WILL PENNY (1968)



WILL PENNY video artwork


CHARLTON HESTON.....Will Penny
JOAN HACKETT.....Catherine Allen
DONALD PLEASENCE.....Preacher Quint
LEE MAJORS.....Blue
BRUCE DERN.....Rafe Quint
BEN JOHNSON.....Alex
SLIM PICKENS.....Ike Walterstein
CLIFTON JAMES.....Catron
ANTHONY ZERBE.....Dutchy

Written and Directed by TOM GRIES
Produced by FRED ENGEL and WALTER SELTZER


REVIEW BY RENATA ADLER


"You ain't fightin' proper," a minor character says to Charlton Heston as the hero of Will Penny, which opened yesterday at the R.K.O. Colliseum, on Broadway and 181st Street, and other neighborhood theaters. "You're the one that's down," Heston replies.

The movie, which is set in Montana in the winter, shows cowboys as they probably were-mumbling, fairly foulmouthed, warmly dressed, sleeping uncomfortably in their underwear, ready to fight over a killed elk, eager to go to Kansas City to see an elephant---and the frontier it probably was, mean, bleak, sparsely populated with a few unattractive women and a few ragged packs of dangerous religious fanatics-one of whom, who is out to kill Will Penny, is played with terrifying piety by Donald Pleasence.

But for one scene too cruel for the story to support, and one scene in which the hero is taught Christmas carols too maudlin to believe, Will Penny might have been the best cowboy movie in some time. But by some mistaken model of artistic integrity---taken, probably from Shane, or some other movie better than Will Penny is---this movie has a realistically unhappy ending. It is simply not good enough to support that either.

The R.K.O. Coliseum is one of the most handsome movie theaters in New York. It is well kept, and it has a lovely oval opening, surrounded with a wooden railing, from which it is possible to look down from the balcony onto the first floor.



Review © 1968 THE NEW YORK TIMES. All Rights Reserved.

Video artwork © 1989 PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO. All Rights Reserved.

Title and logo designed by Karen Rappaport




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