SHOOT OUT (Universal, 1971)

DIRECTOR: Henry Hathaway; 
PRODUCER: Hal Wallis;  WRITERS: screenplay by Marguerite Roberts based on Will James novel, Lone Cowboy; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Earl Rath

CAST: Gregory Peck, Patricia Quinn, Robert F. Lyons, Susan Tyrrell, Jeff Corey, James Gregory, Rita Gam, Dawn Lynn, Pepe Serna, John Davis Chandler, Paul Fix, Arthur Hunnicutt, Willis Bouchey, Lane Bradford, Nicolas Beauvy


It must have seemed like a good idea to producer Hal Wallis:

The Producer

1). hire Marguerite Roberts to write a screenplay that featured a manhunt by a grizzled gun hand with a young girl in tow;

The Writer

2). base the screenplay on a well-known novel;

The well-known novel

3). put veteran director Henry Hathaway in charge of the film;

The Veteran Director

and

4). cast one of Hollywood's legendary actors in the lead role.

The legendary actor with young girl in tow

What could go wrong?  After all, this formula had struck pay dirt just a couple years earlier when the Wallis-Hathaway-Roberts collaboration produced TRUE GRIT.

But it did go wrong and the TRUE GRIT connection was one of the main problems.  If there had been no TRUE GRIT, perhaps SHOOT OUT would have been better accepted by the critics and the public.  Or maybe if more time had elapsed between the two films, the latter might have been better received.  But any viewer who watched TRUE GRIT, which was released just two short years earlier, was bound to see both the similarities and the comparative shortcomings of SHOOT OUT.

******
REVIEWS.
SHOOT OUT FIRES A LOT OF OLD, DAMP POWDER -- headline for review by Tony Mastroianni, Cleveland Press

That pretty well sums up the reason for the film's failure to receive positive critical reviews or to attract the movie-going public.

Phil Hardy summed up the film in his book, The Western:

"A weak revenge Western, this is made weaker by Hathaway's amiable, leisurely direction and the far too frequent nods in the direction of TRUE GRIT....Peck is far too 'nice' a person for a revenge film and Hathaway too stagey a director to animate him."

Mastroianni writes in the review mentioned above:

"The movie is a reflection of the growing trend to make villains overly psychotic by having them laugh hysterically with every new piece of sadism...."

He is referring to the antics of psychopaths who take delight in shooting a poor old man in a wheelchair or shooting cups off the head of a little girl.  In TRUE GRIT we got Robert Duvall as the head honcho bad guy, but here it is, unfortunately, Robert F. Lyons, and his performance is abysmal.  It is hard to fathom why an experienced and talented director such as Hathaway would tolerate such an over-the-top lousy performance.

But the most scathing review comes from my man Brian Garfield in Western Films: A Complete Guide:

"Gorgeous landscape photography..., a quietly superior if unoriginal score and a few players in good small roles -- Hunnicutt as a bluff rancher, Fix as a railroad conductor and especially Corey as a crippled irascible barkeep -- are the only virtues of this dud....Peck, who looks tired and embarrassed, is miscast."

Garfield also declares it to be a third rate film, but I wouldn't go quite that far. Second rate, yeah, but not third rate.


THE PLOT.
Sam Foley (Gregory) learns that Clay Lomax (Peck) has been released from prison after serving seven years.  It seems that Lomax has a grudge against Foley and for a good reason.  The two robbed a bank, but Foley shot Lomax in the back so that he could abscond with all the loot.  Unfortunately for Foley, Lomax didn't die, but he did go to prison.  Now he is sure to come after his old partner.

Foley hires Bobby Jay Jones ( Lyons) and his two cohorts, Skeeter (Chandler) and Pepe (Serna), to track Lomax.  For some reason that is not satisfactorily explained, Foley orders Bobby Jay not to kill Lomax but to warn him when Lomax heads his way.

Lomax travels to Weed City where the robbery and the shooting occurred.  He goes to the train station where he expects to meet Teresa Ortega, a friend who has been holding his savings during his time in prison.  Teresa isn't on the train, but her seven year old daughter Decky (Lynn) is.  The conductor (Fix) explains that an ill Teresa had died during the trip.  Lomax does the math and though he will not admit it, he realizes that chances are that Decky is his daughter. Reluctantly, Lomax agrees to take her with him and the conductor then gives him his money.


