Fri 1 Sep 2023
An Archived Western Movie Review: THE GUNFIGHTER (1950).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[5] Comments
THE GUNFIGHTER. 19SO. Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Karl Malden, Skip Homeier, Richard Jaeckel. Director: Henry King. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below).
Jaeckel’s part is small but a key one. He’s a young squirt who taunts the famous Jimmy Ringo into a gunfight. When the boy gets killed, it’s obviously self-defense, but the kid has three brothers who won’t believe it. Ringo’s past just won’t let him be.
A classic, if you ask me. The plot’s an old one, but here it’s done well. The town where Ringo tries to find his former wife looks real, and feels real. Peck has a mustache in this movie, and it gives him a different look, weather-beaten, and weary. Just right.
– Reprinted from Movie.File.2, June 1980.
September 1st, 2023 at 9:52 pm
Considering Peck was still playing relatively young men at this point the mustache adds a certain physical as well as mature presence to his character.
The film itself takes many a nod not only from the Western, but from film noir, since Peck’s hero is damned from the first, beyond any hope of redemption this side of the grave.
September 2nd, 2023 at 12:06 am
A landmark western and one of Peck’s best roles. Maybe even his breakout role. At the beginning of the yarn –where he handily takes care of three desperadoes –you kinda think he’s gonna make it. After all, Ringo was a real-life gunslinger.
I agree the tale turns noir-ish though, kicking in as soon as Peck tangles with feisty Richard Jaeckel. And the way the, “clock-starts-ticking” urging Ringo to get-out-of-town.
For me –even more so than Jaeckel, Homeier, or Malden –I relish Millard Mitchell (the sheriff) in this romp. MM appears in four of my very favorite flicks: this one; “Twelve O’Clock High”, Wilder’s “Foreign Affair”, & “Winchester ’73”. Love that wry, laconic ‘ole buzzard.
Fun Fact: ‘Gunfighter’ has a sweet tie-in, with the famous folk-rock ballad by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard (‘Brownsville Girl’). An instance where music and movies crossed trails.
Peck confessed himself charmed by the duo’s flattering depiction of his part in this movie; and subsequently was lucky enough to be on stage at the Kennedy Center where he personally hand-delivered Dylan his Medal-of-Freedom award (or whatever it was).
An unconfirmed anecdote: decades after this film, poor Richard Jaeckel found himself was in financial straits and ill health. Cancer surgery was draining his life savings. Peck heard about the trouble his one-time co-star was experiencing, and personally intervened with a windfall to make Jaeckel’s last days comfortable.
Class all the way.
September 2nd, 2023 at 5:20 am
I found this agreeably unpretentious — considering the subject — a distillation of Western cliche turned to myth, but not as self-conscious as SHANE or THE FASTEST GUN ALIVE.
September 2nd, 2023 at 3:36 pm
The Gunfighter was written by the legendary William Bowers, who often told the story of how the script was originally offered to John Wayne, who somehow lost out on it (reasons unknown).
For years afterward, Wayne loudly denounced The Gunfighter and all who were associated with it – especially Bill Bowers.
Eventually, Bowers and Wayne met up in person, and after Wayne denounced Bowers and the movie (quite profanely), this exchange occurred:
Bowers: “You know, Duke, you’re a cantankerous old bastard, but I still like you.”
Wayne: “Well, you’re one of those Goddamn liberals! You have to like people!”
That’s the story Bill Bowers told, anyway …
September 2nd, 2023 at 9:19 pm
Mike
If the story’s not true, it should be.