Amoeba Music

In the mid-sixties, the maverick American director Monte Hellman conceived of two westerns at the same time. Dreamlike and gritty by turns, the two films would prove their maker's adeptness at brilliantly deconstructing genre. As shot back-to-back for famed producer Roger Corman, they feature overlapping casts and crews, including Jack Nicholson in two of his meatiest early roles. The films—The Shooting, about a motley assortment of loners following a mysterious wanted man through a desolate frontier, and Ride in the Whirlwind, about a group of cowhands pursued by vigilantes for crimes they did not commit—are rigorous, artful, and wholly unconventional journeys into the American West.

The Shooting

In this eerie, existential western directed by Monte Hellman and written by Carole Eastman (Five Easy Pieces), Warren Oates and Will Hutchins play a bounty hunter and his sidekick who are talked by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) into leading her into the desert on a murkily motivated revenge mission. Things are further complicated by the addition to their crew of an enigmatic drifter (Jack Nicholson) who seems to delight in sadistically toying with the two men. Hellman's singular odyssey is a vision of the weird old west unlike any other, a spare and challenging work leading to a provocative ending.

Ride in the Whirlwind

Working from a thoughtful script by Jack Nicholson, Monte Hellman fashioned this moody and tense western about a trio of cowhands who are mistaken for robbers and must outrun and hide from a posse of bloodthirsty vigilantes in the wilds of Utah. A grim yet gripping tale of chance and blind frontier justice, Ride in the Whirlwind is brought to life by a compelling cast, including Nicholson, Cameron Mitchell, Millie Perkins, and Harry Dean Stanton.

Special Features:

• New 4K digital restorations of both films, supervised by director Monte Hellman, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• Audio commentaries on both films, featuring Hellman and film historians Bill Krohn and Blake Lucas
• New interviews with actors John Hackett, B. J. Merholz, Millie Perkins, and Harry Dean Stanton, assistant director Gary Kurtz, and chief wrangler Calvin Johnson, all in conversation with Hellman
• New conversation between actor Will Hutchins and film programmer Jake Perlin
• New video essay on actor Warren Oates by critic Kim Morgan
• An essay by critic Michael Atkinson