This first-rate Western draws its riveting tale and power from the interaction of finely drawn roles as well as adventure and action . Good and enjoyable western with a great casting and a sensational starring , teenager Gary Grimes , in a coming-of-age story . This exciting film packs Western action , go riding , thrills , emotion , shoot-outs and results to be quite entertaining . It contains a magnificent main cast as Gary Grimes , Billy Green Bush facing off bandits and a tough land baron ; in addition , a top-drawer support cast as Luke Askew , Bo Hopkins , Geoffrey Lewis , Royal Dano , Gregory Sierra , Matt Clark , Jerry Gatlin , Anthony James and film debut of Charles Martin Smith . This is a nice flick containing a little bit of charming humor about naively adolescent , friendship , violence in Sam Peckinpah style and sense of comradeship among people . It's a sympathetic western , with a beautiful cinematography , glamorous scenery and great soundtrack . It deals with a young adolescent farmboy named Ben Mockridge (Gary Grimes) who always wanted to be a cowhand talks a two-fisted trail boss (Billy Green Bush)into hiring him on a cattle drive . Soon after, though, the teen finds out existence on the range is neither what he expected nor what he's been wishing . As Ben Mockridge feels life in a Wild West farm town has nothing better to offer , as he only enjoys horse-cart racing with his friends , so he begs cattle company owner Frank Culpepper to engage him as youngest cowboy for a long cattle trail and his mummy barely notices . He then is hired for the dangerous journey that turns out to be worst than expected , suffering hard-working activities , stampede , robbing , gun-play and many other things .
Formidable Western full of action , fascinating drama , cattle round-up , crossfire and fabulous performances . It's a wonderful adventure film format "western" itinerant, filled with entertaining events , danger and life lessons . This exciting film packs good feeling as friendship , faithfulness , companionship and violent as well as touching scenes on the final . The screenplay is plain and simple, with a conventional plot , but ultimately gets overcome . Gorgeous outdoors with decent production design by Carl Anderson and Walter Scott who takes a secondary role . Filmmaker gets to remain the Western emotion , moving scenes and suspense until the ending . The young starring player Gary Grimes (Summer of 42, Class of 44)is phenomenal , his role as an ingenuous teenager is top-notch , he performed similar character as a naive cowboy in other films (The Spikes gang and Marshal Cahill) ; however , he virtually disappeared without much trace and nowadays is retreated and working as a teacher . And there shows off Charles Martin Smith at the beginning of the movie , both of whom played together in ¨The Spikes gang ¨as two young gunfighters , Charles will have too much success on the future as a prestigious secondary (Starman, Untouchables) and a good filmmaker .
Cool cinematographer Ralph Woolsey prowls his camera splendidly through some wonderfully seedy , deserted and rocky settings . Evocative and atmospheric musical score by the great Jerry Goldsmith. This agreeable Western was well directed by Dick Richards , recreating compellingly this thrilling story ; being debut of Richards and whose best movie resulted to be ¨Farewell my lovely¨ . Furthermore , before entering the film industry , Dick Richards was a contributing photographer for Life magazine , subsequently turning into filmmaking . Dick is a good craftsman who has directed a few films but of great quality , such as this ¨The Culpepper Cattle¨ , ¨Death valley¨ , ¨Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins ¨ and ¨March or die¨ which along with ¨The Culpepper Cattle Co¨ were both financed by the great producer of blockbusters Jerry Bruckheimer . Besides , Dick found the script for 'Tootsie' and co-produced it with Sydney Pollack . Rating : above average , essential and indispensable watching for Western genre fans .
