Winchester '73 is a 1950 American Westernfilm noir directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea and Stephen McNally. Written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is set in 1876 in a variety of famed Western locations and follows the journey of a prized rifle from one ill-fated owner to another, as well as a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive. It is the first Western film collaboration between Mann and Stewart, the first of eight films that they made together, and was filmed in black and white. It is also the first film from which an actor received a percentage of the receipts, a practice known as "points", as compensation.
Among the film's cast of supporting actors, Rock Hudson portrays a Native American, and Tony Curtis plays a besieged cavalry trooper, both in minor roles at the beginning of their careers.
Lin McAdam and Frankie Wilson are searching for Dutch Henry Brown, with whom Lin has a personal score to settle. They find him in a saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, but cannot fight due to the presence of Sheriff Wyatt Earp. Lin enters the town's Centennial shooting contest for a prized Winchester 1873 rifle. Lin wins and goes to his room at the boarding house to pack. There, Dutch ambushes him, steals the rifle and rides away with two cohorts.
Arriving at Riker's Bar, they find Native American trader Joe Lamont, who sees the prized Winchester and becomes determined to own it. He raises the prices of his guns and ammunition supply so high that Dutch and his men cannot afford to buy any. Dutch's only option is to trade the rifle for Lamont's three hundred dollars in gold, plus their pick of weapons. Dutch makes the trade and tries to get the rifle back by gambling the three hundred in a poker game against Lamont, but loses.
Lamont takes his guns to meet Native American buyers, but their leader Young Bull prefers the prized Winchester. When Lamont refuses to sell it, he is robbed and scalped.
Lin McAdam (Stewart) shooting in the rifle contest.
Meanwhile, former saloon girl Lola is in a wagon with her fiancé Steve Miller traveling toward a new home. Pursued by Young Bull and his warriors, they realize that they will not be able to outrun them. Panicking, Steve jumps on his horse and rides off to find help. Not far ahead, Steve sees a small encampment of soldiers. He races back for Lola, and together they make it into the soldiers' camp. That night, Lin and Wilson, chased by the same Native Americans, also ride into the encampment.
The soldiers are new to the territory. Lin gives their sergeant tactical advice for fighting Native Americans, and they prepare for an attack expected early the next morning. After a fierce battle in which Young Bull is killed, the Native Americans leave, and Lin and High-Spade depart to continue searching for Dutch. Unknowingly, they ride past the coveted Winchester where Young Bull had dropped it when he fell. It is found by a trooper, and the Sergeant gives it to Steve.
Lola Manners (Shelley Winters) accepting Lin McAdam's revolver just before the Native American attack.
Steve and Lola reach the Jameson house, which is set to become theirs. He wants her to stay with the Jamesons while he goes to meet outlaw Waco Johnny Dean, but Waco and his men arrive unexpectedly, chased by a posse that surrounds the house. When Waco sees the Winchester, he too covets it. He provokes Steve into a gunfight and kills him. Waco and Lola escape the posse and ride to Dutch's hideout. Dutch claims that the rifle is his and forces Waco to return it.
The gang goes to Tascosa, Texas, to commit a robbery. They are joined by Lin and Wilson. Waco attempts to shoot Lin and is killed, while around them, the robbery goes awry and Lola is wounded. Wilson reveals to Lola that Dutch is Lin's brother, and that Dutch had robbed a bank and a stagecoach and returned to the family home, hoping to hide out. When their father refused to help him, Dutch shot him in the back, and Lin has sworn revenge.
Lin confronts Dutch on a rocky hill and calls him by his real name, Matthew. They shoot it out on the hill, and Lin kills him, reclaiming the Winchester.
The film was originally intended to have been directed by Fritz Lang, but Universal did not want Lang to produce the film through his own company, Diana Productions.[3][4] Lang's idea was for the rifle to be Stewart's character's only source of strength and his only excuse for living, making the quest for his rifle a matter of life and death.[5]
With Lang out of the picture, Universal produced the film with up-and-coming Anthony Mann, Stewart's choice (he had admired The Furies), directing. Mann had Borden Chase rewrite the script [6] to instead make the rifle a bone of contention, showing it passing contentiously through the hands of a variety of people.
