These Thousand Hills

These Thousand Hills casts Don Murray as a young cowboy who arrives in Montana broke but with an idea. Rather than have cattle feed on the open range in winter left to the elements, he wants to grow and store hay for winter feed. In order to do this he romances two women, banker's niece Patricia Owens and saloon girl Lee Remick. Murray's both a hard worker and a fast worker.

This film highlights a growing trend in the Fifties toward adult westerns. They wouldn't yet show it on television, but that Lee Remick is a prostitute is not left to any imagination. In fact even though Remick gave Murray the seed money for his ranch, Murray then objects to pal Stuart Whitman marrying one in Remick's friend Jean Willes.

And Murray's attentions to Remick among other things have made him a bad enemy in saloon owner Richard Egan. Basically you have all the ingredients of the story of These Thousand Hills.

The film really belongs to both Murray and Lee Remick who gives quite a portrayal of a battered woman, again most unusual for any picture in the Fifties let alone a western.

As entertainment the film still holds up well today, but I'd keep it from the littlest ones.