Will Penny

1967
Approved
1h 48m

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

5.4K

YOUR RATING

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by a husbandless woman and her young son.

Play trailer3:10

1 Video

99+ Photos

Classical Western Drama Romance Western

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son.Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son.Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

5.4K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win

Videos1

Trailer 3:10

Official Trailer

Photos155

+ 147

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Real antique rifles and pistols were rented as props instead of using studio stock props, in order to give this movie greater authenticity.

Goofs
Throughout the movie, Blue (played by Lee Majors) owns and drives a wagon. After the cattle drive is over, he drives his wagon away with his friend Dutchy riding with him. Will Penny (Charlton Heston) and Blue use the wagon to haul Dutchy to the doctor after he is wounded. In the final fight scene, Will and Blue use the wagon to attack the raw-hiders in the line shack allowing Will to jump onto the roof to pour the sulfur down the chimney.

Yet in the concluding scene, Will, Blue and Dutchy ride off on horseback leaving the wagon behind with horses still attached to it.

Quotes
Will Penny: [to Catherine] It's just a case of too soon old and too late smart.

Connections
Featured in Biography: Charlton Heston: For All Seasons (1995)

Soundtracks
The Lonely Rider
Music by David Raksin
Lyrics by Robert Wells
Sung by Don Cherry

User reviews79

Review

Featured review

8/10

Touching and faithful adult western

If any western that I have seen feels authentic to the old west it is "Will Penny". The Inyo County, California locations are wonderful and the cowboys at work scenes are refreshingly honest.

The basic storyline serves as a template to work more on character development and the cast (full of western stalwarts) do not disappoint.

Charlton Heston as Will Penny is on great form as the vulnerable, middle aged man of the plains. He is a little backward but unfailingly truthful and decent. He and his friends "Blue" and "Dutchy" represent the best principles of old west comradeship and his approach to Mrs Allen and her son "H.G" shows with tenderness what he has craved to have all his life but knows it is too late to embrace.

I found Donald Pleasence a bit over the top as the evil "Preacher Quint", but his portrayal is entertaining if nothing else. Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens and Lee majors all do a good job in support and Joan Hackett is completely convincing as the lone mother in search of a better life.

Very much a film for those viewers who like to experience, feel and be touched by a well written story and its characters.