La Cible humaine

No need to recap what's essentially a well done, but one-note plot. It looks like the seeds of a hundred TV westerns get their start here as Peck's weary gunfighter shows the many ravages of being Top Gun. Then too, the clock watching plus the vengeful riders coming to town looks a lot like the later High Noon (1952). I suspect this was one of the more influential oaters of the period.

It's also shrewdly cast. Peck's rather stiff acting style works well for the besieged Ringo, a man now living mainly within himself since nobody can be trusted. But I especially like Mitchell's sheriff. He projects real authority tinged by an appropriate hint of understanding. Plus, he looks like a genuine frontier hard guy. Too bad this unusual actor died so soon. And was there ever a better dislikable young punk than Skip Homeier, who made a brief career out of such unlovelies. On the other hand, Westcott appears a shade too young (22) to be Ringo's wife and mother of an eight-year old, but at least she's not glamorous in the usual Hollywood style.

The climax is appropriately non-heroic, just a couple shots in an alleyway. Not exactly the usual Hollywood showdown. I suspect that's one reason for the rather mythic final sequence, for Peck has managed to inject a touch of nobility into the character of the ravaged gunfighter. All in all, it's a somber and elegiac eighty-minutes that eventually cast quite a forward shadow.

The Gunfighter established the trend for mature Hollywood westerns by having the hero be a mature gunfighter who wants to retire in peace, not in pieces. The movie created the line which has been parodied since "everywhere I go, some young punk wants to try me." Using Richard Jaeckle and Skip Homier as the young wanna-be gunfighters was a classic piece of casting, since both of them went on to play similar parts in westerns, although not together. One piece of trivia about this film was that Harry Cohn at Columbia originally had bought the script with the intent of having John Wayne play the lead. Wayne,by now, was a major star, producing his own films. Wayne wanted to do the role, but didn't want to do it at Columbia. As a young actor, he had been treated badly by Cohn who humiliated him after his disastrous first lead in "The Big Trail." Wayne told Cohn in so many words what he could do with his script. The script was then sold to Twentieth Century Fox. Wayne did play a similar role in his final picture, "The Shootist."

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.

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...

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.