TROOPER (Jeff Corey): "Say I told you where you could find Sam.  What would you do?"

CLAY LOMAX (Gregory Peck): "Pay you and kill him."

Even though Lomax has to travel with Decky in his care, he still plans to track down Foley and kill him.  He has learned that Foley is in a town called Gun Hill and the two head there with Foley's hired hands shadowing them.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Bobby Jay has forced a prostitute named Alma (Tyrrell) to accompany them.

BOBBY JAY (Robert F. Lyons): "Hey, you told me you could cook!

ALMA (Susan Tyrrell): "You point a gun at me and I'll tell you I could fly and do walkin' on water and turnin' sticks into snakes."

Along the way, there are confrontations with Bobby Jay and his henchmen and both Skeeter and Pepe are killed, not by Lomax, but by Bobby Jay, one accidentally and the other intentionally.  And a widow, Juliana Farrell (Quinn, in an unconvincing performance), who owns a small ranch and who is lonely to the point of drinking herself to sleep each night, offers Lomax and Decky a life on the ranch with her and her small son Dutch (Beauvy). 

Lomax does finally make it to Foley's home, but his quest for vengeance has been thwarted.  Bobby Jay again.  After a disagreement, he had shot Foley and was busily stuffing his pockets with money when Lomax arrives.

So, the final shoot out is not between Lomax and Foley, but between Lomax and Bobby Jay.  You know who won.

The final shoot out (That is an apple on top of Bobby Jay's head.  Don't ask.)

Lomax rides back to the widow's ranch where I'm sure everything turned out just fine.  


THE END.
A final word:

It is true as Brian Garfield wrote that veteran character actors Paul Fix and Arthur Hunnicutt were excellent in their brief roles and so was Jeff Corey, who had a larger role, but was nevertheless killed off early in the film -- by Bobby Jay, of course. But the best performance by any of the principals in the film was turned in by little Miss Dawn Lynn, who retired from show business at age fifteen.  If everyone, especially Bobby Jay, had done as well, this would have been a much better film.               

THE BRAVADOS (Fox, 1958)

DIRECTOR: Henry King;  PRODUCER: Herbert B. Swope, Jr.; WRITERS: screenplay by Phillip Yordan based on novel by Frank O'Rourke; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Leon Shamroy

CAST: Gregory Peck, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi, Henry Silva, Kathleen Gallant, Barry Coe, George Voskovec, Herbert Rudley, Lee Van Cleef, Andrew Duggan, Ken Scott, Gene Evans, Joe De Rita

THE PLOT.

Frankly, this movie could have and should have been better. After all, it had an accomplished director at the helm, starred one of the best actors to appear in Western films, featured outstanding location photography, a stirring musical score, an interesting supporting cast, and a talented actress -- no, wait -- I went too far.  Erase that last part.  That was part of the problem.

Perhaps part of the fault also lies in Yordan's screenplay or O'Rourke's novel, but something is missing.  Despite its component parts, the sum of which are greater than the whole, it is not a classic film, perhaps not even a great one, but it isn't a bad one either.

Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) has been on a mission. For some time he has been searching for four men that he believes raped and murdered his wife.  They have been described as two white men (Stephen Boyd and Albert Salmi), a "half-breed" (Lee Van Cleef), and an Indian (Henry Sliva).  Now he learns that the four are locked up in the jail in the border town of Rio Arriba, sentenced to hang for attempted bank robbery and the killing of a teller.

Douglas rides into the village because he wants to look the killers in the eye and to witness their hanging the next day.  However, that evening, while most of the community is in church, the outlaws break jail, abducting a merchant's daughter, Emma Steinmetz (Kathleen Gallant), while making their getaway.

Stephen Boyd and Albert Salmi above and Lee Van Cleef and Henry Sliva below are the four "bravados"

Since the sheriff (Herbert Rudley) is seriously wounded during the jail break, a posse is formed and led by his deputy, Primo (Ken Scott).  Primo and the other posse members defer to Douglas as the manhunt begins.

Douglas taking the lead is successful in tracking down the fugitives one by one. Each time he shows them a picture of his deceased wife and small daughter and asks them if they have ever seen them before.  Each man swears that he hasn't, but Douglas doesn't believe them and kills the first two (Van Cleef and Salmi) in a coldblooded fashion. After Emma is found, alive but having been raped by Zachary (Boyd), Douglas tracks him down and kills him in a shootout in a Mexican cantina.

