In 1966, as the old Hollywood was giving way to the new, underground filmmaker Monte Hellman directed two small-scale Westerns back-to-back: The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind. Both films were produced by Roger Corman, the King of “B Movies,” and both starred Corman’s favorite leading man: Jack Nicholson (who also wrote the latter film). Produced on a shoestring budget in the Utah desert, the films share similar themes, crews, and actors, as well as a dreamy story structure that hinted at the genre-twisting, existential dramas that would dominate the 1970s. Far from your father’s John Wayne movie, The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind deconstruct traditional Western tropes of heroism and masculinity and re-frame them for the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll generation.
‘The Shooting’ and ‘Ride in the Whirlwind’ Made the Most of Their Limitations

In The Shooting, bounty hunter Willett Gashade (Warren Oates) and his slow-witted friend, Coley (Will Hutchins), are hired by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) to accompany her through the desert. Along the way, they encounter a black-clad gunslinger, Billy Spear (Nicholson). Billy antagonizes Coley, who is in love with the woman despite her icy demeanor. Willett, meanwhile, thinks the woman might have hired Billy to kill them. In Ride in the Whirlwind, cowboys Wes (Nicholson) and Vern (Cameron Mitchell) find themselves at the remote hideout of Blind Dick (Harry Dean Stanton) and his gang of robbers, who have just ripped off a stagecoach. When a posse fires upon them, Wes and Vern make a run for it, taking refuge in a nearby farm. Despite their innocence, Wes and Vern take the rancher, Evan (George Mitchell), his wife, Catherine (Katherine Squire), and their daughter, Abigail (Perkins), hostage as the vigilantes search for them.

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Production on The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind lasted all of six weeks, with Hellman and Nicholson replicating the back-to-back filming method they had previously employed in the Philippines on the thrillers Flight to Fury and Backdoor to Hell. Suffice it to say, this production model was well suited to Corman, who liked to make movies fast and cheap. With their small casts and limited locations, The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind wear their low budgets on their sleeves, foregoing the epic scope of John Ford and Anthony Mann for a more intimate approach. But that’s not the only way in which Hellman distinguishes his two films from more traditional Westerns. Hellman tells these stories in a jagged, anti-narrative fashion, filled with wandering conversations and surreal flights of fancy that mirror the fractured psyche of the characters. The results are two of the earliest examples of the acid Western, which would come to fruition with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970 cult classic El Topo.
‘The Shooting’ and ‘Ride in the Whirlwind’ Paved the Way for Revisionist Westerns

The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind share many narrative and thematic similarities, from their focus on manhunts to their bleak climaxes. They also both focus on antiheroes, examining morality in shades of gray as opposed to black-and-white. The ethical ambiguity and valorization of outlaws predates 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, which, along with The Graduate that same year, blew the gates off the Hollywood studio system, ushering in a new generation of filmmakers eager to tell more personal, complex stories. The films also predicted the rise of revisionist Westerns like The Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson, which deconstructed the genre and took critical views of the myths, legends, and ethos that defined it.
Unfortunately, it took a long time for most audiences to appreciate what Hellman had achieved with The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind, as both films sat on the shelf for many years without theatrical distribution. After making the festival rounds, they played in Paris to great acclaim before finally being sold to American television by producer Walter Reade Jr. It wasn’t until Nicholson achieved fame with Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces (scripted by Carole Eastman, who also wrote The Shooting) that the films finally got attention from U.S. audiences, which only grew thanks to pristine restorations by The Criterion Collection. Better late than never.

The Shooting

Release Date

October 23, 1966

Runtime

82 Minutes

Director

Monte Hellman

Writers

Carole Eastman

Warren Oates

Willett Gashade

Will Hutchins

Coley Boyard