Will Penny

Will Penny is an aging cowboy who takes work on a large ranch, riding the boundaries of the property in search of trespassers and squatters. When he returns to his cabin in the high mountains, he finds it occupied by Catherine Allen, a woman travelling toward Oregon with her young son after her guide abandoned them. With the harsh mountain winter closing in, he is unwilling to turn mother and child out, and the three agree to share the cabin until spring. Over the months, the hostility between the lonely cowboy and the woman gives way to affection.

Tom Gries directed and wrote the screenplay, working from a story by William Maxwell, and the film stands first in the chronological list of his five directed features. Charlton Heston plays Will Penny, Joan Hackett plays Catherine, and Donald Pleasence, Lee Majors, Bruce Dern and Ben Johnson appear among a credited cast of twenty-two. Paramount produced the western, which runs 110 minutes.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7 out of 10 from around 5,700 votes, and on TMDB it is rated 6.7 out of 10 from 121 votes, indicating a modest but durable reputation with viewers. Its budget was 1 million dollars.