Director Monte Hellman struck lucky three times. In the first place French critics took such a shining to this disjointed elliptical western that they tabbed it a work of existential genius. Then Jack Nicholson, who only has a small part, became a global star and it picked up a second head of steam. And now, with grief porn the latest craze thanks to the likes of Hamnet (2025) and Wuthering Heights (2026) I reckon it’s worth reassessment. But not for that wallowing in grief aspect so popular these days, but for the way genuine grief works its way out in cantankerous maddening fashion.
You’d have thought the performance of Millie Perkins would have been highlighted long before now for its feminism. Her un-named woman runs contrary to the notion of the female star in a western. She doesn’t come on all sexy in a Raquel Welch fashion, nor does she fall victim to a predatory male. But she is a heck of a creation.
She doesn’t play by any of the man-made rules in this male-dominated world. She gets what she wants by foul means and she doesn’t give a hang about whose feelings she tramples underfoot. She’s not interested in seduction, nor in finding a man, so strike out any thoughts of sex or romance, and she’s domineering, rude and contrary.
Given the western is weighted down with enigma, you have to work hard to find out what it’s all about and what’s she’s after. And her introduction tells you she’s trouble. She kills her own horse so she can appear to two cowboys running a defunct mine as a woman needing help. The younger Coley (Will Hutchins) would be easily duped by any woman with an ounce of the smarts. The older Willett Gashade (Warren Oates) is less easily led, though when the woman offers $500 if they help her reach the nearest town, they’re ready to oblige.
But she wants to make haste, while Willett wants to ensure they are equipped for the journey, so saddling up an extra mule to carry their supplies. But a mule slows them down, so she finds a way to stampede it off. And every now and then she lets off a random shot, Willett working out she’s trying to attract someone’s attention. The someone turns out to be gunslinger Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson). When she insists on going off-trail Gashade works out she’s hunting for someone.
That’s another elliptical moment. She’s hunting the killer of her son. Even though it was an accident, she wants revenge.
And that’s the grief spelled out in a variety of ways but never with the usual emotional baggage, not even a tear. Eventually, we’re in Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) territory where men are going mad. Here, they keep going after their horses die and trek over desolate merciless country until they find their quarry, who turns out to be Gashade’s brother.
Turns out, too, she hardly needs her entourage. She finishes off her nemesis while Spear and Gashade struggle behind. She only needed the men for their tracking skills.
So what we have instead of the existential is something considerably more solid and worth far more than falling in with some arthouse accolade. This is both an exceptional study of grief and an exceptional study of a woman, possibly the first in the feminist line if you discount Barbara Stanwyck who still, generally, was better off with a man at her side.
All her deriding of the men, her mental cruelty, her whimsical actions, make every bit of sense when you realize these are all expressions of grief. Except for her murderous intent, she’s almost stoical in her grief, never allowing wanton emotion to get in the way, and even when turning tearful might work in winning men over she doesn’t give in to the temptation. She can twist Coley round her little finger anyways and she knows how to handle Gashade, teaching him in no uncertain terms who’s boss.
In some respects Monte Hellman (Ride the Wild Whirlwind, 1966) is the inheritor of the Budd Boetticher mantle, purveyor of lean westerns short on running time with a principled hero, here read heroine. But Hellman lacks Boetticher’s compositional artistry and could do with putting some more work into the storytelling department.
If you’ve come looking for the Jack Nicholson of Chinatown (1973) you’ll be disappointed. He’s hardly in it, though he is an exemplar of that mantra in The Housemaid (2025) of teeth being a privilege. Warren Oates (The Wild Bunch, 1969) is a better bet, providing a foretaste of his grizzly characters to come.
But Millie Perkins (Wild in the Streets, 1968) tears up the screen. From her bold introduction to the savage conclusion she presents a vivid characterization of a woman expunging her grief with violence. Written by Carole Eastman (Five Easy Pieces, 1970).
Well worth a look.
The Magnificent 60s 
Found this:
“The working title of the film was Gashade. Although there is a 1966 copyright statement on the film for Santa Clara Productions, the film was not registered for copyright at the time of its release. However, the film was registered for copyright by Santa Clara Productions on 4 Feb 1982 and assigned the number PA-131-810. The opening of the film, in which “Coley” describes “Coin’s” flight and “Leland’s” death, is told in flashbacks, but because they take place at night or from the viewpoint of Coley’s tent, the screen is dark, rendering the action almost indecipherable.
