The Gunfighter
Categories: DVD Reviews
By: Henry Cabot Beck 04/01/2008
Fox Western Classics
(Fox Home; $19.98) Fox seems to be running far ahead of the pack this year with its John Ford collections, its upcoming Big Trail / John Wayne package and this box set of Westerns:?The Gunfighter, Rawhide and Garden of Evil.
When one considers that all three of these films are being offered on a three-disc DVD package that can be had for about $20, it has to be one of the best deals in the DVD world as we know it.
The Gunfighter
Nowhere is the adage “less is more” found to be more apt than in the 1950 Henry King Western The Gunfighter. So simple and streamlined is the picture that it seems like something out of a classic theatrical repertory. So it’s no surprise that some, including the screenwriter, have compared it to a play, especially since the movie rarely ventures outside of its single set.
Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck), a legendary gunfighter, has come to the town of Cayenne hoping to see his former sweetheart and young son. He’s determined to avoid trouble, especially fatal encounters with the sort of “squirts” who show up to challenge him every time he touches civilized ground.
He’s world- and death-weary. As his friend remarks, Ringo is “a little older, a little tireder, not as cocky as he used to be.” Ringo’s old running mate, Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell), is now the town’s marshal, and he’s willing to step around his obvious affection for Ringo to demand that he leave town to preserve the peace. Ringo doesn’t seem to take any of it personally.
Meantime three brothers are after Ringo for shooting their sibling (the very young Richard Jaeckel) at the beginning of the film. Jaeckel, and later on in the picture Skip Homeier, are examples of precisely the kind of punks Ringo is desperate to avoid.
Peck has the good sense to let Ringo rein in his anguish, cutting back on the excess of melodrama that killed Victor Mature’s Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine. Peck’s performance actually has a good deal more in common with Fonda’s taut and economical Wyatt Earp in the same picture.
The movie is so sparse that it doesn’t even have a soundtrack. Except for some barroom piano and funeral organ, the only music in the movie is played over the opening credits. What there is instead is the constant chatter of children heard outside the saloon where Ringo waits.
Ringo’s notoriety is a sort of measure of how much of the West of myth has passed, even at this point; the kids, like their parents, are desperately trying to hold on to some of the vaporizing romanticism of the place they themselves are responsible for civilizing. It’s a telling moment when one of the clucking biddies who want to see the notorious Ringo run out of town remarks, “After all, this isn’t Deadwood or Tombstone.” Maybe not, but more than a few locals might briefly entertain the fantasy that it is, and Ringo offers them a tiny taste of that pipe dream. The bartender of the saloon, played by Karl Malden, even offers Ringo a piece of the money he expects to make when Ringo leaves and his place fills up with gawkers wanting to grab on to their own piece of the fantasy.
The Gunfighter has held on to its dignity. The single legitimate criticism of this film may be that little action takes place in it, but at the same time, the movie avoids the missteps of most of its closest cousins, like Shane, Red River, High Noon and so forth—all great films, of course, but not without their obvious flaws. The movie has no comic relief, no soul skinning, no whining and little leering villainy. As Westerns go, The Gunfighter is strictly jerky: lean and tough.
Some nice extras in the package include a featurette on the great cinematographer Arthur Miller who shot the black-and-white picture with great depth of field and detail. Another nice featurette analyzes the film in its post-war context and explains its influence on subsequent movies, including Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. The package also features restoration comparisons, stills, galleries and the like. It’s a great-looking DVD, and it’s nice that the movie has been given the respect it deserves.
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