TALL T (1957) Where are Randy and Hoppy when we need 'em?

If you were a boy in the '50s, you probably had the same cowboy heroes I did: Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and Randolph Scott. Of that chapped and be-chapped quartet, Scott (a sort of poor man's Gary Cooper but a darned good one) beat the others for playing flesh-and-blood characters. One of his best is as a small Arizona rancher in TALL T, a rather bleak tale by a young Elmore Leonard about abduction, murder and extortion in the Old West. Hiking back to his ranch after losing his horse in a bet, Scott is picked up by a stagecoach driver. Aboard are newlyweds Doretta (Maureen O'Sullivan) and Willard Mims, a smarmy bookkeeper who has married Doretta for her daddy’s bucks. A crew of marauding psychopaths led by Richard Boone holds up the stage, kills the driver and almost kills the others when the bookkeeper begs them to ransom his wife. Before riding off to collect, Boone kills Mims, and while he’s gone, Scott tricks and dispatches the two other henchmen. When Boone returns with the money, Scott outguns him. As Pat and Doretta walk arm-in-arm into the sunset, Scott says this odd line to the weeping widow, presumably his bride-to-be: "Come on, now. It's gonna be a nice day." (Trivia note: TALL T was directed by Bud Boeticher, who teamed with Scott on six other westerns, including COMANCHE STATION, RIDE LONESOME, BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE, DECISION AT SUNDOWN, and their first, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW.)