Watch West of the Pecos For Free

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

West Of The Pecos was the second of two Zane Grey novels that Robert Mitchum starred in for RKO before being drafted. He took the place of Tim Holt as RKO's movie cowboy because Holt was in military service. He even inherited Holt's romantic sidekick Richard Martin whom we all know as the ever popular Chito Gonzalez Bustamante Rafferty.Before Roy Bean went West Of The Pecos there was no law and order there and such that existed was in the hands of the infamous Sawtelle Brothers, Harry Woods and Perc Launders who head the vigilante committee. So these guys operate with impunity pretty much. But when they hold up the stagecoach and kill Bill Williams who is Mitchum's friend, Mitchum gets himself a mission.In the meantime meatpacking tycoon Thurston Hall is told by his doctor to get out in the good country and do some real exercise even if it's in the form of manual labor. So he packs off his daughter Barbara Hale and her French maid Rita Corday and leaves his lawyer Bruce Edwards who is Hale's intended and they move to a piece of ranch property in that area West Of The Pecos.Mitchum and Martin rescue the party when they're stranded in the desert and Hale has taken to wearing male drag the best to avoid unwanted attentions from the rough and ready and horny cowboys. A large part of the humor is due to Mitchum taking her for a man. A lot like some of the humor in Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn film Sylvia Scarlett.Of course Robert Mitchum went on to bigger and better things as he was shortly to be cast in The Story Of GI Joe and Tim Holt returned to making westerns with Richard Martin. West Of The Pecos is a nice B western with a good mix of action and humor.But when I watch this and the film Nevada I often wonder if Mitchum had not gotten the big break for The Story Of GI Joe would he have continued as a B picture western star. Watch Nevada and West Of The Pecos and judge for yourself.

This excellent Robert Mitchum/Barbara Hale western is equal parts of action, comedy and romance. There's enough characters running around doing stuff that one never gets bored. In a nutshell, Chicago city slickers go west to take over an old hacienda that's been abandoned for years. Of course there's outlaws, stage coach chases, gun play and all sorts of goings on. I rented this from Netflix because after visiting and photographing the Zane Grey Museum in Ohio I'm trying to watch as many of Zane Grey movies as possible. This flick is definitely worth renting.It was shot in Lone Pine California where many Hollywood westerns were shot. It seems Barbara Hale convinced the director to employ a guy she was sweet on, Bill Williams. He isn't around much in the movie but apparently he was around enough behind the scenes that Barbara managed to sink her hooks into the guy. They ended up married until his death and had three kids. One of the kids was William Katt, the actor.

I encountered this little B-Western in its natural habitat, as the bottom half of a double-bill on the big screen, and enjoyed it enormously. 'West of the Pecos' has its perfunctory genre moments, such as the 'dying cowboy' scene and the final shoot-out and siege, but at heart it's a cross-dressing comedy, based around the masquerade of star Barbara Hale in boy's clothing and the consequences that ensue when 'he' crosses the path of amiable but unobservant cowboy Robert Mitchum. It's not exactly intellectually demanding -- true to the tradition of farce, Mitchum, as Pecos Smith, discovers the youngster's true sex only when her long hair falls out of her hat, despite having rescued her from drowning and carried her soaking wet in his arms from the river! -- but the comic potential is brought out to the fullest extent, while the spitfire secondary romance between the French girl and the half-Irish Mexican sidekick provides a very funny counterpoint.It has to be said that the hilarity subsides somewhat once the sexual confusion is sorted out -- like Pecos, we rather miss the tomboy 'young squirt' -- and all the loose ends are tidied away with implausibly convenient ease for the finale. But I came out of this one with a broad grin from ear to ear and an added bounce to my step, in the awareness of having been thoroughly entertained. It's silly but it's fun.

I saw this film many years go at the local picture house in Birmingham. Can't wait until it comes back on television.I think Barbara Hale played her part very well. Also, her maid was also a good addition to the plot. I also think Pecos's side-kick gave a good backing.Hope they put it back on bbc soon.