Randolph Scott in The Tall T. (Courtesy the Criterion Collection)THE BLACK PALACE OF LECUMBERRI was no joke. Half a decade before this, Boetticher had made a cluster of exquisite westerns, all starring Randolph Scott as the personification of manly poise amid crisis. The Ranown films generally start with Scott alone on a horse, silhouetted against a big country. Each is a variation on a theme: A strong loner, Scott, meets a woman with a weak partner with whom he is contrasted. Those unironic conversations, the handiwork of screenwriter Burt Kennedy who went on to direct comedy westerns in the 1960s, helped give the Ranown films a crystalline purity.