The Gunfighter (1950)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Henry King

Writers:

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

Release Date:

21 August 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:

Bob Dylan's 1986 song "Brownsville Girl," co-written with Sam Shepard, alludes to watching Gregory Peck in this film. Peck himself thanked Dylan publicly when he delivered the speech when Dylan was given his Kennedy Center award in 1997.

Quotes:

Jimmy Ringo: You're Hunt Bromley, ain't ya?
Hunt Bromley: Yeah... you heard of me already?
Jimmy Ringo: Yeah, I heard about you. I heard you're a cheap, no-good bar-room loafer. If I didn't have somethin' else on my mind I'd take them guns away from ya and slap ya cross-eyed.

Movie Connections:

Featured in A Conversation with Gregory Peck (1999)

Soundtrack:

Rock of Ages

A very careful adult Western set in a believable community...

Is there any place, any retreat, any home of retirement, that an inevitably tiring gunman can move on to?

This predicament is best conveyed, explored and given its full tragic weight in Henry King's 'The Gunfighter.'

Ringo (Gregory Peck), wearing his reputation as the fastest gun in the south-west territories like a heavy load, enters each bar warily when he needs a quiet drink, knowing full well the reaction—fear, respect, perhaps admiration, and certainly the intervention in some form or other of a young upstart with itchy gun-fingers.

Although Ringo, guilty for previous sins, tries to refrain and to avoid the shoot-out... But he is always compelled to eliminate the worthless maladjusted gunmen, wishful for a big name...

The pattern is set early on when Peck has to shoot a boy (Richard Jaecke1) in self-defense. And so a feud begins—you feel it's only one of many—with the three brothers of the boy (Alan Hale Jr., David Clarke and John Pickard) hell-bent for revenge…

Peck deals with this situation, at least for the moment, sighs and then moves on to a place that passes for home... Here is his wife (Helen Westcott) and his son, who won't, however, be providing him with a welcome since in the eight years that husband and family have been apart the wife has been trying to build a life of their own… Here also is a sheriff (Millard Mitchell) formerly engaged in Peck's outlaw activities, but now reformed, and an old girl friend (Jean Parker) ready to he1p him in anything that concerns him most… His actual concern is reconciliation with his wife and a new life together… There is a tentative rapprochement but, of course, there is another of those young contender interventions, this time in the person of Skip Homeier…

Henry King draws up carefully the ultimate end of the 'top gun of the West.' His film is an inclination towards a classical tragedy, destined to be destroyed inevitably... Peck strikes the right note from his first edgy entry... He wants to shake off his past... He is disgusted to kill in order to survive... He is aimless for a change, sick with death and glory, showing tiredness of killing, conscious to a tragic fate one day...

Peck is superb in his brief and nervy reunion with his small son, impressed like the rest of the local kids by the fact that Jimmy Ringo, the gunfighter, is in town...

"The Gunfighter", keen and penetrating, explosive and tense, is beautifully acted, tautly directed and superbly photographed by Arthur Miller in black-and-white...