A Gunfight (1971)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Truly Dreadful Film

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Will Tenneray and Abe Cross, two aging gunmen decide to fight each other in a bullfight arena. The winner gets the cash, the loser dies. Lamont Johnson's western A Gunfight from 1971 takes death pretty lightly. Of course western movies usually do, but I have a particular problem with this one. Both of these men, Will and Abe are pretty likable guys, and they're both friendly to each other. And Will has a family to protect. So why risk everything with a pointless gunfight, where you know you might lose your life? Money isn't everything you know. And I didn't like the bullfight scenes in this movie. Animals are not meant to die for the entertainment of people. But sure there are some good things in this movie, too. Let's start with the actors. The legendary, now 101 years old Kirk Douglas plays Will. He never fails. And then you have Johnny Cash (1932-2003) as Abe. The man could really act. You also hear his singing in this movie. Jane Alexander is superb as Will's wife Nora. Kirk's late son Eric Douglas is here in his movie debut as the son Bud. Karen Black, who we lost about five years ago, gives an outstanding performance as Jenny Sims. Keith Carradine plays Young Gunfighter. The late great Dana Elcar, who I remember as MacGyver's Peter Thornton, plays Marv. The western view is great as always. When you see the camera move with Johnny Cash in that western town, it's really something. And I liked the what if- part in the end. Abe wins the real battle, but in a slow motion moment with Abe and Nora looking at each other you see a glimpse of how things would have turned out, if Will had won. Not the best western, but also not the worst.

I think one should watch A Gunfight after seeing Gregory Peck's classic film The Gunfighter. It gives you definitely an alternative vision.Imagine Peck's character of Jim Ringo not being killed by back-shooting Skip Homeier, but actually settling down with his wife and son. That's essentially what you've got in Kirk Douglas's character of Will Tenneray who finds retired life not what it's cracked up to be.The days of the wild west are over and Douglas now makes a living appearing at the local saloon and encouraging folks to spend there. He's like some prominent sports figure who is a greeter out in Las Vegas and if you're a big enough spender you might get to play golf or party with him. But it's one dull life even with wife Jane Alexander and young son Eric Douglas.Along comes Johnny Cash playing another gunfighter relic whose horse gets bit by a rattler. Now he's stuck in this New Mexico border town and with two legends of the west in this place, the gossip commences.Cash is similarly bored by his existence and the two of them, both cash poor decide on a duel to the death with admission charged at a bullfight arena across the border in Mexico. Literally winner take all. These guys must have felt like gladiators.A Gunfight is certainly an interesting spin on some of the western nostrums that prevailed in Hollywood. Douglas and Cash are perfectly cast in the leads and get good support from the rest of the players. For myself I enjoyed Robert J. Wilke who for once is on the right side of the law playing the town marshal. Keith Carradine has a good role as a young punk who wants to take on the winner and Karen Black is fine as a saloon girl who Cash spends some time with.I also never expected to find Raf Vallone in a western. But the Italian actor plays a Mexican store keeper who had been keeping discreet company with Alexander while Douglas was roaming the west. Certainly different from faithful Helen Westcott who raised her son and taught school while Gregory Peck was raising hell.Who wins, you have to see for yourself. But in the end did it really matter as the film brings you an interesting conclusion.

Spoiler Alert I think, there is no "double-end showdown" in the final sequence of this wonderful movie. It's rather the happiest ending this tragedy could possibly get. Tenneray (Douglas) is the less lovable character, he's the one who made a (pretty poor) living from his fame before, he's the one to come out with the idea to kill one another for money, and he's the one who actually dies in the end. The sequence that shows Cross' death is cut between two deaths of Tenneray with Cross as the survivor, simply to show, that he (T) would not really have profited from staying alive - he just would have remained an a**hole. If only one man will get out alive, why not the not-so-bad guy? "Let the good one die!" simply has become a worn out clichee in the last decades among 'ambitious' directors.

The Western showdown is a duel, a matching of gunplay skills in which the faster, more professional gunman wins... The logical extension of the show is without doubt a gladiatorial Roman circus combat between two fighters and such is the elemental structure of Lamont Johnson's film...Kirk Douglas is a retired gunman sick enough of his life, and Johnny Cash is a weary gunslinger who knows that even if he wins, he will eventually lose... Both are famous, veteran gunfighters who provide their talent as the quick and the fast... The auditorium chosen is a bullfight ring...Whether the two men are considered as gladiators or bullfighters, the film deplorably smashes the traditional conception of the showdown, twisting it from a clash between good and bad into a show of a very poor quality...The situation exposed is certainly ambiguous, implausible and anti-climactic against popular blood lust...The film captures the viewer with a double-ended showdown... One with Douglas as the winner, and the other with Cash...Our feeling is that the strands of myth and honest re-creation which connect the American Western to the real American West are being cut by those whose roots are far removed from the actual frontier... To the Western purist, such tendency can only be seen with alarm... The screen showdown has been undermined and ruined... There are no white hats and black villainy anymore...