An average movie

I wasn't sure what to expect from this flick but since it was Sam Peckinpah's directing debut, I was still eager to check it out. Eventually, even though it was a decent Western, it wasn't 'The Wild Bunch', that's for sure. As a matter of fact, this first movie was maybe educational for Peckinpah but, above all, it was a rather unpleasant experience and afterwards he vowed to always have script control on his future projects. I have to admit it, since I saw it on the BBC without subtitles, I didn't get all the details, but it was pretty obvious that the story was rather weak. I mean, it wasn't worthless, it had some potential and the characters were rather interesting but it was still too pedestrian for my taste. Also, I thought that the score was rather annoying. It was not bad but instead of underlining the action, quietly in background, it was very often very intrusive, at the foreground and it became rather distracting, but that wasn't a big issue. Eventually, it doesn't stand out from any other Westerns that was made back in those days and they made plenty of those. Anyway, to conclude, even though it is nothing really amazing, it remains an interesting directing debut and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Peckinpah's work.

6/10