Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966)

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Chuck Connors plays Jonas Trapp, a cowboy that falls in love with a beautiful, but high tone, woman Jessie Larkin(Kathryn Hays). Jessie's snobbish aunt warns her of stepping down to marry. She fakes a pregnancy to seal the deal. Jonas finally gets tired of living off of his wife's family money and decides to leave her. Trapp becomes a successful buffalo hunter and after having some wealth he wants to reunite with his wife. Its been over ten years, would she feel the same about him? Before he can find out, Jonas is warned by three men to not try and see her; he is beaten, robbed and branded before being left for dead. The buffalo hunter wants revenge and things get ugly.This movie was not well received. And it is a good chance that Connors' fans wanted more out of this western. Even a well rounded cast of named stars couldn't make the film more than a mediocre dust buster. Also featured: Michael Rennie, Claude Akins, Joan Blondell, Gary Merrill and Gloria Grahame. You will also recognize Bill Bixby, Paul Fix and even Jamie Farr as the blacksmith.

Ride Beyond Vengeance casts Chuck Connors as a returning buffalo hunter returning to his wife after an eleven year absence. Sounds a whole lot like the plot premise for the Iliad and Connors does go through some trials just like Ulysses did.Eleven years earlier Connors married Kathryn Hays who faked a pregnancy to get her aunt Ruth Warrick to consent to the wedding. Hays is a few steps up the social scale from Connors. Anyway he hauls out and says he'll make a fortune and return.But like Ulysses he stays away and on his return is set upon and actually branded with a running iron. The three who do it are a pair of bottom feeding sadists Bill Bixby and Claude Akins and also Michael Rennie who's a rich man courting Hays because he and everyone else think her husband is dead.Connors ain't dead and when he wakes up he's going to take care of business the way Ulysses took care of all of Penelope's prospective suitors.This no frills B western has a fine supporting cast to Connors and Hays. In very telling bits are Joan Blondell as a bordello madam and Gloria Grahame as an unfaithful wife having an affair with younger Bill Bixby. It's a flashback to the Forties and Fifties when Grahame was the big screen's number one trollop.As for Bixby and Akins the two of them are incredible studies in villainy. Akins who in his big screen career played some of the biggest low life villains ever really hits rock bottom here. He overacts outrageously, but all to good effect.Bixby is the first one who Connors catches up with and his devolution as a human being may contain his finest big screen performance. Later on Frank Gorshin in a small bit himself gives a description of Bixby's final moments that will unnerve you for days.Ride Beyond Vengeance is one brutal and savage western which no way would have made it in the days of those cowboy heroes for Republic. This is one western recommended highly for adults and forbidden for little kids.

Returning home after toiling eleven years as a buffalo hunter in order to to provide for his rich, estranged wife, Chuck Conners (in a terrific performance) is beaten, branded, and robbed of his life savings by banker/gambler Michael Rennie, psychotic dandy Bill Bixby, and drunken cowboy Claude Akins. (and Akins imaginary friend!) Needless to say that Chuck's infuriated when he finds out that Rennie is courting his wife.Ride Beyond Vengeance is uniquely bookended by modern scenes of a visiting census taker being told the story by a bartender, in the exact place where Conners' vengeance went down. It gives the unfolding events both a feel of historical significance and a sense of western mythology.Co-produced by game-show impresario Mark Goodson, this is stark, mean film, truly top-notch in terms of characterization and story. Anyone who thinks the Italians had a monopoly on hard-boiled, violent westerns in the sixties really should see this!Bixby is a lot of fun to watch, especially in the scene where he's confronted by Conners on a lonely road and made to squirm. Frank Gorshin's description of the aftermath is incredible!An exciting climax features one helluva rowdy fight between Between Chuck and Claude Akins.I highly recommend this!

This movie is in one word, "Classic!", the characters are very memorable, and it portrays a quality and originality that you do not find in movies anymore! The author of this story, obviously knows how to write a story, that keeps the viewer mesmerized! I would recommend this movie to anyone!