After trailing Lujan (Silva) to his home in the mountains, Douglas learns that he has been wrong about some things -- some rather important things.  After Lujan's wife subdues Douglas by conking him on the head with a pot and Lujan has a gun on him, Douglas shows Lujan the picture and, like the other three men, Lujan claims he has never seen the woman or the child.  Eventually, Lujan persuades Douglas that neither he nor the other three had anything to do with his wife's death. The realization leaves him speechless with remorse.

Nevertheless, when he returns to Rio Arriba he is greeted as a hero by the community.  It is grateful to him for what he has done.  After all, the four men had attempted to rob the bank and had killed one of the town's citizens. When the assembled townspeople offer their gratitude, Douglas asks for their prayers.

Many, many times, before and after THE BRAVADOS, the vengeance plot has been adapted for the screen, sometimes featuring the hero tracking the killer or killers of his brother or maybe his father.  In numerous films, B-Western star Bob Steele found himself searching for the mangy coyote who killed his father. In fact, it happened so often that "the Bob Steele plot" became shorthand for such a story (One reason it may have been so prevalent in the Steele films is that many of them were written and directed by his real-life father.)

But in other films, as in THE BRAVADOS, the avenger was searching for his wife's murderer(s).  An excellent example is SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (1956), the first of several classic collaborations by director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott.  At least Peck's character only had to track down four men.


THE DIRECTOR.

Henry King (1915)

Henry King (1886-1982) was one of the most talented and certainly most versatile directors in Hollywood's history.  He was equally adept at directing musicals, melodramas, and epics. Unfortunately, that versatility resulted in him directing precious few Westerns for people like us. But he was good at that, too.  He never failed us the few times he was given the responsibility of filming one.

An actor in silent films, he began directing in 1915. During the silent era he directed a few Westerns, the most noteworthy being THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH (1928), a film that went a long way in launching the long successful career of a young actor named Gary Cooper.

His first Western during the sound era was a classic: JESSE JAMES (1939), starring Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda.  His second was also a classic: THE GUNFIGHTER (1950), starring Gregory Peck.  His only other Western was THE BRAVADOS, perhaps not a classic, but nevertheless a good one.  And that was it.  Just three Westerns during the sound era, but each is a winner.


THE CAST.
Completely out of character, Gregory Peck's first Western movie role found him portraying an unlikable, unreformed scoundrel in the overblown epic, DUEL IN THE SUN (1947).  But things quickly took a turn for the better a year later when he gave an outstanding performance as a bad man who does reform in YELLOW SKY (1948).  He was even better in THE GUNFIGHTER, which as noted earlier, was Henry King's second sound Western, and was one of Peck's greatest performances.    

The '50's, the best decade ever for Westerns, was a great one for Peck, with THE BRAVADOS being bookended by THE GUNFIGHTER and THE BIG COUNTRY (1959).

Joan Collins appeared in only three Western features -- or maybe only one depending on what one considers to be a Western.  One was a comedy spoof, one was a Northerner set in the Yukon during its gold rush, and the other is THE BRAVADOS.  Collins looks uncomfortable in the film, especially when she is astride a horse, and there seems to be absolutely no chemistry between the two stars.  Peck does often seem ill at ease in romantic scenes, but with the right actress he comes across as believable, even in Westerns.  For proof see his scenes with Jennifer Jones in DUEL IN THE SUN or Anne Baxter in YELLOW SKY. 

The production does have an international flavor.  It was filmed on location in Mexico (before that became common); Joan Collins was born in London; and though Albert Salmi was born in Brooklyn, his parents were Finnish immigrants; and Stephen Boyd was a native of Northern Ireland.  

In 1956, Boyd signed a seven year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, but is best known for his role as Messala in BEN HUR (1959), while on loan-out to MGM.  He appeared in only three Westerns, with THE BRAVADOS being the best by far.  The others were SHALAKO (1958) and HANNIE CAULDER (1972).  He was only in his mid-forties when he died in 1977.

