Winchester 73

If you have just watched the original Winchester 73 with Jimmy Stewart and foolishly followed it with his one -- you have my utmost sympathy. At least the screen writers didn't make a duplicate of the original. That probably would have even been worse. There are a handful of talented actors in this movie; however, they couldn't save it from the bad script or the other actors who were the proverbial flash in the pan -- only on the screen because they had the Look and nothing more. This movie might be more palatable if I had not watched the original right before this one.

This is a fantastic remake of the original that starred James Stewart. John Saxon plays the bad guy and guess who plays his father, Dan Duryea who also starred in the original. I hope someday they will distribute this on VHS or DVD. If not, I hope they will at least air it again on television.

I don't know what it says about some of the contributors to this site that they seem to want to eulogise the guns that are featured in films rather than dwell on their harmful consequences.This is a cheap and shoddy TV remake by Universal of one of the great Westerns of all time.They have a determination to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator .It is quite apparent that they want to keep the cast list to below 10 and use all of their standing sets at Universal City.Their "Indian Tribe" seems to consist of just 2 individuals.The acting of the younger members of the cast is so wooden that you would believe that their faces are incapable of mobility.The shootout at the end is poorly staged and the whole film is a total bore which even a fine actor such as Dan Duryea cannot redeem.

Not unwatchable, but close to it. I agree with malcomgsw, this pales in comparison to the classic from 1950, one of my personal favorites from any genre. The changes to the plot do not improve upon the original but overly complicate it - in this case less is more. John Saxon gives the best performance here, making the most of a thin script. Saxon is good at playing creeps, see him in "The Appaloosa" with Brando. Tom Tryon gives a wooden performance, shortly before giving up acting to become a writer. It was gratifying to see Dan Duryea from the earlier film, but his turn here seems tired, while in the original he was one of the more memorable villains in screen history. John Drew Barrymore's hippie character is unusual, but out of place in a western, kind of like Donald Sutherland in "Kelly's Heroes". All in all, an inferior remake of a superior film. I would, however, take issue with malcolmgsw's comment that some IMDb contributors seem to "want to eulogize the guns that are featured in films rather than dwell on their harmful consequences". We can of course, dwell on anything we want to, but while we're dwelling, what about the people living on the frontier whose lives were saved by having firearms nearby? Just saying.

It's always tough to do a remake. This is no exception -- indeed, an excellent example of the remake challenge. Since there was nothing wrong with the excellent Jimmy Stewart version, there was no need to remake it -- except to do it differently. And different is indeed what they do.

Does it work? Well, not as well as Anthony Mann's did. The various criticisms of previous reviewers are valid: there is wooden acting (especially by the lead, Tom Tryon), and the story line is highly altered. However, there are strong points here, even if the production-as-a-whole is not as well-realized as the 50s version.

• First, the message and emphasis is different. Mann genuinely focused on the rifle as his central plot point (hence the title!), but this film uses the titular rifle as more of a MacGuffin.

• Second, there are genuinely interesting efforts at direction -- e.g., the camera riding along with the coffin during the funeral procession.

• Thirdly, there are strong performances among the more pedestrian (more detail below).

Does it all work? Well -- not quite as well as they wanted. But there is something there, and it does work sometimes. Part of the problem is being a TV movie -- acts must end in cliffhangers, for the commercial breaks, and the whole production has to be made quickly. So it isn't what it might have been, but there are still things to appreciate.

John Saxon is hugely responsible for this version's effectiveness, being the central character -- being a dark reflection upon his father. We are told this more than shown it, but Saxon makes us believe in him throughout, even as we fear him.

There is also Luna's character, which (despite not featuring in the 50s version) is the second joy here. She's very much the actress we see on the original Star Trek, or later on Fantasy Island -- perfectly capable of going from sexy to dangerous in .01 seconds, while stealing the scene. Nice to see she's still working, even if she never had a major hit to call her own. She and Saxon make this worth seeing, and either one or the other appear in almost every scene.

Joan Blondell appears about an hour into the movie, for no real benefit (except to see her perform). One might suppose there were scenes which explained why her character mattered, rather than just a few scenes for her to strut. Personally, this was highly disappointing, as her inclusion was mainly why I bought the DVD.

Overall: the opening is a little slow, the conclusion is a little clumsy, the plot points are sometimes a bit mushy. And yet, I just watched it for a second time and was firmly involved from beginning to end. It's a solid production, which attempts a subtle depiction of dysfunctional family dynamics, and doesn't come off terribly articulate -- and yet, the message is there, with some fine performances along the way.