Frank Patch - Deine Stunden sind gezählt

Someone by the name of Joseph Calvelli is credited with the screenplay of DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER - I know him not from the proverbial bar of soap, and on the strength of the illogical, awful script, I hope not to see his name again.

Director Alan Smithee is in fact bipolar: he is the name used by Directors Don Siegel - whom I admire very much - and Robert Totten, whose film GUNSMOKE I watched so long ago that I do not have a firm opinion on its merits anymore.

With a bipolar Alan Smithee and a substandard script writer, things inevitavly go south with this production and Andrew Jackson's pedestrian cinematography does not function as Deus Ex Machina either. Sadly, those failures pull the rug from under the feet of the acting ensemble.

Richard Widmark posts his trademark quality performance as the trigger happy Marshall Patch (a fitting name, the unfortunate lawman is going through a bad patch despite his basic decency); capably assisted by main villain Carroll O'Connor (then famous for his comic TV show, ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE), suicidal Kent Smith, and David Opatoshu as leader of the city elders trying not just to oust but to actually kill Widmark.

I have always liked Don Siegel for his respet of cause and efffect in the plot, but here he must have allowed the other part of Alan Smithee to smite his ass, and the final scenes of a moribund Widmark marrying Lena Horne and staggering about the town with a shot in the leg and another in his left shoulder just reek of impossibility. 6/10 is actually generous, as I really like Widmark and Siegel.

Started by Robert Totten, then taken over by Don Siegel at the insistence of Richard Widmark (Totten and the star "clashed," as they say), "Death of a Gunfighter" wound up credited to the fictitious and now somewhat famous Alan Smithee. This intriguing Western remains the elusive director's best work, thanks, no doubt, to the proven skills of Siegel and another terrific Widmark performance (the director and star had previously collaborated on "Madigan" a year earlier). As sheriff Widmark's love interest, Lena Horne hasn't much to do, but she looks good doing it.

"Death of a gunfighter" belongs to the crepuscular western genre which would become prominent in the seventies with such works as "the shootist" .The hero (masterfully played by Richard Widmark as brilliant as ever) is definitely a man of the past ;twenty years go ,when he began his job of a marshal ,the street was not safe and the way of the gun was the only one .Now,the town longs for respectability,for a "modern" Police .The unsung hero has not realized that history is a jet plane : there are photographs in the rooms and the first automobiles (like in Sam Peckinpah's " ballad of Cable Hogue") will pretty soon leave the horse-drawn carriages far behind .

The title speaks for itself :the marshal's fate is sealed as soon the movie begins .The old people are blasé or tired .there are two young lads ,one of them an orphan is excited by his employer's daughter ,and although she throws him a line twice,he can't make up his mind to go all the way;the other one ,after a tragic loss,thinks he can take laws in his hands and become a gunfighter like his enemy.

The atmosphere of the movie is gloomy : it begins with a woman in mourning and ends the same way.A priest is saying prayers in the saloon as a man is dying.A wedding is to take place after a funeral.This is not your average action-packed western ,it looks like a dirge

This revisionist western talks about the inevitable unfolding after many years. About 20 years, of the accumulation of injustice, immorality in Cottownwood Springs, Texas, at the turn of the 19th and 20th century! There is almost no positive characters in the described events and main characters. Among the worst, in addition to the violent, marshal Frank Patch (convincingly played by Richard Widmark), is the vile Lester Locke (played by Carroll O'Connor), one of the initiators of the conspiracy against Marshal F. Patch. Marshal Patch has mostly fallen into a hopeless life trap with his reckless actions. Illegally, in delicate situations he decides how he "thinks" it is right. So he once let, the killer from behind, Andrew Oxley (played solidly by Kent Smith), go unpunished in order for the latter to raise the victim's son Will Oxley. BTW , marshal F. Patch was a gunfighter until he was hired 20 years ago by the leaders of Cottownwood Springs. In principle the gunfighter is badly character, who often resolve ordinary conflicts outside the law or per wild west law - by showdown. Ordinary people rightly despised them. Most of the leaders of the place have their dishonorable secrets that marshal Patch mostly knows about.

Although for some it is an unusual ending that marshal Patch experienced (for some, the very scene of the clay pigeon in which Patch found himself is debatable), it did not surprise me. I think the intention of the main authors of the film was to show that local cowardly leaders are capable of organizing illegally the brutal removal of marshals.

Famous directors Robert Totten and Don Siegel as well as sciwriters: Joseph Calvelli (screenplay), Lewis B. Patten (novel) deserve praise for this above-average film.

Cinematography by Andrew Jackson) i Art Direction by Alexander Golitzen, Howard E. Johnson and Set Decoration by Sandy Grace, John McCarthy Jr. are well done - although there is one visible mistake: decorated barn through which local leaders pass!

Music by Oliver Nelson is satisfying.

R. Widmark, with his characteristic cynical, repulsive style, played very well the character of the antipathetic, arrogant, self-confident, bad marshal F. Patch. This role suited him like the ace on ten!

There's the solid acting of Lena Horne, once a famous African-American entertainer, in the role of Claire Quintan. She is the girl F. Patch in the film. Both the girl from the brothel and hers owner.

Carroll O'Connor (as Lester Locke) convincingly plays the character of a cunning conspirator against F. Patch.

Of the other famous actors, John Saxon stands out, albeit less on screen, as Lou Trinidad - convincing as a marshal in a nearby town. He is an acquaintance of F. Patch and who correctly advises him to leave Cottownwood Springs - to give up position of the marshal. Seeing that things have gone too far - unfavorably, he makes a correct proposal. Patch has no other way out if he wants to save his head!

There are some pleasant and perceptive touches to this parable of the passing of the old west and the inevitability of the arrival of civilized society. This film mirrors at least two other films from 1969, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and THE WILD BUNCH. All three films try to capture the sunset of their anachronistic characters. Pike Bishop and Frank Patch have much in common. There is no room for them anymore in the West they knew. Bishop and Butch and Sundance light out for sunnier climes only to meet explosive endings. Frank Patch sees himself as a force for stability, a safeguard against primal urges that simmer on the surface and are kept in check only because he is the law. He underestimates the political climate of his town and the passion the town burghers are willing to unleash to remove him from office. Rather then move on, he is compelled to stay. I would especially like to recommend the pastoral scene where the local politicos convoy out to the fishing hole where Patch and young Dan are spending the day. It is a beautiful composition.