Two years after
Henry Hathaway made True Grit (and
at the age of 73), he directed this western with Gregory Peck. It’s a handsome film shot in New Mexico and the Sierras of California, with a notable score by Dave Grusin.
Peck manages to
plausibly play an ex-con bent on revenge and a man whose fatherly instincts
emerge when he’s put in charge of a six-year-old girl. The role is a reprise of
Atticus Finch, but with six-guns and a prison record. Somewhat implausibly,
the screenplay claims to be based on Will James’ fictional autobiography, Lone Cowboy.
Plot. Peck is released from prison after serving a seven-year
sentence for bank robbery. While leaving the scene of the crime, his partner
shot him in the back, and Peck refused to name him at the time of his trial.
Now he plans to find the man and even the score between them.
Expecting some money
from a former lover in Kansas City, he is surprised when the train delivers
instead a small motherless girl (Dawn Lyn). After trying unsuccessfully to get
someone to take her off his hands, he takes her along with him on his mission
of revenge. Doing the math, he (and we) suspect that the girl is really his
daughter. She is feisty and mouthy and adorable most of the time, though sometimes
you wish someone would tell her to shut up, and Peck eventually does.
 |
| Dawn Lyn and Gregory Peck |
The pair of them are
being followed by three punks in the hire of the man Peck intends to kill
(James Gregory). Led by a young tough (Robert F. Lyons), they have with them a
saloon girl (Rita Gam), whose shrill complaints would put cracks in plaster.
Together they are like a street gang as imagined in West Side Story.
The crisis in the
film comes as the gang invades the home of a widow and her young son, who have
given Peck and the girl shelter on a rainy night. The gang’s wanton violation
of the sanctity of hearth and home produces a scene that gets creepy with
dread, especially as Lyons takes to shooting pieces of fine china off the head
of the girl. After long minutes of scary suspense, Peck finally gets the upper
hand. What’s left for him is the final meeting with Gregory and the settling of yet
another score with Lyons.
Four stars. This is an above-average western, made when the
golden age of the Hollywood western was about over. Peck brings an ease to his
character that is evident from the first scene as he makes clear to the prison
warden that he has not been rehabilitated by his term behind bars. He still has
plenty of fight in him.
The supporting cast
includes the excellent Jeff Corey, who plays a saloon owner in a wheelchair.
Lyons, on the other hand, plays a sadistic villain who is as much punk as
psychopath, and you can weary of his unrelenting mockery and malice. Here are
all of them in an early scene:
Despite its GP
rating, this is a movie meant for adults. There’s some coarse language. Even
the little girl swears. For the time, the sexuality is fairly frank, as two of
the gang make a three-way with Gam’s saloon girl, and we get a glimpse of
frontal nudity. Their raucous carryon interferes with the post-coital mood of
Peck and another woman in the next room.
Shoot Out is currently available online and streamable at netflix. For more of Tuesday’s Overlooked Films, hop on over to Todd Mason’s blog.
Image credits:
Peck and Lyn,
themoviescene.co.uk
Coming up: Max Brand, Red Hawk's Trail (1925)
I generally liked Peck pretty well as a western actor.
ReplyDeleteI like Gregory Peck alot but in this western he is too kind and sensitive to really effectively play the revenge role. After 7 years in prison he would have been meaner and really pissed off. Kind of hard to believe he would drag around a little girl also.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, all that made the film interesting for me. I thought Peck managed the stretch of plausibility pretty well. The likelihood that the girl is his daughter makes him feel responsible for her in a way that some other man wouldn't.
DeletePeck is so likable in any role. Was that the little girl on MY THREE SONS?
ReplyDeleteYep, Patti --Dawn would go on to play Dodie, but would revisit the west in several episodes of Gunsmoke. I've never seen this picture, but Ron's description puts it ahead of its time.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Richard, for clearing that up.
DeleteRon, I wonder if Gregory Peck was the only major actor of his era who acted in an equal number of western and war films, and quite successfully too. I can't think of any one else who did. Peck was good in both types of films.
ReplyDeleteQuite a few Hollywood actors played in both westerns and war films. John Wayne, for example. As for "equal," I couldn't say.
DeleteHow about Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Randolph Scott, Robert Taylor. There are more.
ReplyDeleteAdd Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Dana Andrews. I don't think this observation works.
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