Will Penny

Will Penny is a 1968 American Western film written and directed by Tom Gries and starring Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett and Donald Pleasence. The picture was based upon an episode of the 1960 Sam Peckinpah television series The Westerner starring Brian Keith called "Line Camp," also written and directed by Tom Gries. Heston mentioned that this was his favorite film in which he appeared. The supporting cast features Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, and Slim Pickens. Plot A trail drive is coming to an end, with the resulting payoff of the now out-of-work trail hands. A trio of punchers, Blue, Dutchy, and an aging Will Penny decide to drift south and avoid the oncoming winter. Will trades his position riding on the train with the cattle to a young cowboy who wants to visit his dying father and tells Will there may be work at the Flat Iron ranch. One morning Blue is about to fire at a bull elk near a river bottom. Mysteriously, the elk is shot by an unseen party. As Blue and Dutchy move in to claim the elk anyway, they encounter the shooter, a "rawhider" and his family. The two groups contest the right to the meat. Gunfire erupts, and Will shows up, shoots and kills one of the rawhider's sons. The rawhider swears a biblical revenge. Dutchy accidentally wounds himself in the exchange, so the trio head out to find a doctor and first come to a nearby trail store, where they encounter Catherine Allen and her son Horace. After getting a few drinks of whiskey they move on to the nearest town and leave Dutchy at the doctor. Blue decides to look for a job in the town, while Will proceeds alone. He comes across a horse without a rider and locates a dead cowboy, thrown from his saddle. Will turns the body over to the Flat Iron ranch that the cowboy rode for and is offered a job. Will hires on to ride the far-off boundaries of Flat Iron ranch over the winter. As he arrives at the upper range, he finds Catherine and Horace staying in the line-rider's cabin after being abandoned by their guide. He rides away to inspect the fence line, warning them that they must be gone when he returns in one week.