Excruciating 'tenderfoot western' has young, overeager greenhorn Gary Grimes begging bearded, salty cattle boss Billy "Green" Bush for a job on his cattle drive--to get away from life on the farm with Ma, but also to be a real cowboy, apparently an occupation you take up "when you can't do nothing else." Director Dick Richards made some good movies in the '70s, but his debut here lacks substance (it deliberately lacks heart). Grimes is so open-mouthed innocent that he can't even help cook dinner without looking repulsed by the process. When he's assigned to stand watch over the horses, it's entirely predictable he'll run afoul of horse thieves (after being left bloodied and horseless by the scurrilous gang, boss Bush of course blames the naive kid, not himself for neglecting to get an experienced cowboy on the post). This isn't on the inviting level of Jack Lemmon's klutzy attempts to be a cowpoke; Richards seems to have been raised on TV westerns, and gives us a scenario lifted straight from the tube. While we wait for the kid to harden and become "a man", we're treated to fake high drama featuring a weary old cast of character-actors (if ever you want fake drama infused into the proceedings, you get Bo Hopkins or Geoffrey Lewis or Anthony James--this picture has all three). The dusty cinematography helps give the movie an appropriately dirty, mud-and-blood appearance. Yet, the minute the actors start speaking, it loses vitality, conviction, and interest. * from ****