Gene Rutherford

Hollywood legend Charlton Heston stars as Will Penny, an aging cowboy on a hard-luck streak. He's out of work, out of money, and staked out to die in the desert by a gang of ruthless outlaws. Moments before death, Will is taken in by a beautiful young woman named Catherine ( Joan Hackett), who is heading west with her young son to join her husband. As Catherine nurses Will back to health, he catches a glimpse of a lifestyle he's never known. Suddenly, Will has two more problems to deal with: he's in love with another man's wife, and the outlaw gang is on its way back to finish him off...

Will has two problems to deal with: he's in love with another man's wife, and the outlaw gang is on its way back to finish him off...

Otto Preminger directs this period drama set in 1940s Georgia, the story of an unscrupulous -- and racist -- landowner (Michael Caine) who sets out to steal valuable property from a pair of hard-working sharecroppers (John Phillip Law and Robert Hooks). One of the farmers is white, but the other is black, prompting the Ku Klux Klan to meddle in both men's affairs. Diahann Carroll, Beah Richards, Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda co-star.

Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by a husbandless woman and her young son.