Reminded me more of a late 60’s western, as like you say not grim enough for the year.
Is there a big difference between late 60s and 71?
I think it is in parts rather grim and dirty and ugly and nasty. Much more than True Grit, on which success the film was constructed.
Not a huge difference. Film just has more of a 60’s feel to me, hard to put into words. Lawman for example I can tell is a 71 western rather than a late 60’s one.
I watched it too a while ago, thought it was an okay western, not great but very watchable
Same team (producer, director, writer) as for TRUE GRIT and also a similar pairing of an older gunfighter and a young girl. The difference is Peck and he was probably also responsible for what people call this ‘Sixties feeling’: he belongs to the old type of western film making, don’t know why. Wayne got older and so got the types he was playing, Peck always seemed the same type to me, when he was young, he already looked old.
Yes see your point re Peck, never thought about that before.
Did you like Peck’s performance in Ted Kotcheff’s Billy Two Hats? I wonder how his character’s Scottish accent sounds to native speakers.
Watched that ages ago, don’t remember anything about accents. Not much at all, actually. Might check it out again.
It’s a valid point and I agree about Peck. Even when he was younger he used to play more serious, mature and refined characters that always gave they impression they were old enough and more experienced than your average violent hot-headed brute - a reason for looking older than you really are.
Well, in his first Western, Duel in the Sun, he actually plays a hot-headed brute, Lewt, spelled with t. In his second, Yellow Sky, he’s the leader of a gang of outlaws; in his third, The Gunfighter, a morally ambiguous (ex-)gunslinger.
I have seen all those three you mentioned. Of course I wasn’t implying that he always played the good guy. But even in his bad guy-roles he managed to keep a touch of elegance in his delivery, it just came out naturally. In my opinion, Peck could never have played convincingly a Juan Miranda or a Ramon Rojo type of role, even if he wanted to.
I haven’t seen Duel in the Sun in a long time, but if I’m not mistaken he’s supposed to be a young (or at least younger) man in that movie. That’s seems not to be the case in the other two movie; in The Gunfighter he’s an aging gunslingler, a man haunted by his violent past. He was 33 or 34 when the film was made, but I guess we’re supposed to believe that the character was a man in his late forties rather than his early thirties. In Yellow Sky he’s the leader of a gang, makes me think of a more mature character as well.
I don’t have any problems with all that. Peck is not really a favorite actor, but he usually turned in a good performance in western (and other) movies
Yes, I agree with both of you. Peck seems to be an ageless actor, never young, never old. Now – and this has nothing to do with his respective actual age – I found to my surprise that in several of his Western films he was cast as a troubled man with a sinister past and an uncertain future (if at all). This is the case in the three movies already mentioned – Duel in the Sun, Yellow Sky and The Gunfighter – as well as in The Bravados and Billy Two Hats. In the former film he plays a man driven by his hunger for revenge, which has obscured his power of judgment and his ability to discern right and wrong, good and evil. In the latter movie Peck portrays an elderly outlaw, who knows that he has reached the end of his rope.
With the exception of Billy Two Hats, I found Peck’s performance in none of those Westerns very convincing. In Gunfighter Nation, Richard Slotkin writes that “the essence of Gregory Peck’s characterization of Ringo” in The Gunfighter is the “sense of suppressed violent energy” (p. 387). I don’t know. To me, he is too much of a straight, upright guy, appearing always a little too focused and sharp and, yes, elegant. What I like about Peck’s portrayal of his character in Billy Two Hats is a certain cheerful looseness, absent from his previous roles. The movie was shot in Israel, “Greig MacPeck” gleefully employs a thick Scottish accent and seems to be in high spirits and very relaxed in his eleventh and final Western.
I haven’t seen Only the Valiant, Mackenna’s Gold and Shoot Out; I don’t remember much about How the West Was Won (except that I found it preposterous and ludicrous); The Stalking Moon starts quite promising but soon turns into a very bland affair (as does Peck’s performance); The Big Country, finally, shows Peck as a character he portrays most convincingly, a former sea captain who wants to start a new life in the Wild West: he’s sharp, focused, straight, upright and elegant. And no, I don’t like him as Ahab.
Leave Gregory Peck alone!
Okay, in that movie he looked good
I have this good friend who always wants to watch westerns when she’s visiting me so we watched two spaghs yesterday:
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Lo_chiamavano_Trinità
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Tempo_di_massacro
A very good friend indeed
I bought a used copy of Shoot Out’s Koch Media release from my local DVD dealer yesterday. He charged me only five euros. The low price was justified, as I realized when I watched the movie this afternoon.
Again, Gregory Peck is cast as a man with a troubled past: Clay Lomax robbed a bank and had to spend seven years in the penitentiary. After his release, he aims to take revenge on his partner in crime, who betrayed him and shot him in the back. But Lomax soon finds out he has to take care of a young girl, presumably his daughter. His troubles multiply when three randy, raunchy rogues turn up, sent after him by his treacherous ex-partner.
Yep, all of this and a bewildering performance as a third-rate Jack Nicholson in over-the-top maniac mode by Robert F. Lyons, who plays uber-punk Bobby Jay Jones. The idiosyncratic Arthur Hunnicutt has a small role as an elderly horse rancher, who reluctantly sells a (male) pony to Lomax: “He’s got a sentimental value, belonged to my late wife. Late meaning flew the coop with a knife grinder.” Peck himself seems to be fairly clueless about the character he’s supposed to portray (no wonder). The final duel between Lomax and Bobby Jay is simply ridiculous: “Ever hear of a Switzer name of William Tell?”
Peck’s worst Western so far – I’ve yet two more to watch – and no match for Henry Hathaway’s better oaters like The Sons of Katie Elder, True Grit or even his strange prequel to The Carpetbaggers, Nevada Smith aka “A Portrait of the Cowboy as a Young Man” (Steve McQueen as Alan Ladd in his youth).
Lomax: “Your mother ever tell ya who your father was?”
Decky, his daughter: “She only told me he was a good-looking basterd.”
For me Shoot Out is a good western. A clear and solid 6/10.
That’s probably a 7/10 in my rating system. For me it’s a 6,5 out of 10. No doubt at least 17.2 out of 20 in another western universe. Powerhouse casting, magnificent scripting and solid directing make this a winner
Your rating systems are amazing.