Ride the High Country (released internationally as Guns in the Afternoon) is a 1962 American CinemaScope Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Mariette Hartley. The supporting cast includes Edgar Buchanan, James Drury, Warren Oates, and Ron Starr. The film's script, though credited solely to veteran TV screenwriter N. B. Stone Jr., was – according to producer Richard E. Lyons – almost entirely the work of Stone's friend and colleague, William S. Roberts, and Peckinpah himself.
In 1992, Ride the High Country was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant
The film featured Scott's final screen performance.
Plot
In the early years of the 20th century, an aging ex-lawman, Steve Judd, is hired by a bank to transport gold from a high country mining camp to the town of Hornitos, California. Six miners were recently murdered trying to transport their gold on the one trail leading down from the crest of the Sierra Nevada. In his prime, Judd was a tough and respected lawman, but now his threadbare clothes and spectacles serve as reminders that he is long past his prime. Judd enlists the help of his old friend and partner Gil Westrum to guard the gold transfer. Gil, who had been making his living passing himself off as a legendary sharpshooter named The Oregon Kid, enlists the help of his young sidekick, Heck Longtree.
Judd, Gil and Heck hit the trail on horseback toward Coarsegold, a mining camp located in the Sierra foothills, north of the town of Fresno. Judd doesn't realize that Gil and Heck are planning to steal the gold for themselves — preferably with Judd's help, but without it if necessary. Along the way they stop for the night at the farm of Joshua Knudsen and his daughter Elsa. Knudsen is a domineering religious man who warns against those who "traffic in gold" and trades Bible verses with Judd at the dinner table. That night, Elsa and Heck secretly meet in the moonlight for conversation, but the elder Knudsen catches them and pulls her away. Back at the house, he admonishes and slaps her; even though her father had only met Heck that evening, "I can see that the boy is no good"- just as all her other boyfriends were no good. Elsa replies "I promised the next time you hit me you'd be sorry for it!"
The next morning, after the three men had left on the trail to the mining camp, she catches up to them and asks whether she can keep them company on the way. She announces that she is also going to Coarsegold, to marry a miner named Billy Hammond. He had previously proposed to her when he was in town, although she had not accepted his proposal back then. Along the way, Elsa and Heck flirt, and at one time he tries to force himself on her. Heck is stopped by Judd, and then punched by both Judd and Gil. He later apologizes to Elsa.
When they reach the mining camp, the two older men set up a tent to weigh and accept gold dust in individual bags for which they give receipts of deposit, with safe transport guaranteed by the bank. Having brought her mother's wedding dress with her, Elsa and Billy are married in the camp's brothelthe only substantial building thereby a real retired judge who happens to be at the camp. The madam and prostitutes serve as "maid of honor" and "flower girls". Then Billy forces Elsa to a room in the brothel for their wedding night even though she emphatically states "No, Billy, not here!"; he strikes her when she refuses to obey him. By now intoxicated and passed out, he fails to prevent his disreputable brothers Elder, Sylvus, Jimmy, and Henry from entering the room and attempting to rape her. Outside, hearing her screams, Judd and Heck rescue Elsa from the brothel and the Hammonds and let her stay in their tent that night.
The next day, the miners of the camp organize a "miner's trial" (without any need for a judge) to force the outsiders to return Elsa to her "legal" husband; because they are outnumbered, former lawman Judd agrees to the miner's demands as "that's the law in places like this". However, Gill wakes up the drunken judge and demands to see his license (which in fact is duly issued in Sacramento), and then keeps it. He forces the judge at gunpoint to agree that when asked if the judge has a license to marry, he must say no (because Gill has it). The ruse works and the three men are allowed to leave the camp with the gold and Elsa.