The Shooting

The Shooting follows a former prospector, Willett Gashade, and his partner Coley, who agree to escort a young woman across the desert after she turns up at their camp. They do not know why she is travelling or where she is really going, and her unpredictable behaviour soon makes them doubt her story. Their unease grows when a gunman named Billy Spear joins the party, and it becomes clear that the journey is not a simple escort job.

Monte Hellman directed the film, his second feature after The Terror, working from a screenplay by Carole Eastman and producing alongside Jack Nicholson. Warren Oates plays Willett, with Will Hutchins as Coley, Millie Perkins as the Woman and Nicholson as Billy Spear. Shot in the Utah desert on a modest scale, the film runs 82 minutes and was released in June 1966.

The film sits among the revisionist westerns of its era, marked by spare dialogue and an atmosphere of uncertainty. On IMDb it holds 6.4/10 from around 7,300 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.2/10 from 143 votes. A smaller group of critics rated it considerably higher, at 8.2/10 from 20 reviews, a gap that suggests the film has found more favour with reviewers than with general audiences.