The Gunfighter (1950)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Henry King

Writers:

William Bowers (story) and
André De Toth (story) ...

Release Date:

21 AUGUSZTUS 1950 (Sweden)

Genre:

Western | Drama

Tagline:

RINGO WAS HIS NAME! THE CHALLENGE OF EVERY OUTLAW GUNMAN! THE NOTORIOUS SELF-DEFENSE KILLER! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Notorious gunfighter Jimmy Ringo rides into town to find his true love, who doesn't want to see him. He hasn't come looking for trouble, but trouble finds him around every corner.

Plot Keywords:

Marshal | Saloon | Gunslinger | Father Son Relationship | Hotel

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Gregory Peck	...	Jimmy Ringo
Helen Westcott	...	Peggy Walsh
Millard Mitchell	...	Marshal Mark Strett
Jean Parker	...	Molly
Karl Malden	...	Mac
Skip Homeier	...	Hunt Bromley
Anthony Ross	...	Deputy Charlie Norris
Verna Felton	...	Mrs. August Pennyfeather
Ellen Corby	...	Mrs. Devlin
Richard Jaeckel	...	Eddie

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 | Germany:12 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | USA:Approved (PCA #14217)

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The western street in this film is the same one used in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943).

Quotes:

Marshal Mark Strett: Somebody after you?
Jimmy Ringo: Three somebodies.
Marshal Mark Strett: The law?
Jimmy Ringo: Naw, this is personal.
Marshal Mark Strett: I don't want 'em to catch up with you here.
Jimmy Ringo: I don't want 'em to catch up with me anywhere.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976)

Soundtrack:

Rock of Ages

Sophocles And Sundance

Over a span of exactly 10 (1949 - 1959) years journeyman director Henry King shot five films starring Gregory Peck; two of them, The Snows Of Kilimanjaro and The Bravados were pretty ho-hum whilst the last one, Beloved Infidel with Peck as Scott Fitzgerald (King's next and final film was Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night)was woefully underrated and has still to find its audience. The first two, shot back to back, 12 O'Clock High and this one remain the pick of the bunch, two early and excellent studies of psychological stress. The Gunfighter is shot through with the air of inexorability that has been with us since Euripedes, Aeschylus and Sophocles were writing out of Athens in the 5th century BC. You are what you do; you can't reform and hope the Gods will forget your past. Take one false step and you've sealed your own fate. It's hard to think of an actor who, at the time (1950) could have conveyed an essentially decent killer (Alan Ladd of course did something very similar three years later in Shane but Ladd somehow lacked Peck's gravitas) so perfectly. Woefully underrated as an actor Peck was right on top of his game here, as he was in 12 O'Clock High and if they even considered 85 minute movies for Oscars then his Jimmy Ringo may well have preceded his Atticus Finch statuette-wise. William Bowers provided a very literate screenplay and snatches of dialogue have remained with me for years: an arrogant young punk (Richard Jaeckel) remarks to his barber-shop cronies that Ringo doesn't look so fast to him, 'I bet I'm faster than him', to which a friend replies drily 'if you're not can I have your saddle'; and Karl Malden's loquacious bartender, full of reminiscence of earlier encounters with Ringo 'I used to serve you and Bucky Harris all the time', to which Peck replies, equally drily, 'did we ever get a drink?'. Millard Mitchell was in both movies (12 O'Clock High and Gunfighter) and here he plays outlaw-turned-marshall Strett and serves as an illustration for what Peck's Ringo MIGHT have become if the Gods didn't have it in for him. We cover a lot of ground in 85 minutes whilst perversely seeming to have all the time in the world with King allowing his camera to linger on two-shots. Helen Westcott doesn't have much to do as Mrs Ringo but she lends just the right air of respectability that makes it hard for us to picture Ringo as a cold-blooded killer. As other posters have pointed out for a Western there's not all that much gun-play or even fistfights yet it towers over other Westerns that are packed with action. A real treasure.