Albert Salmi began his acting career on the stage.  One of his early roles was in the Broadway production of The Rainmaker. In 1955, he was cast as rodeo cowboy Bo Decker in Bus Stop. As a result of the critical praise he received, he was offered the role for the movie version with Marilyn Monroe.  He turned it down because he preferred the stage over movies.  Another notable performance came in 1953 on the TV anthology series, The U.S. Steel Hour, when he portrayed a major league catcher with a terminal illness in the dramatization of Mark Harris' novel, Bang the Drum Slowly.  A young actor by the name of Robert De Niro played the part in the movie version.

Paul Newman as pitcher Henry "Author" Wiggen and Albert Salmi as catcher Bruce Pearson in the U.S. STEEL HOUR production of BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY (1953) 

THE BRAVADOS was Salmi's second movie role and his first in a Western. Through the years the busy character actor would appear in several more, perhaps the most notable being THE UNFORGIVEN (1960) and HOUR OF THE GUN (1967).  He seemed to enjoy his Western roles and became a ubiquitous and welcome presence in TV Westerns during their heyday.

He was still acting right up until his death in 1990, which occurred under tragic circumstances.  It was ruled that he shot and killed his estranged wife before committing suicide.

Henry Silva, like Salmi, born in Brooklyn and in the same year (1928), gives one of his better performances as the Indian Lujan.  He did not appear in a lot of Westerns, but was rather impressive as one of Richard Boone's henchman, a cold-blooded killer, in the Boetticher-Scott film, THE TALL T (1957).

Clarence Leroy Van Cleef, Jr. was born in New Jersey in 1925.  It is quite ironic that both Van Cleef and Jack Elam were accountants before launching careers as two of the most recognizable and despicable villains to appear on the screen.  In the end, however, Elam became a latter-day comic actor in the tradition of Walter Brennan and against all odds Van Cleef became a star.  

Van Cleef broke into movies as the result of producer-director Stanley Kramer spotting him in a touring company of the play, Mister Roberts.  Kramer wanted to cast the young actor as Deputy Harvey Pell in HIGH NOON (1952).   However, Kramer did have one request.  He asked the young actor to have his hawk-like nose fixed.  To his credit, Van Cleef refused.  He was still cast in the film, but as one of the four gunmen who stalk Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) in the streets of Hadleyville.  Lloyd Bridges was chosen to portray the deputy.

The year after THE BRAVADOS, Van Cleef headed the gang of outlaws who pursued Randolph Scott in the Boetticher-Scott film, RIDE LONESOME, and in 1962 he was one of Liberty Valance's (Lee Marvin) henchmen in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.  During these years he also appeared on virtually every TV Western series in production, even those aimed at juvenile audiences.

Then in 1965, Sergio Leone cast him in support of a fellow named Eastwood in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE and an international star was born.  It wouldn't be correct to call him a hero in the spaghetti Westerns that followed, because there was no such character in any of those films.  But like Eastwood before him, he became an antihero.   

******

REVIEWS.
"It's a grim, hard, pursuit drama, brutal at times, with a pointed messge about the futility of revenge.  Tough and tight, it has a big look and a heroic stirring score; the acting is very good.  There are moments when one must wince -- the lame tip of the hat to religious faith; the turgid romantic interludes; a tailored and curiously Tom Mix-ish costume worn by the hero -- but Henry King...always seemed capable of eliciting [Peck's] best performances.  This one is a superior and often quite moving Western." -- Brian Garfield, Western Film: A Complete Guide

"Distilled to essentials, THE BRAVADOS is, simply, a manhunt.  But it is executed intelligently in fine, brooding style against eye-filling, authentic backgrounds, so that its basically familiar ingredients glisten with professional polish." -- A.H. Wieler, New York Times

Now for an opposing viewpoint:

"A routine, would-be prestige Western....both King's direction and Peck's acting lack the intensity needed to animate it." -- Phil Hardy, The Western 

YELLOW SKY (Fox, 1948)

DIRECTOR: William A. Wellman; PRODUCER: Lamar Trotti; WRITER: Lamar Trotti from story by W.R. Burnette;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joseph MacDonald

CAST: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Robert Arthur, John Russell, Henry (Harry) Morgan, James Barton, Charles Kemper, Robert Adler, Harry Carter, Victor Kilian, Paul Hurst, Hank Worden, Chief Yowlachie

 

(L-R) Victor Kilian, bartender; Paul Hust,barfly; and soon-to-be bank robbers: Stretch, Bull Run, Dude, Lengthy, Half-Pint, Walrus, Jed

THE PLOT.

