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| Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter, 1950. |
Gregory Peck delivers an excellent performance as Jimmy
Ringo in the 1950 western The Gunfighter.
It’s a taut and tense little movie, and much of it’s 85 minute running time
takes place in almost real time, upping the tension. As the movie opens, we see
Ringo entering a saloon in a new town. His reputation as a famous gunslinger
precedes him, and Eddie, a brash young man (Richard Jaeckel) challenges Ringo.
Ringo warns him to not cause any trouble, but Eddie keeps provoking him, and
when he draws on Ringo, Ringo shoots him dead. Ringo is warned to leave town,
as Eddie’s brothers will be looking for revenge. Ringo leaves town and heads to
Cayenne, where his old friend Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell) is the sheriff.
Cayenne is also where Ringo’s estranged wife and son now live. The entire town
of Cayenne takes to the streets as word spreads that the famous gunfighter is
in town. Ringo takes refuge in the local saloon, owned by Mac (Karl Malden).
Strett wants Ringo to leave town before any trouble ensues, but Ringo wants to
see his wife and son. His wife Peggy (Helen Westcott) refuses to see him at
first, but eventually relents. Ringo tries to reconcile with her, promising to
go straight and to move to a place where no one knows of his reputation. Peggy
says she will reconsider his offer if he can come back after a year of staying
out of trouble. Ringo is also able to meet his son, who knows of Ringo’s fame,
but doesn’t know that Ringo is his father. Ringo is just about to leave town
when town punk Hunt Bromley (Skip Homeier) shoots him in the back and kills
him. Before dying, Ringo tells Strett to spread the story that he drew first,
as he knows this will increase the pressure on Bromley as “the man who shot
Jimmy Ringo.” The film ends at Ringo’s funeral, as Peggy lets the town know
that Ringo was her husband.
The Gunfighter is
an excellent film with good performances by everyone in the cast. Peck might
not have been everyone’s first choice for a deadly gunslinger, but he gives
Ringo the humanity needed for us to sympathize with him. It’s very strange for
me to see Millard Mitchell in a western, since in my mind he will always be
R.F. Simpson, head of Monumental Studios, from Singin’ in the Rain. Mitchell does an excellent job playing Strett,
who used to be part of Ringo’s gang, but has since gone straight. Strett tries
his best to be fair to both Ringo and the nervous townspeople.
A major theme of The
Gunfighter is Ringo’s fame and notoriety, as this causes punks like Eddie
and Hunt Bromley to pick fights with him. They say “Aw, he doesn’t look so
tough,” and they think they can become the man who shot Jimmy Ringo. Ringo
deliberately lies to Strett as he is dying, because he wants people to think
that Hunt Bromley outdrew him, not that Bromley shot him in the back like a
coward. Ringo knows that if people think Bromley outdrew him, they will hound
him for the rest of his life, and he will constantly be fighting to uphold his
reputation, just as Ringo had done.
Veteran director Henry King was behind the camera for The Gunfighter, and he did an excellent
job of crafting an engaging movie with many memorable characters. King directed
his first movie back in 1917, and some of his notable credits are the first
movie version of State Fair, from
1933, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, with
Jennifer Jones and William Holden, and Carousel,
with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. King also directed matinee idol
Tyrone Power in 11 movies, including Lloyd’s
of London, which tells the thrilling tale of how the insurance company was
formed. No, really! It’s on my list of movies I want to see, just because I’m
curious about how you could make that into an interesting movie. But seriously,
King directed Power in many of his most famous movies, hits like Jesse James, A Yank in the R.A.F., The Black
Swan, Captain from Castile, Prince of Foxes, and The Sun Also Rises. King had previously directed Peck in Twelve O’Clock High, and they would make
six movies together. Another one of King’s movies that sounds interesting to me
is 1959’s This Earth is Mine, about a
winemaking family trying to survive during Prohibition, starring Rock Hudson
and Jean Simmons. There aren’t very many movies about winemakers.
If you’re looking for an excellent western with a compelling
plot and well-drawn characters, you’ll enjoy The Gunfighter.
8 comments:
Your review is a SPOILER. You give away the ending without a *Spoiler alert* and ruin it it for everybody.
Yes, I did spoil the ending to a movie that's 65 years old. But in my review I wanted to specifically discuss the ending, because it's so interesting and well done. If I only reviewed current movies I would certainly be more careful about what plot points I give away. I admit I am inconsistent, sometimes I give away the endings of movies, sometimes I don't.
But who was the rider at the end? Hunt Brimley or Jimmy Ringo hiding out for a year?
I don't think Ringo died. I think it was just a cover-up and he rides off at the end. At least that's the way I need to think of it.
I have been unable to find an authoritative source that even hints that the rider at the end is Ringo, but I believe the murderer was deliberately cast as someone with Peck's silhouette so that viewers would never know which man the rider in the closing really is. Personally, however, I think it had to be Ringo because showing the murderer riding "into the sunset" makes a ridiculous ending. Why give the little coward such a prominent place in the movie's structure? The appropriate last look we have of him is rightly the one where is sprawled on his butt in the stable after being kicked in the teeth for being such a coward.
Yes, cannot do a spoiler alert for this old movie, for most but agree should have put it inside the paragraph so reader given the option. It ended like Shane, with the rider going over the horizon, dead or alive? Was it Ringo or coward Bromley? I do not see how they could have pulled off a fake. If the Sheriff had shot him sure.
Why does Mark only have on one spur in most scenes?
I have no idea why Mark only has one spur on! Good catch, I didn't notice that.
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