This marvellous winter western contains a fine performance by Charlton Heston as the grizzled lone rider of the title, who confronts the memorable Joan Hackett and is uncertain of how to break the tough habits of a lifetime: "I'm a cowboy. I don't know nuthin' else." Director Tom Gries, aided off screen by his friend Sam Peckinpah, never hit these heights again: this is unquestionably one of the great westerns, invariably overlooked, and marred only by the florid performance of an ill-cast Donald Pleasence. The photography by Lucien Ballard - who was also responsible for the look of Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and Henry Hathaway's True Grit - is particularly outstanding, as is the fine score from Laura's David Raksin.

Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a job on a ranch which requires him to ride the line of the property looking for trespassers or, worse, squatters. He finds that his cabin in the high mountains has been appropriated by a woman whose guide to Oregon has deserted her and her son. Too ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter winter of the mountains sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; the lonely man and woman soon forget their mutual hostility and start developing a deep love for one another.