Mann said, "I didn't like the property; I didn't like Winchester at all. This was Lang's version. I was working at Metro and everybody was pressuring me to make the film and I said, 'T'd like to make the film, if you let me rewrite it completely. I want a new writer, new everything; I don't want the property the way it is.' Finally, after a lot of haranguing, they agreed that I could do that and I brought in Borden Chase and we started from scratch on the script and it developed day by day."[7]
Stewart had wished to make Harvey for Universal-International, but the studio could not afford his $200,000 salary ($2.01million in today's dollars),[8] so studio head William Goetz offered to allow Stewart to make both Harvey and Winchester '73 for a percentage of the profits, spread over some time and at a lower capital gain tax rate than a single payment to Stewart would be.[9][10] Stewart's agent Lew Wasserman was able to get his client 50 percent of the profits, eventually amounting to $600,000 from the film's unexpected success.[11][12] Stewart's deal also gave him control of the director and co-stars.[13] It is acknowledged as the first confirmed time in the sound era that a film actor received some of the movie's receipts as compensation, a practice now called "points".[14]
Casting
Stewart was already cast in the part of Lin McAdam and spent a lot of time practicing with the rifle so that he would look like an authentic Westerner. As Mann later related, "[Stewart] was magnificent walking down a street with a Winchester rifle cradled in his arm. And he was great too actually firing the gun. He studied hard at it. His knuckles were raw with practicing... It was those sorts of things that helped make the film look so authentic, gave it its sense of reality." An expert marksman from the Winchester company, Herb Parsons, did the trick shooting required for the film and assisted Stewart with his training.
Shelley Winters was cast as a dance-hall girl. Winters did not understand the film, nor think much of her part in it, saying, "Here you've got all these men... running around to get their hands on this goddamn rifle instead of going after a beautiful blonde like me. What does that tell you about the values of that picture? If I hadn't been in it, would anybody have noticed?"[15]
The part of Wyatt Earp was given to Will Geer, who was not alone by feeling that he was miscast for the role. Millard Mitchell was cast as High-Spade Frankie Wilson. That same year, Mitchell appeared in The Gunfighter starring Gregory Peck. He would appear in another Stewart-Mann Western The Naked Spur (1953) as a grizzled old prospector.
Jay C. Flippen appears as cavalry sergeant Wilkes. He would also appear in the second Stewart-Mann Western Bend of the River (1952) with Rock Hudson, who appears in Winchester '73 as a Native American.
The Stewart and Mann collaboration established a new persona for Stewart, more violent and disillusioned than ever before, but still likable.[16]
Backlot, Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, U.S.[17]
Reception
As part of the publicity campaign for the release of the film, Universal Pictures sponsored a contest, by placing magazine ads, to find some of the rare remaining "One of One Thousand" Model 1873 Winchester rifles.[18] This resulted in many previously unknown original rifles being brought into the spotlight, and drew public interest to the field of antique gun collecting. The winner of the contest received a new Winchester Model 1894 rifle, for the Model 1873 was out of production at that time.[19]
The film was a financial success, turning a significant profit. It has since gained a reputation as a classic of the Western genre, and durably helped to redefine the public perception of James Stewart.[citation needed]
Contemporary critics are enthusiastic. Writing for the Telegraph, Martin Chilton gave the movie 5 stars out of 5, and described the film as "the first in a series of Western masterpieces".[15] In Empire, William Thomas calls the film "the marvellously-scripted story of a man and a gun". He also awarded 5 stars out of 5.[20] The film holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 27 reviews, with an average of 8.5/10.[21]
"Riding shotgun" was a phrase used to describe the bodyguard who rides alongside a stagecoach driver, typically armed with a break-action shotgun, called a coach gun, to ward off bandits or hostile Native Americans. In modern use, it refers to the practice of sitting alongside the driver in a moving vehicle. The coining of this phrase dates to 1905 at the latest.
James Maitland Stewart was an American actor. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality, which he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. He received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, as well as the Academy Honorary Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985.