The Civil War has been over for a couple of years but some ex-soldiers find it difficult to adjust to peaceful postwar conditions.  Some even resort to a life on the wrong side of the law.  

It was such a group of men, seven in all, who rob the Rameyville bank.  A detachment of cavalry pursues them as they make their getaway.  One of the gang, Jed (Adler), is killed, but the other six escape by riding into an area of desolate salt flats (filmed in Death Valley).  In fact, the area is so forbidding that the cavalry commander halts the pursuit believing that the fugitives will perish in the desert.

 

However, they do survive, but just barely. Badly dehydrated and quarreling among themselves they see what appears to be a town in the distance. They make their way there only to discover that what they had spotted was in reality a ghost town. Yellow Sky was once a booming mining town, but now it has only two inhabitants: an old man (Barton) and his young tomboy granddaughter, Mike (Baxter).

 

Mike

The men do not receive a warm welcome from Mike.  She does direct them toward the water source that saves their lives, but she makes it clear that she wants them to clear out.

There is no honor among these thieves and it is all their leader Stretch (Peck) can do to keep them in line.  In fact, it is more than he can do. He orders the other gang members to stay away from Mike and her grandfather, but two of them are especially hard to restrain. 

Dude (Widmark) has a hankering for wealth.  He is certain that there is something of value to be had in Yellow Sky or why would the old man and his granddaughter choose to live there (he is right).  He is determined to find out what it is and to make it his.

Lengthy (Russell) has a hankering for wealth – and the woman.  Despite his orders to the men to stay away from her, Stretch finds it impossible to apply the same restrictions to himself.

Mike and Stretch

Dude and Lengthy challenge Stretch’s leadership causing the gang to split into two factions.  The other three gang members – Walrus (Kemper), Half-Pint (Morgan), and Bull Run (Arthur) -- are born followers and rather malleable and therefore it soon becomes apparent that since they are easily influenced they might continue to follow Stretch or they might side with Dude and Lengthy.  They, in effect, hold the balance of power.

Dude

 

Lengthy with Bull Run in background

The final three-way shoot-out takes place in an old saloon and is staged in an extremely effective fashion.  We hear the shots and see the flashes of gunfire from Mike’s perspective outside the saloon.  After the firing ceases, she enters the saloon and we discover with her who, if anyone, has survived the altercation.

That’s enough about the plot, except to say that only three gang members survive the conflict that embroils the group.  However, I’m not saying which three.  

One more thing, as has happened before in Western movies, beginning with those starring William S. Hart (practically all of them), a bad man is reformed by the love of a good woman. I’m not going to say which bad man, but it wasn’t Lenghty.  You already knew that, didn’t you?

THE STARS.

Compared to many young actors, Gregory Peck was extraordinarily lucky.  True, he was in his late twenties before he made his film debut (DAYS OF GLORY [RKO, 1944]).  However, unlike most actors appearing in their first film, he had the lead role.  Furthermore, for his performance in his second film, THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM (Fox, 1944), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. 

Three more nominations came in the next four years, giving him four in just five years.  The other nominations were for THE YEARLING (MGM, 1946), GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT (Fox, 1947), and TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH (Fox, 1949).  It was quite a beginning to what would be a long and successful career.  True, he had to wait another fourteen years before receiving another nomination, but the fifth time was the charm.  For his defining role as Atticus Finch in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (UI, 1962), he was awarded his only Best Actor Oscar.  It was also his last nomination.

During those early years, in among his Oscar-nominated roles, he starred in some other rather successful films.  In addition to a couple of Hitchcock films, he starred in three Westerns.  The first was DUEL IN THE SUN (Selznick, 1946), in which he was cast against type as Lionel Barrymore’s mean, lowdown son, Lewt.  Then there was YELLOW SKY in 1948 and two years later a true classic, THE GUNFIGHTER (Fox).

In the ensuing years, Peck starred in eight more Westerns of varying quality.  The best of the eight was THE BRAVADOS (Fox, 1958).

