Lonely are the Brave was released in 1962, yet it still seems totally modern-probably because it deals with so many issues that matter now: individual freedom versus authoritarian clampdowns, the criminalization of sanctuary for “illegal aliens,” ID cards, military helicopters in border manhunts, and an increasingly militarized and regimented America.Ībbey loved the desert, and hated unnecessary machines. Gena Rowlands plays the woman who loves the cowboy, Walter Matthau the bored sheriff who methodically tracks him, George Kennedy the prison guard who fails to break him, and Carroll O’Connor the deus ex machina who succeeds. What happens to him and to Whiskey, his magnificent, proud horse, is as tragic, as it is stupid, as it is inevitable. Always polite, always fair, always a “fuck you” to those above him, the brave cowboy eludes his pursuers and almost makes it to Mexico and freedom. Breaking into jail to see a friend, he attracts the attention of dogged cops, a vindictive sheriff, a one-armed Okinawa veteran, and a hot-shot military helicopter pilot, all of whom instinctively want to take him down.

Burns, a cowboy anarchist who carries no ID, respects no authority, and pays attention only to his friends and his horse. Its hero, flawlessly portrayed by Kirk Douglas, is John W.

Executive Action is an interesting, serious picture, but it’s stilted in comparison with Lonely are the Brave. It was written by Dalton Trumbo, a witch-hunted screenwriter who clearly loved and understood the genre, and directed by David Miller, whose career seems otherwise undistinguished, with the exception of Executive Action, another leftist feature written by Yordan. It’s based on a novel by Edward Abbey, celebrator of the desert and promoter of “eco-terrorism” in the never-filmed 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang.

Lonely are the Brave is something rare, and almost unique: a leftist American western.

Lonely are the brave cast