Ride in the Whirlwind - Region 1 DVD

Somehow, when people speak of the two existentialist Westerns that Monte Hellman made on a single trek into the desert in 1966, Ride in the Whirlwind never gets as much attention as The Shooting. All right, so it doesn't star Warren Oates (though it does have Harry Dean Stanton, Oates's clear successor as sainted American character actor), and Jack Nicholson's screenplay isn't as infatuated with arty enigma or coffeehouse-quaint dialogue as Adrien Joyce's Shooting script. But of the two, Ride arguably cuts deeper as a meditation on things Western, and it's surely the one that would bring nods of recognition from a Parnassian review board comprised of William S. Hart, Harry Carey, and the various casts of The Virginian.

Unforgettable, unbelievable, yet of course entirely believable Zen moment: H.D. Stanton, mere seconds before holding up the stagecoach, steps behind a rock to take a leak. --Richard T. Jameson