It seems that practically every Western begins with the female and male leads getting off on a bad footing with each other.  That was true of both A- and B-productions – especially the latter.  Think back to all those Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies (if you are old enough to remember them) and how the two cowboys nearly always did something early on (usually inadvertently) that led the leading lady to dislike them.  In the end, of course, everything would work out for the best and they would become friends (but rarely more than that).  The A’s differed in that the relationship usually evolved into something more serious.

Anyway, there seemed to be a rule in the Western Writers Handbook that mandated that a Western story simply had to have a female among the leading players even if her presence added very little to the plot.  YELLOW SKY was an exception in that Anne Baxter’s role was just as essential as Peck’s.

She played the tomboy role very well and I have only one quibble with her performance.  It is perhaps a minor one, but it is one of those minor things that bother me.  Here she and her grandfather are living alone in this godforsaken ghost town located on the edge of the desert and the Levis she wears for the duration of the film look as though she bought them at the local general store – that very day -- only there is no local general store. However, as I said, it is difficult to find fault with her performance.

Despite being only in her mid-twenties at the time she starred in YELLOW SKY, she was already a show business veteran.  She made her Broadway debut at age thirteen and appeared in her first film when she was only seventeen.  That first film was a Western, but not a particularly good one.  It was 20 MULE TEAM (MGM, 1940). Incidentally, both it and YELLOW SKY featured scenes filmed in Death Valley. All told, she appeared in eight Westerns, but none of the others came close to the high standards of YELLOW SKY.

Two years before YELLOW SKY, Baxter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in THE RAZOR’S EDGE (Fox).  Two years after YELLOW SKY, she appeared in the film with which she would become most closely identified, ALL ABOUT EVE (Fox).  

Both she and the film’s other leading lady, Bette Davis, received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress, which probably resulted in the fact that neither won and Judy Holliday did.  It was Baxter’s last nomination.

Richard Widmark, a veteran radio actor, was in his thirties when he made his screen debut in KISS OF DEATH (Fox) in 1947.  But what a memorable debut it was.  Widmark portrayed Tommy Udo, a psychotic mob enforcer who murdered a wheelchair-bound old lady by shoving her down the stairs.  If that wasn’t bad enough he giggled with relish while perpetrating the crime.

For his performance, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.  It would be his only nomination.  He also won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer.

YELLOW SKY was his second film and he makes the most of it.  His performance as Dude, the gambler and outlaw with a bad lung, who becomes Stretch’s main rival for control of the outlaw gang, is one of his best.  He may have gotten off to a late start in movies, but he was certainly making up for lost time.

Widmark would go on to appear in sixteen Westerns during his career.  He was even fortunate enough to star in two John Ford Westerns, TWO RODE TOGETHER (Columbia, 1961) and CHEYENNE AUTUMN (WB, 1964).  However, he was unfortunate in that the two, through no fault of his, are Ford’s weakest Westerns.

I am probably in the minority, but I thought he gave a strong performance in his last Western, that is if rodeo pictures can be considered Westerns.  WHEN THE LEGENDS DIE (Fox, 1972), co-starring Frederic Forrest, is considered to be the lesser of several rodeo films that were made at about the same time, but I think that it is an entertaining film with excellent location photography.  Widmark was never better.

THE SUPPORTING CAST.

With John Russell leading the way, YELLOW SKY’s supporting cast is outstanding.  Russell was a decorated ex-Marine who was awarded a field promotion as a 2^nd Lt. while serving on Guadalcanal during WWII.  He also received a discharge due to a case of extreme malaria. 

Somewhat like Jim Davis, for example, he never achieved stardom on the big screen, though he was responsible for some strong performances in supporting roles.  Also like Davis, he did become a star on the small screen.  In 1958-1962, he starred as Marshal Dan Troop in the Western series, LAWMAN.

YELLOW SKY was Russell’s eleventh film, but his first Western.  Clint Eastwood cast Russell in three of his films, including Russell’s last Western, THE PALE RIDER (Malpaso/WB, 1985).

Charles Kemper is probably best known for his role in John Ford’s WAGON MASTER (Argosy/RKO, 1950).  Just as in YELLOW SKY, Kemper portrays an outlaw.  However, Kemper’s Uncle Shiloh in WAGON MASTER is a decidedly more lowdown, vicious example of the breed than the character he portrayed in YELLOW SKY.

Kemper died about a month after WAGON MASTER was released.  He was forty-nine.   