The Naked Spur is a 1953 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, and Millard Mitchell. Written by Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom, the film is about a bounty hunter who tries to bring a murderer to justice, and is forced to accept the help of two strangers who are less than trustworthy.
Anthony Mann was an American film director and stage actor. He came to prominence as a skilled director of films noir and Westerns, and was later known for his sweeping historical epics.
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership in 1931 and was bought by the Western Cartridge Company, a forerunner of the Olin Corporation. The Winchester brand name is still owned by the Olin Corporation, which makes ammunition under that name. The Winchester name is also used under license for firearms produced by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group – FN Herstal of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Ogden, Utah.
Dan Duryea was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is a 1969 American Western film based on the true story of a Chemehuevi–Paiute Native American named Willie Boy and his run-in with the law in 1909 in Banning, California, United States. The film is an adaptation of the 1960 book Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt by Harry Lawton.
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.
The Man from Laramie is a 1955 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp, and Cathy O'Donnell.
Bend of the River is a 1952 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Julie Adams, and Rock Hudson. Based on the 1950 novel Bend of the Snake by Bill Gulick, the film is about a tough cowboy who risks his life to deliver confiscated supplies to homesteaders after gold is discovered in the region. Bend of the River was filmed on location in and around the Sandy River, Mount Hood, the Columbia River, and Timberline, Oregon. This is the second Western film collaboration between Anthony Mann and James Stewart.
Thunder Bay is a 1953 American adventure film distributed by Universal International, produced by Aaron Rosenberg, directed by Anthony Mann, and starring James Stewart, Joanne Dru, Gilbert Roland, and Dan Duryea. It was shot in Technicolor and was released on May 20, 1953. This film tells the story of two engineers drilling for oil in the Louisiana gulf while dealing with hostility of the local shrimp fishermen fearing for their livelihood, and features the first non-western collaboration between Stewart and Mann.
The Rifleman is an American Western television series starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black and white, in half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first primetime series on US television to show a single parent raising a child.
Black Bart is a 1948 American Western Technicolor film directed by George Sherman and starring Yvonne De Carlo, and Dan Duryea as the real-life stagecoach bandit Charles E. Boles, known as Black Bart. The movie was produced by Leonard Goldstein with a screenplay written by Luci Ward, Jack Natteford and William Bowers. The film, also known under the alternate title Black Bart, Highwayman, was released by Universal Pictures on March 3, 1948.
Night Passage is a 1957 American Western film directed by James Neilson and starring James Stewart and Audie Murphy.
Chase Borden was an American writer.
Willard Parker was an American film and television actor. He starred in the TV series Tales of the Texas Rangers (1955–1958).
The Winchester Model 1892 was a lever-action repeating rifle designed by John Browning as a smaller, lighter version of his large-frame Model 1886, and which replaced the Model 1873 as the company's lever-action for pistol-caliber rounds such as the .44-40.
The Mare's Leg is the name given to a customized shortened rifle used by Steve McQueen's character on the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–1961). McQueen's character was named Josh Randall. Mare's Leg is now a generic term for a Winchester Model 1892 with a shortened barrel and stock.
The Winchester Model 1895 is an American lever-action repeating firearm developed and manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in the late 19th century, chambered for a number of full-size military and hunting cartridges such as 7.62×54mmR, .303 British, .30-03, .30 Army, .30-06, .35 Winchester, .38-72 Winchester, .40-72 Winchester and .405 Winchester.
The Gun That Won the West is a 1955 American Western film directed by William Castle and starring Dennis Morgan, Paula Raymond and Richard Denning.
References
↑ 'The Top Box Office Hits of 2006', Variety, January 3, 1951.
↑ McDonald, Paul (2000). The Star System: Hollywood's Production of Popular Identities. Wallflower Press, p. 75.
↑ Philip K. Scheuer (July 24, 1955). "A Town Called Hollywood: Top Stars Now Share in Profits of Major Pictures". Los Angeles Times. p.d2., quotes Goetz putting the figure at $530,000.
↑ Mann, Denise (2008). Hollywood Independents: The Postwar Talent Takeover. University of Minnesota Press, p. 51.
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