Will Penny
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Movie Reviews of Will Penny
Movie Review: Will Penny
Summary: 5 Stars
Definitely a different role for Charlton Heston. The cast is excellent and the story is much more realistic than movies of that time. Most importantly, the title character has flaws and isn't the "superhero" one usually expects.Movie Review: Old Cowboy Tell
Summary: 5 Stars
Good cowboy story. Story of a over the hill cowboy riding the line. Cowboy things happen. One of Heston's best movies.
Movie Review: Hesten's favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
Very good movie and one of Heston's favorites. Not a "traditional" western, but one of my favorites. Well acted and entertaining.Movie Review: Realistic Western about an Aging Cowboy's Last Chance at Love & Family
Summary: 4 Stars
Year of Release: 1968
Writer/Director: Tom Gries
Country: USA
Runtime: 1 Hour 50 minutes
Locations: Bishop & Inyo County, California
THE PLOT: Charleton Heston plays loner Will Penny, an aging cowboy who takes a winter job riding line on a vast ranch. He runs afoul of a family of psychotic rawhiders who leave him to die in the wilderness. Half-dead, he stumbles back to the line rider's cabin where he is nursed to health by a woman (Joan Hackett) and her boy who are wintering there en route to Oregon to meet her homesteading husband. Penny discovers love and a sense of family for the first time in his nigh fifty years of life.
"Will Penny" gives the viewer a good peek at what it must have really been like to be a cowboy out West in the late 1800s. Needless to say, the lifestyle is anything but glamorous.
Most everything works great here: locations, cast, story, writing, etc. with three exceptions: The score is boring & dated. In the 60s there were numerous great Western scores that stood the test of time ("Duel at Diablo," "Bandolero!," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "MacKenna's Gold" and "The Magnificent Seven," to name a few), but the score to "Penny" is a badly-aged dud. (Then again, it DOES fit the film's main theme).
Also, the villains are somewhat contrived. Donald Pleasence is impressive as the over-the-top psycho patriarch of the rawhiding family and Bruce Dern is always reliable as a villain, but -- I don't know -- this whole side plot just seems tacked on to supply action and menace to a story that might have been better without it.
The heart of the story is Penny's first-time discovery of love and a sense of family. It's implied in the story that he was an orphan as a child and simply fell into the loner cowboy lifestyle to survive. He has never known true love or had a real sense of family. Before meeting Joan Hackett's character, Catherine, his experiences with women were limited to shallow hook-ups with prostitutes.
Penny discovers he has a knack for fatherhood and likes it. The boy clearly looks up to him and loves him.
It's almost as if God sees Penny's true noble character through all the grime and gruff cowboy exterior and throws him a pot of gold in the form of the love of Catherine and her boy. Will he take advantage of this opportunity of happiness and fulfillment, despite the risks? Will he even recognize it as an opportunity?
[SPOILER ALERT!! THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH REVEALS THE ENDING!!]
Unfortunately, even though he's a good man (generally speaking), Penny has no faith in love or life in general, no doubt because of his past experiences. Catherine gently points out that love will find a way, but Will insists that love cannot survive the cold harsh realities of life and aging, in particular in the uncaring Western wilderness. Thus Penny walks away from what is likely his last chance at love, fatherhood and family. Although this ending is realistic (not all experiences in life end on a happy note), it's frankly a bit sad. According to the film love does NOT conquer all and the viewer is left feeling a tad deflated. It goes without saying that this is NOT a life & faith affirming film. One's last impression of Penny is that he's a pathetic loser who lacks the brains and oomph to throw caution to the wind and take advantage of a great opportunity for happiness.
[END SPOILER]
FINAL ANALYSIS: I detract 1 Star for the pizzazz-less score, the forced villain subplot and the ending. Otherwise this is a stellar picture. Highly recommended if it sounds like your cup of java.
Movie Review: Almost perfect...
Summary: 4 Stars
"Will Penny" was the pet project of then untested director/writer Tom Gries. Charlton Heston was very taken with the script, but had hoped for an experienced director ala William Wyler to realize the film. In the end, Gries won the day, and did a laudable job. The film succeeds on many levels, although the climax is quite cliche, and poorly edited to boot.
But "Penny" is primarily about character development, and is a depiction of the severity of life in the West during the 19th century. Here it is very compelling.
Heston plays Will, an aging, illiterate cowboy, who is quite aware of his diminishing place in life. Nevertheless, his single source of pride is 'cowboying', and his bread and butter requires an itinerant, solitary lifestyle. He has never had anything in the way of culture, and never known a conventional love relationship with a woman. He is possessed of, by accident or design, a rather strong moral compass, which is evident in a strong work ethic, honesty, and kindness.
Almost simultaneously, Will runs afoul of some mean ol' boys (rawhiders), led by the completely unhinged Preacher Quint (Donald Pleasence doing the dirty work), and finds budding romance and family with a rather fetching and refined woman (the wonderful Joan Hackett) and her son. The particulars here are not terribly essential, except that the drama unfolds as Will contends with the vendetta of Quint, and agonizes over the 11th hour possibilty of love in his life. Heston delivers a superb performance, nearly being reduced to tears as he considers the life he never had, and the one he feels unfit to take on. He has seen the harshness of debilitating injury and death, and can't seem to reconcile his myopic sense of life with the optimistic picture Cath (Hackett) paints.
"Will Penny" ultimately offers stunning scenery, a superb score by David Raksin, top notch performances by Heston, Hacket, Pleasence, Anthony Zerbe, Clifton James, and Ben Johnson, and weaves fine human drama into an otherwise conventional Western script. It is not perfect, but it's a wonderful watch. It is said to be Heston's personal favorite performance.