Harry Morgan (billed as Henry in the early years) is primarily known for his work in television. Surely he set a record by having recurring roles in ten TV series, the most famous as Col. Sherman Potter in M*A*S*H.  However, he was also a busy supporting actor in movies during his six decades of acting.  Many of his roles were in Westerns, several classics among them.

Morgan liked appearing in Westerns and always singled out his role as Henry Fonda’s partner in THE OX-BOW INCIDENT (Fox, 1943) as his favorite film role.  And why not?  He probably had more screen time in that one than in any other film.  Directed by William Wellman, it is considered a classic today, but was not a commercial success at the time.

 

Morgan has a delightful little scene near the end of YELLOW SKY, but I’m not going to spoil it.

And speaking of William Wellman….

THE DIRECTOR.

William Wellman launched his career as a director at the helm of Buck Jones Westerns during the silent era.  Over the years, he would direct sixteen films in the genre, with THE OX-BOW INCIDENT and YELLOW SKY being the best of the bunch.

Not only was he talented, he was also versatile, possessing the ability to direct films in many different genres.  He received three Oscar nominations for Best Director: A STAR IS BORN (UA, 1937), BATTLEGROUND (MGM, 1949), and THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (WB, 1954).  However, his only win was as co-writer of the screenplay for A STAR IS BORN.

William A. "Wild Bill" Wellman

******

REVIEWS:

“It’s not a masterpiece – it’s quite conventional in plot and development – but it’s an excellent, grim, little movie, very taut and involving and suspenseful.—Brian Garfield in Western Movies: A Complete Guide

“…the guns blaze, fists fly and passions tangle in the best realistic Western style….Wellman has directed for steel-spring tension from beginning to end.” – Bosley Crowther in The New York Times

“The direction by William A. Wellman is vigorous, potently emphasizing every element of suspense and action, and displaying the cast to the utmost advantage.  There’s never a faltering scene as sequence after sequence is unfolded at a swift pace.” – Variety

 “Beautifully shot, in a stark black and white, YELLOW SKY is one of the best Westerns of the forties.” – Westerns on the Blog

“Well-written, well directed, well cast, the gang is a well-drawn collection of individuals, each with his own personality and intentions. – Buddies in the Saddle

“Like all the best Westerns, it raises questions about one’s word of honour and, in this case, if that has any value for those who live outside the law.” – Riding the High Country

 one of the film's greatest strengths is Joseph MacDonald's glorious black-and-white photography in Death Valley and the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California

There are black-and-white and colorized versions of the film on YouTube.  I recommend the original black-and-white version.

TOP 21 FAVORITE WESTERNS -- THE GUNFIGHTER

 

Gregory Peck is Jimmy Ringo, The Gunfighter.  The studio hated his authentic mustache and blamed it for the movie's lack of popular success.  But for the most part, the critics gave the film very good reviews.

# 16

THE GUNFIGHTER (Fox, 1950)


DIRECTOR:  Henry King; PRODUCER: Nunnally Johnson; WRITERS: William Bowers, Andre deToth, and William Sellers; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Arthur Miller

CAST:  Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Karl Malden, Skip Homeier, Richard Jaeckel, Verna Felton, Ellen Corby, Alan Hale, Jr., John Pickard, B.G. Norman, Kenneth Tobey, Hank Patterson, Mae Marsh, Harry Shannon, Gregg Barton

 

An aging gunfighter, Jimmy Ringo (Peck), begins to value peace more highly than his reputation.  He'd like to settle down and hang up his gun, maybe even try to put things back together with his young son and ex-wife (Westcott); but there are too many wild, glory-hunting kids (Jaeckel, Homeier) coming after him, challenging him to one more duel.

This literate Western was at least a decade ahead of its time.  Although critics liked it, audiences did not.  They would have liked it during the 60's, however, when its re-examination of the Western myth was in vogue. 

Gregory Peck had made his film debut in 1944.  For his role in THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM (Fox) in the following year, he received the first of his five Oscar nominations.  

He would eventually capture the prize with his signature performance in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Universal, 1962).  Although he won no awards for THE GUNFIGHTER, his performance as Jimmy Ringo ranks as one of his best screen portrayals.

