magnificent final scene...

"anyone (besides me) ever notice that it showed up (in a swamp, but not on fire) in Scott and Boetticher's 'Comanche Station'? I wonder if it was a studio prop, and if Boetticher used it as a kind of link to 'Ride Lonesome'?"

I watched Ride Lonesome this afternoon and I'm watching Comanche Station right now. I just got to the scene your talking about and noticed the tree. I wonder if Budd had it made or something though because the one in CS seemed to be in to good of shape to be the exact same one from RL. Who knows. Still cool that he put that in there either way though.

“Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.” ~Samuel Adams

One of the reasons why this film stood a bit out of the crowd was precisely the character of Boone. Brigade was the rather typical dry lone ranger (he even had the dead-wife-to-revenge prop, when he started the "I had a wife once" speech, my eyes were rolling dangerously close to the edge of the sockets), the madam was kinda tough, but still just the madam, the bad guy was the bad guy (not really very present in the movie, actually), but Boone was one of the kind - the side kick who turns out to be ethically almost more straight than the main hero - and without this being a movie where the main focus is a vile hero. You expect Boone to shoot Brigade in the back (even more so if you've seen Seven Men from Now), he doesn't. You expect him to steal the much desired Billy and run away with him, he doesn't. You expect him to jump on the lady, he just tells her really warm and kind words. He even tells Brigade why he wants Billy, and why he thinks he needs Billy more than him, he saves Brigade's life, he helps him fight the much-feared Frank. At the point of the unaccomplished duel in the end, frankly, I could not understand the meaning of Brigade's actions anymore. So I was quite relieved when I saw him finally give up Billy, otherwise Brigade's character would have become totally incoherent, hence I wouldn't call the outcome of that duel a "twist". What I still don't understand, though, was why Brigade needed to feign that he wanted to fight Boone in the end. What was the point, apart from building up tension for the viewers, what was the "in-point" for that? Building some fear in Boone that, if he doesn't indeed become a decent fellow, Brigade will come and finish the fight?... Hm, I do suspect that that feigned duel in the end *was* a bit of a stretch.

And frankly, I liked Boone's reaction when he saw the smoke in the woods better than the final scene per se: "well, that figures...". That very brief sign of understanding was so warm. Plus, it was told in a half-amused tone, as in "yep, totally knew he'd do that", or "there you have it, the end of the story, let's move on now, guys".

Words, Mr. Sullivan, are precious things, and they are not to be tempered with!