According to the HR review, the idea for The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind (see above), was germinated when Jack Nicholson and Monte Hellman sought funds from Roger Corman to produce a screenplay they had written. Corman, who thought the project was too risky, suggested instead that Nicholson and Hellman film two westerns back-to-back. According to a 16 May 1971 NYT article, in 1965, Hellman and Nicholson proceeded to film The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind over a seven-week period in Kanab, UT. Both films were funded by Corman, directed by Hellman, produced by Nicholson and Hellman, featured Nicholson and Millie Perkins and were photographed by Gregory Sandor. Although he is not credited onscreen, Hellman, a member of the film editors’ union, edited both films, according to the NYT article.
The NYT article noted that once the films were competed, Hellman and Nicholson took them to film festivals in the United States, France, Germany, England and Edinburgh, Scotland. Although no American distributor was interested, Hellman and Nicholson were successful in selling them to a European distributor. However, because the European distributor went bankrupt before he could retrieve the film cans from French customs, the films remained in customs for over a year and a half until Hellman and Nicholson were able to reclaim them and sell them to another distributor. In mid-1967, Corman sold the films to American distributor Walter Reade, Jr. in order to recoup his negative costs. According to a 7 Jan 1972 DV article, Reade, who thought the films too difficult to sell theatrically, sold them to television stations. In Jan 1969, WTTV television in Indianapolis, IN, acquired the films for broadcast. In 1971, Jack H. Harris Enterprises bought the distribution rights to The Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind, and according to a Jun 1971 DV news item, Favorite Films acquired the rights to distribute them in Western states.
Many of the reviewers commented that The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind were “existential Westerns” because they lacked character motivation and featured a meager story line. The NYT article described the films as mixing “the myths of the western—the search, the chase, the stranger, the unfriendly mountains and too absolute sky—with something bleaker and more dangerous. They are sparse, austere, stripped of all unnecessary language, stripped and flayed until there is nothing left but white bones drying in the sun.” The HR reviews lauded the films’ “magnificent style,” and the LAHExam reviewer praised Hellman’s films as “a trick of light.” The Shooting marked the first collaboration between Hellman and actor Warren Oates, who went on to star in three other Hellman films. The Shooting, along with Ride in the Whirlwind, marked Nicholson’s debut as a producer.”
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Thanks very much for that. I didn’t know anything at all about the background to this picture so you’ve given me a great insight. I knew the picture had been sold to TV in the US but didn’t realize it was for syndication rather than the networks. I always wondered why Hellman got such a good rep in the UK when it came to his later pictures and this explains it.
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Brian, I enjoyed your different take on THE SHOOTING(filmed 1965, released 1966) an offbeat Western movie if there ever was one, and the same can be almost said for its companion movie RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND(filmed 1965, released 1966). I first viewed THE SHOOTING on Memphis, Tennessee’s WREC Channel 3 EARLY MOVIE in 1973 and at that time I had never viewed a Western movie quite like it. I had seen RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND a couple of weeks before on the same WREC Channel 3 EARLY MOVIE, but it is more of a traditional, but non-traditional revisionist Western, if that makes any sense. Anyway, THE SHOOTING was no Randolph Scott Western movie not even the ones directed by Budd Boetticher and written by Burt Kennedy. THE SHOOTING was even more spare, so to speak, but still very different from any Western I had ever watched up until that time. Although, it was different it still kept my interest in a captivating way. It mixed the traditional myths of the Western movie with something bleaker and more dangerous. This wasn’t a run of the mill Western movie for its time.
Writer Carole Eastman, under the name Adrien Joyce, can be thanked for the creation of the mysterious woman character which Millie Perkins portrayed. I like your take on the idea of grief and revenge by this very mysterious “Woman of the West.”
Do you plan on writing about RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND? Also, the behind-the-scenes story of these two Monte Hellman Western movies is quite a story in itself.
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I’ve got Ride in the Whirlwind which I liked a lot less slated for tomorrow.
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