Der Scharfschütze

I found every moment of this movie gripping. Now, I am a fan of the Western genre, but this one is one of my favorites along with The Oxbow Incident and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The "tough-guy who can not get away from his past/reputation" is a classic and Gregory Peck's performance has the perfect air of menace and weariness for the role. I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys thoughtful and dramatic movies.

This film was made during the peak years of "Film Noir". Although it is almost incongruous to place the western film into that genre, "The Gunfighter" comes close to meeting the criteria.

It is a deep dark western devoid of gunplay(until the conclusion)highlighted by a marvelous portrait painted by Gregory Peck as Jimmy Ringo, the gunfighter, trying to escape his past.

Ringo in his younger days was one of the "fastest guns in the west" who has survived to reach middle age. As he has matured he realizes you can't change what has happened.

Everywhere Ringo goes he is perceived as the "the fastest gun in the west" and everywhere he stops there is some young gun who wants to prove he is faster than the great Ringo. In fact when Ringo stops in a dusty town, he is being pursued by three brothers of his latest victim seeking revenge.

Ringo's arrival in this town is more than just co-incidence. We learn that the sheriff (what a performance by Millard Mitchell) used to run with the Ringo gang, the saloon singer was married to Ringo's best friend, and most importantly, Ringo's wife and son live there.

The bulk of the story is spent waiting to see if Ringo who lives by his wits as well as his guns, can survive.

The acting is uniform with Karl Malden as the saloon keeper and Skip Homeier standing alongside Peck of Mitchell for acting cudos

The script by Bill Bowers is taught and suspenseful. Henry King's in his second of 5 films with Peck(their previous collaboration was "Twelve O'Clock High") brings out the essence of a tired lonely tragic man without using any tricks(In fact there is no music except for the opening titles.

If you're looking for a shoot-em-up you won't find it here. If what you want is a top flight adult western, well pardner you've come to the right film.

THE GUNFIGHTER is the seventh western movie I've watched in the last couple of weeks in my quest to catch up with a bunch of films I've never seen that I recorded from TV. And I've made sure I've posted a review as I viewed each for the first time.

THE GUNFIGHTER is another superb western from a director not normally associated with the genre. Falling squarely between the 1940s and 1950s, I was at first uncertain at to which camp this film fell into. It has all the incidents you'd expect in a 1940s oater, but overlaid with the kind of psychology and sensibilities you'd expect in a 1950s western. In the end, I decided this is a film about contrasts.

The first contrast you notice is the visual one. The movie is shot in black and white and it seems that those were the only two tones available to director Henry King. The exteriors are bright, bleached out and hard on the eyes. The interiors are dark, cool and gloomy. There doesn't seem to be much shades of grey going on (of course, I could have been watching a bad print, but work with me, here ...)

This visual contrast is echoed by the contrasts between the characters. The first of these we see is the contrast between Peck's Jimmy Ringo and the dumb kid who challenges him in the first bar. Ringo tries to talk him round, the kid won't have it and goes for his gun. But Ringo - of course - is faster. Darwinism at work ...

The next telling contrast is between Ringo and his old compadre, Town Marshall Mark Street. While Ringo still drifts from town to town, occasionally having to show some punk who's fastest, Mark has gone respectable and settled down. Mark is a respected citizen while Ringo's presence causes mothers to call their children indoors.

Then there's the contrast between Peggy, Ringo's estranged wife, and the gossipping, prejudiced biddies of the town. Is it any coincidence that Peggy is a teacher, representing education and, by implication, civilisation?

THE GUNFIGHTER is very tightly plotted at just 85 minutes. It seems longer because of the wealth of incident it packed into its slender running time. Film makers of today could learn a lot about how to pace a story from films like this.

If it shows up on TCM or somesuch satellite/cable channel, do yourself a favour and make the effort to catch it. It's well worth your while.

There are a handful of western films that have immersed me in the story and the characters so effectively that I never grow tired of viewing them. Even though I may have seen the film fifty times or more, I get so involved in the film that I hope that one plot element will change and the story will have a different ending. Those films are: "High Noon", "Shane", "The Shootist" and "The Gunfighter".

It was Peck's idea for Jimmy Ringo to have a mustache--to Fox studio head Darryl Zanuck's disgust. Zanuck thought that moviegoers liked to see a clean-shaven Peck. The picture was not a box office success at the time, but it ranks among the Top 10 western films of all time in my book.

I chanced upon the DVD of this movie at the local library and decided to check it out, as having already previously watched Peck in other Westerns like "The Bravados", "The Big Country" & "Mackenna's Gold". In all these films, he appears to me to be playing the same kind of role - a reserved character whose behavior is atypical to those around him which manages to garner him unwelcome attention. Here in "The Gunfighter", he plays Jimmie Ringo - a tribute to the Johnny Ringo character, perhaps? - a dead-hand gunslinger with 15 kills to his credit (or discredit, whichever way you look at it), who wishes to put the past behind him and to be left alone and start a life anew in peaceful obscurity, but is hounded everywhere by would-be wannabe Billy the Kids who are vying for the "honor" and "distinction" of having shot him. Reminds me of the movie "The Shootist" starring John Wayne, which has basically an identical plot. Technically speaking, Ringo is an outlaw to be feared by the general public, yet one can't help but take sides with him and empathize with his situation. Serendipity takes him to a town where the Marshal turns out to be his ex-compatriot in crime and the bartender knows him from elsewhere but feels nothing but admiration for his past exploits and both do everything they can to help him, much to the dismay and annoyance of the townspeople especially the Ladies Committee made up of self-righteous biddies.

I understand that this movie did not do too well at the box office but great films are not necessarily big money-earners, and vice-versa. This is one Western which is, like the roles Gregory Peck plays in films of such genre, is atypical in that the emphasis is more on the study of central character and his inner self rather than his deeds. The only flaw I found was the lack of a proper movie score especially for some of the more tense scenes like the confrontation with the 3 cowboys, which would have highlighted the moments. Otherwise, a great film in my opinion.