Death of a Gunfighter (1969)

Powerful

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This film was produced at a time when the old Hayes Code was breaking down and the MPAA was still trying to figure out which rating buckets to throw movies into. So this was the first of the "grittier" western that we saw before the whole genre fell out of favor.The plot is a town that hired a gunslinger to be its marshal, with the understanding he was to eliminate bad guys with extreme prejudice. Now the town has a railroad and is looking for investment and wants to become all modern and such, at the cusp of the 20th century, and they want their Marshall gone. Except he doesn't want to go.Now I think the problem with this film is that they can't think of any other way to get rid of this guy other than killing him. Oh, wait, they get the county sheriff (Played by John Saxon) to ask him nicely to resign. It seems like the mass ambush at the end is more symbolic than practical.It's a fun film to watch.

A town is unhappy with its marshall but can't get rid of him. Don Siegel was let go as the director and was replaced by Allen Smithee, the first film credited to the fictitious name, which is usually an indication that a film is likely to be not good. While the direction is lackluster, the script is even worse. Widmark plays a marshall with a reputation for a quick trigger. He refuses to turn in his badge when asked to do so by the town council, which hired him. The reason for this bizarre behavior is not explained. It's strange seeing Horne in a Western. She does OK in a rare dramatic role, although she's given little to do.

Death of a Gunfighter is directed by Don Siegel and Robert Totten under the pseudonym of Alan Smithee. It's adapted to screenplay by Joseph Calvelli from the novel written by Lewis B. Patten. it stars Richard Widmark, Lena Horne and Carroll O'Connor. A Technicolor production it sees music is by Oliver Nelson and cinematography by Andrew Jackson. Plot sees Widmark as Patch, an old style lawman in the town of Cottonwood Springs, a town that the community elders want to see move with the times. When Patch kills a drunk in self defence, the town denizens see it as the ideal opportunity to oust him from office. But Patch isn't that keen to leave his post....It carries with it some historical cinematic value in that it was the first time the name Alan Smithee was seen on the directing credits. A name that come to be associated with films where the director who worked on it wanted his name off of the credits. Here it was Don Siegel, who only came in for the last two weeks of filming after Widmark and Totten fell out. The finished product, whilst no duffer, is still a lukewarm experience, not helped by the fact that the theme at its core has been done considerably better in other Western offerings. On the plus side there is Widmark stoically giving his anachronism role some real emotional depth, and the finale does not want for dramatic impact. But it plays out like a TV movie, with no visual flourishes, and the cosmopolitan make up of the townsfolk is not utilised to aid the story. 6/10

This maybe the greatest film ever directed by the elusive Allen Smithee whose name comes up on the credits of this and many other films that directors can't or don't want to claim credit for a variety of reasons. Robert Totten and Don Siegel directed it and neither wanted credit for their own reasons. So unlike Come and Get It where both Howard Hawks and William Wyler directed it and both are listed, this one was credited to the elusive Mr. Smithee, that pseudonym invented by Hollywood for one who doesn't want the credit.Usually they don't want the credit because it's a stinkeroo. But here this is a good western about an aging town marshal whose time as come and gone and won't see it.Richard Widmark is that marshal and the local bordello madam, Lena Horne is his girlfriend or one of them. The film opens with an irate husband looking to gun him down played by Jimmy Lydon. Of course he's no match for the lawman and this spurs the town council to look for a way to finally be rid of him. The town elders are such veterans as Larry Gates, Morgan Woodward, David Opatoshu, Dub Taylor, and Kent Smith. It becomes pretty obvious that Widmark won't take the hint and they start running out of options. For one of them it ends in tragedy.Carroll O'Connor plays the most interesting role here, a far cry from Archie Bunker. He owns one of the saloons and his reasons are more typical, law and order has been taking away business for too long. O'Connor is a slime ball who first tries to use others to do his dirty work.The others are the ones who brought Widmark to town in the first place, but now Widmark is a law unto himself. He has his own way of interpreting what needs to be done and the skill with a weapon to enforce it.As you can imagine it's a pretty bloody picture, but a great lesson to be learned when you allow a man on horseback to run things.I'm imagining though, millions of years from now; Aliens excavating our planet and through the efforts of folks like the American Film Institute come across the collected works of Allen Smithee. In their textbooks it's going to read that Smithee was a mediocre talent of whom little is known, but this one film is a great one amongst a lot of mediocrity.