June 30 movie: Ride the High Country. Excellent Western by Sam Peckinpah. Stars Joel McCrea as an aging former lawman doing odd jobs and trying to reclaim his dignity, Randolph Scott as McCrea's old friend, and Mariette Hartley as a young woman who complicates matters.
It always makes me sad to see an older actor I love in some terrible movie (for example, Agnes Moorehead on Bewitched, or Joseph Cotten in all those cheap horror movies). So it was really nice to see Scott and especially McCrea working in such good roles. (This is one of the things I love about Quentin Tarantino. I can even forgive him for reviving John Travolta's career, because of Pam Grier and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown.) In Ride the High Country the old guys look unassuming, but anyone who doesn't take them seriously learns their mistake pretty fast.
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