The only Oscar nomination for the film went to Bowers and deToth (ordinarily a director) for their original story.  DeToth was quoted as saying that the story had been written with Gary Cooper in mind and that he was disappointed when Peck was cast in the role.  Cooper, of course, would have been great in the role, but it is doubtful that he would have been any better than Peck.
 
Millard Mitchell was a talented actor who was always good in western roles.  In THE GUNFIGHTER he portrays Mark Strett, who was once a friend of Jimmy Ringo's, but after reforming is now the town marshal and finds himself caught in the middle between his desire to help his old friend and the necessity of maintaining the peace.

Mitchell's career was at its peak during this period. The year before, he had supported Peck in the outstanding WWII film, TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH (Fox), also directed by Henry King.  In the same year that THE GUNFIGHTER was released, he supported James Stewart in Anthony Mann's WINCHESTER '73 ( Universal).  Sadly, his last role would be in 1953 in another strong performance in a Mann-Stewart Western, THE NAKED SPUR (MGM). Mitchell was only fifty-years-old when he died later that year.

Also in supporting roles are Skip Homeier and Richard Jaeckel as young gunfighters out to make their reputations by out dueling the veteran gunfighter.

Skip Homeier confronts Peck as Karl Malden watches from behind the bar

 

"How come I've got to run into a squirt like you nearly every place I go these days?  What are you trying to do?  Show off to your friends?" -- Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck) speaking to Eddie (Richard Jaeckel)

Richard Jaeckel making a big mistake; his last one

For some years it seemed as though a movie about WWII could not be made without the presence of Jaeckel in the cast.  In fact, five of his first six roles were in such films, beginning with GUADALCANAL DIARY (Fox, 1943), when he was only seventeen-years-old.  

Throughout his career he was always an effective performer, often better than the films in which he appeared.  He finally received overdue notice for his work when he was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar for his outstanding performance in SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION (Universal, 1971).   

Henry King directed over a hundred feature films, beginning in 1916 and ending in 1962.  THE GUNFIGHTER was the second King-Peck collaboration, TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH being the first.  They would make four more films together, including THE BRAVADOS (Fox), a well-made and entertaining Western released in 1958.

Bosley Crowther, in discussing THE GUNFIGHTER in the New York Times, wrote with tongue in cheek that "the gunfighter might have stayed clear of trouble and consequent danger if he had merely kept out of bars."  In that same vein, John Ford was once asked why the Indians didn't just shoot the horses pulling the stage in his classic Western, STAGECOACH (UA, 1939).  His reply was something to the effect that if that had happened it would have been a mighty short movie.

Crowther did continue by writing that "such restraint would have derived us of an arresting and quite exciting film."  The same goes for not shooting the horses in STAGECOACH.

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REVIEWS 

" Gregory Peck perfectly portrays the title role, a man doomed to live out his span killing to keep from being killed.  He gives it great sympathy and a type of rugged individualism that makes it real." -- Variety

"...is a surprisingly (and enjoyably) grubby...very offbeat Western for its time....Helen Westcott is a bland female lead, but the rest of the cast is just right...one of Peck's best performances....This was Academy-Award winning cinematographer Arthur Miller's penultimate film." -- Steven H. Scheuer

"The yarn has become a cliche because it was imitated so extensively; the film precipitated an entire cycle of gunfighter Westerns.  Still, by comparison with its imitators, it remains the towering example....a fine Gregory Peck performance as the doomed fighting man; for all its moody bitterness it is still capable of stirring the heart." -- Brian Garfield in Western Films

"THE GUNFIGHTER creates such a mood of inexorable Greek tragedy that no matter how many times one sees it, one is always hoping subconsciously for that accidental change of circumstances or timing that will bring about a happy ending....[It] is a major classic among Western movies." -- William K. Everson in A Pictorial History of the Western Film  
     
"...the film gives a poignant demonstration that the lonesomest man in the world is an old, glory-trailing gunfighter -- and this is a Western you should see." -- Bosley Crowther in the New York Times 

"...Peck is so good in the chief role that he dominates the film from beginning to end, but has ample support." -- Howard Barnes in the New York Herald-Tribune
 
"The glamour is ripped from Ringo and the only thing left is a man in pain, engaging in what he knows in his gut to be a futile attempt to find a place in a more civilized West....There is no retirement home for gunfighters but the grave." -- William R. Meyer in The Making of the Great Westerns