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A Gunfight | |
---|---|
Directed by | Lamont Johnson |
Written by | Harold Jack Bloom |
Produced by | Harold Jack Bloom A. Ronald Lubin |
Starring | Kirk Douglas Johnny Cash Jane Alexander |
Cinematography | David M. Walsh |
Music by | Laurence Rosenthal |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2 million [1] [2] |
A Gunfight is a 1971 American Western film directed by Lamont Johnson, starring Kirk Douglas and Johnny Cash.
The film was financed by the Jicarilla Apache Nation, although there are no leading Native American characters in the story.
Douglas' fee was $150,000 plus a percentage of the profits. [1]
Will Tenneray and Abe Cross are two aging, famous gunfighters, both in need of money. Cross rides into town, having failed as a gold prospector. His reputation is such that everyone expects him to shoot it out with Tenneray, who capitalizes on his legend by working at the saloon to "sucker fools into buying drinks." To the town's surprise, Tenneray and Cross take a liking to one another. There is no hostility between them whatsoever.
Tenneray is desperate for money, however. He comes up with the idea to stage a duel to the death in a bullfight arena, with the ticket proceeds going to the winner. Unfortunately, by killing Cross, he reasons to Nora, his wife, "I could lose my best friend." The actual gunfight is shot in a low-key and unromanticised fashion, and is over in a couple of seconds, Cross killing Tenneray with the first bullet. (This defies conventions with the "man in black" winning.)
There is an extended fantasy sequence near the end, where we see what might have happened if Tenneray had won, which may have confused some viewers. It may be open to interpretation if this is Cross's fantasy or Tenneray's widow's fantasy.
The film was based on an original script by Harold Bloom who sent it to Kirk Douglas who loved it and decided to star and co-produce. Douglas persuaded Johnny Cash to co star. Finance came in part from the oil-rich Jicarilla tribe, whose head, Chief Charlie, was an admirer of Johnny Cash. Filming took place in New Mexico. [2]
Stagecoach is a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox. The film follows a group primarily composed of strangers riding on a stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory.
Kirk Douglas was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.
Gunfighters, also called gunslingers or in the late 19th and early 20th century gunmen, were individuals in the American Old West who gained a reputation of being dangerous with a gun and participated in shootouts. Today, the term "gunslinger" is more or less used to denote someone who is quick on the draw with a handgun, but this can also refer to those armed with rifles and shotguns. The gunfighter is also one of the most popular characters in the Western genre and has appeared in associated films, television shows, video games, and literature.
John Brown was an American college football player and film actor billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career. He acted and starred mainly in Western films.
The revisionist Western, also called the anti-Western, is a sub-genre of the Western film. Called a post-classical variation of the traditional Western, the revisionist subverts the myth and romance of the traditional by means of character development and realism to present a less simplistic view of life in the "Old West". While the traditional Western always embodies a clear boundary between good and evil, the revisionist Western does not.
Jicarilla Apache, one of several loosely organized autonomous bands of the Eastern Apache, refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athabaskan language. The term jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning "little basket", referring to the small sealed baskets they used as drinking vessels. To neighboring Apache bands, such as the Mescalero and Lipan, they were known as Kinya-Inde.
William Albert Henry was an American actor who worked in both films and television.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a 1957 American Western film starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, and loosely based on the actual event in 1881. The film was directed by John Sturges from a screenplay written by novelist Leon Uris. It was a remake of the 1939 film Frontier Marshall starring Randolph Scott and of John Ford's 1946 film My Darling Clementine.
Charles McGraw was an American stage, film and television actor whose career spanned more than three decades.
Stephen McNally was an American actor remembered mostly for his appearances in many Westerns and action films. He often played hard-hearted characters, criminals, bullies, and other villains.
Joseph Isaac Clanton was a member of a loose association of outlaws known as The Cowboys who clashed with lawmen Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp as well as Doc Holliday. On October 26, 1881, Clanton was present at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona Territory but was unarmed and ran from the gunfight, in which his 19-year-old brother Billy was killed.
Denny Scott Miller was an American actor, perhaps best known for his regular role as Duke Shannon on Wagon Train, his guest-starring appearances on Gilligan's Island and Charlie's Angels, and his 1959 film role as Tarzan.
The Light at the Edge of the World is a 1971 Spanish-American adventure film, directed by Kevin Billington and starring Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, Samantha Eggar, and Fernando Rey. It was adapted from Jules Verne's classic 1905 adventure novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World. The plot involves piracy in the South Atlantic during the mid-19th century, with a theme of survival in extreme circumstances, and events centering on an isolated lighthouse.
Support Your Local Gunfighter is a 1971 American comic Western film directed by Burt Kennedy and starring James Garner and Suzanne Pleshette. The screenplay was originally written by James Edward Grant, who died in 1966; Kennedy rewrote it but let Grant keep sole credit. The picture shares many cast and crew members and plot elements with the earlier Support Your Local Sheriff! but is not a sequel. The supporting cast features Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, John Dehner, Marie Windsor, Dub Taylor, Joan Blondell and Ellen Corby.
Lewis Byford Patten was a prolific author of American Western novels, born and died in Denver, Colorado. He often published under the names Lewis Ford, Lee Leighton and Joseph Wayne. He used the last two names when writing in collaboration with Wayne D. Overholser.
The Gunfight at Hide Park, or the Newton Massacre, was the name given to an Old West gunfight that occurred on August 19, 1871, in Newton, Kansas, United States. While well publicized at the time, the shootout has received little historical attention despite resulting in a higher body count than the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight of 1881. Unlike most other well-known gunfights of the Old West, it involved no notable or well-known gunfighters, nor did it propel any of its participants into any degree of fame. The story has transformed into legend due to reports that one of the participants, James Riley, walked away from the scene and was never seen again.
The Savage Guns is a 1961 Eurowestern film, an international co-production by British and Spanish producers. Based on a specially commissioned screenplay, The San Siado Killings, written by Peter R. Newman and directed by Michael Carreras, the film is credited as the first traditional Spaghetti Western.
Stagecoach is a 1986 American Western television film directed by Ted Post and written by James Lee Barrett. It is a remake of the 1939 film of the same name, itself based on a short story by Ernest Haycox. It is the second remake of the film, after the 1966 feature film. Kris Kristofferson stars as the Ringo Kid. Willie Nelson portrays famous gunslinger and dentist Doc Holliday, Johnny Cash portrays Marshal Curly Wilcox and Waylon Jennings plays the gambler Hatfield. All four stars were associated as members of the country music supergroup The Highwaymen. The supporting cast features Elizabeth Ashley, Anthony Newley, Tony Franciosa, Mary Crosby, June Carter Cash and Jessi Colter. The film aired on CBS on May 18, 1986.
Ben Cooper was an American actor of film and television who won a Golden Boot Award in 2005 for his work in Westerns.
James H. Leavy was an Irish gunfighter in the Old West. He is remembered today by Western historians for participating in at least two instances of a quick draw duel. In his time, Leavy was one of the most notorious gunmen in the Old West known for challenging other gunmen to a duel. He is featured in the book Deadly Dozen, written by author Robert K. DeArment as one of the twelve most underrated gunmen of the 19th century West.