low

Art Direction by
Roland Anderson
Hal Pereira

Set Decoration by
Robert R. Benton		(as Robert Benton)
Ray Moyer

Makeup Department
Charles Blackman	....	makeup artist
Nellie Manley	....	hair styles supervisor
Hedy Mjorud	....	hair stylist (as Hedvig Mjorud)
Wally Westmore	....	makeup supervisor

Production Management
C. Kenneth Deland	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Daniel McCauley	....	assistant director (as Daniel J. McCauley)

Art Department
Gene Lauritzen	....	construction coordinator (uncredited)

Sound Department
John R. Carter	....	sound recordist (as John Carter)
John Wilkinson	....	sound recordist

Visual Effects by
Paul K. Lerpae	....	special photographic effects

Stunts
Calvin Brown	....	stunts (uncredited)
Joe Canutt	....	stunt coordinator (uncredited)
Ross Dollarhyde	....	stunts (uncredited)
Jerry Gatlin	....	stunts (uncredited)
Rock A. Walker	....	stunts (uncredited)
Jack Williams	....	stunts (uncredited)
Joe Yrigoyen	....	stunts (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
John A. Anderson	....	wardrobe: men
Ruth Stella	....	wardrobe: women

Editorial Department
Jack Wheeler	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Ruby Raksin	....	orchestrator
Van Cleave	....	orchestrator (as Nathan Van Cleave)

Production Companies

• Paramount Pictures

Distributors

• Paramount Pictures (1968) (USA) (theatrical)
• Paramount (1968) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1971) (USA) (TV)
• Paramount Home Video (1989) (USA) (VHS) (pan and scan)
• Paramount Home Video (2002) (USA) (DVD)
• Paramount Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD)
• Muntel International (19??) (Netherlands) (VHS) (as Muntel Video)
• Paramount Home Entertainment (2003) (Germany) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Bureau of Land Management  special thanks
• Inyo County, California  special thanks
• Inyo National Forest  special thanks
• U.S. Department of Agriculture  special thanks
• U.S. Department of Interior  special thanks
• U.S. Forest Service  special thanks

Also Known As:

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | West Germany:16 (f) | Singapore:PG | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1968) | UK:12 (2003) | UK:A (1967) (cut) | USA:Approved (Certificate #21512) | Germany:12 (DVD rating) | Netherlands:14 (orginal rating)

Filming Locations:

Bishop, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Writer Tom Gries wouldn't sell this movie's film-script to the Paramount Pictures studio unless he got to direct this movie.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the fight between Will Penny and the Quint family, one of the brothers throws a knife into Penny's chest. A wire attached to the knife a very obvious.

Quotes:

Anse Howard:Save your money! Get you a spread of your own like me.
Will Penny:It wasn't money started you in the cattle business, Anse.
Anse Howard:Well, what do you think it was, Will?
Will Penny:More like a long rope and a hot iron!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Unforgiven (1992)

Soundtrack:

Lonely Rider, The

Authentic and intelligent

Charlton Heston is an aging cowboy in Will Gries' 1968 gritty Western Will Penny. This is not the West of larger than life heroes, men of rugged independence and strength, just ordinary men without glamor who have to struggle for a living in a tough, bitter, and lonely environment. Will is a loner, not a "tough" guy with a romanticized image, but he is a survivor. After one job comes to an end, Penny takes off to look for work along with two companions, Blue (Lee Majors), a young cow hand, and Dutchy (Anthony Zerbe), a more experienced worker. Along the way, after a dispute over an elk, Will and his friends are attacked by Quint (Donald Pleasance), the most demented preacher this side of Harry Powell (Night of the Hunter). When one of Quint's sons is killed, the preacher vows revenge and we know we haven't seen the last of him.

When Will inquires at a roadside inn about the nearest doctor for Dutchy who accidentally shoots himself, he meets Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett) and her young son Horace known as Button (Jon Gries), on their way to Oregon to find her husband. After leaving Dutchy in the care of a doctor, Will finds a job for the winter at the Flatiron Ranch as a line rider keeping squatters off the property. When he arrives at the line rider's cabin, however, he finds Catherine and her son living there after they were abandoned by their guide. When Will is suddenly attacked by the Quints and left to die in the cold, Catherine nurses him back to health and he soon develops a close attachment to Catherine and Button.

When Will realizes that he cannot force Catherine and HG to leave, he agrees to let them stay during the winter and they spend Christmas together and the story becomes both a tale of conflict with the Quints and his growing love for a married woman. Although we root for Will to overcome his reluctance to take risks, we know that Will has known nothing but handling cattle, cannot read or write, and has little self-confidence or belief that he can ever change. There are many familiar faces in Will Penny: Slim Pickens, Donald Pleasance, Lee Majors, Anthony Zerbe, and Bruce Dern. This outstanding ensemble cast produces a Western that is authentic and intelligent and is probably Heston's best performance of his career.

Interestingly, the film opened in the New York's R.K.O. Coliseum at Broadway and 181st Street, a neighborhood theater in which I spent many boyhood afternoons and even worked as an usher. The Coliseum was one of the most attractive movie theaters in New York and as described at the time, had "a lovely oval opening, surrounded with a wooden railing, from which it was possible to look down from the balcony onto the first floor". Like many movie palaces of my youth, it is gone now, but the memories remain.