I love this movie so much

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I had some initial hopes for this film, mainly because of an above average cast for a Universal western. If it had been made in the 40s or 50s it might have received a far better treatment but by the late sixties, it was looking too much like the tired old rehash of so many far better earlier westerns. Every cliché in the western book is endlessly paraded and bashed to death in this ponderous, out of its depth work. The script wallows in its 1969 new found grittiness, sex is added and talked about in keeping with the so-called new 'adult' approach to screen writing ~ not because it helps the story, but simply because now they could.... With two directors involved, it's fully understandable that no-one would want their names associated with the final product...so out they trundle 'Allen Smithee' to cover their tracks. Richard Widmark was worthy of a far better picture but at this point in his distinguished career I suppose offers were getting a little thin. The support characters (while mostly played by fine actors) are just about all cardboard copies of numerous other 'town verses lawman' westerns, but here they're tending to look rather ridiculous.There are several hints the sheriff has dirt on just about every member of the town council, but no advantage is ever taken of this angle, it all just dies away as another cliché on the way to the very obvious end.Some nice photographic angles, and a curious music score are the only relief to the general boredom on offer. Lena Horne is wasted within a thankless set dressing role. John Saxon is good as usual, but again his is an underdeveloped character. I dare say this was made with television in mind, as the claustrophobic TV back-lot look kills off any real atmosphere. For westerns that offer a good insight into the end of the old west, best try two earlier Universal International productions; "Lonely are the Brave" in '62 and in the mid 50s another 'little' western that managed to present a good script within a small budget; "A Day of Fury" with Jock Mahoney. Seems there remains a lot of easily pleased western fans out there, so if not overly discerning this may still offer varying degrees of interest. A friend kindly gave me a DVD of this movie for Christmas and while the Umbrella release has good image and sound quality it's being marketed under the six shooter 'classics' banner. As we constantly see with cable TV, the word 'CLASSIC' is bandied around very loosely and is to be taken equally as loosely!. If only they knew.....

By 1969,the traditional American western was pretty much dead and buried, nothing but a distant memory, a relic of a bygone era, the genre had been reinvented in Europe by the Italians and Spaniards and the rootin' tootin' cowboy pictures audiences once loved and craved so much were replaced by the violent, symbolic and surreal Spaghetti Western.However,Universal,whose westerns had been so popular in the 1950s,still faithfully churned out the odd favourite just the way they had a decade earlier, DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER was one such film,. The plot is like this, in the small Texan town of Cottonwood Springs at the turn of the twentieth century, the sheriff Frank Patch(RICHARD WIDMARK)kills a drunk in self defence after the latter makes an attempt on his life, the town elders, who have wanted rid of Patch for some time because they feel they must move on from the violent ways of the past, persuade him to resign, but the stubborn lawman won't go down without a fight and elects to stay. The elders are now forced to use more brutal methods to get rid of Patch of Patch and after one of them commits suicide after being humiliated by Patch, the rest of the town and even his closest friends begin to alienate the Marshall as he descends on a downward spiral of self destruction...DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER is a brilliant movie, in my opinion one of Universal's best and this movie proves that they could still make a superb and exciting western similar to the ones they were famous for. GUNFIGHTER is a brutal and gripping tale of self destruction and the effects it can have on the individual, the storyline is quite unique and I have never come across one like it in a western since, although the title ruins it a little by giving the ending away. The camera-work is excellent and there's a lot of magnificent, Leone style close-up's which add to the taut, tense atmosphere of the film, the scene in which one of the town elders tries to kill Patch was really well directed and expertly shot and the viewer can almost feel the unease of the characters involved. The film's main action scene, the climatic mass shootout was absolutely fantastic, again the camera-work which plays a major part is amazing here, I loved the way the camera follows Patch as he shoots his way through the town's empty streets and buildings. The whole sequence was planned out and scripted in an outstanding way and the suspense of the whole sequence just topped it off, I was really impressed the way that there are parts of non stop shooting and then there were lulls in the violence to allow the viewer to digest the action. My favourite part of the shootout was when Patch chases a gunman into a corral packed with Cattle, shoots him in the ribs,lassoos him and drags him out behind his horse as they guy gets trampled over by several Cows. The end of the shootout was similar to that of a Spaghetti Western, a wounded Patch staggers down the empty street to meet his fate, all we hear is the wind blowing and then you get a shot of the Mayor striking a match and lighting his Cigarette which is suddenly followed of a semi close-up of Patch violently flinching as he is riddled with bullets.The acting and characters were great, Richard Widmark was excellent at showcasing the raw desperation and fear of a man out of touch with the modern world, I was also extremely impressed by the performances of Carroll O Connor and John Saxon and the town elders were an excellent bunch of scumbags.The only gripe I had with the film was that it got painfully slow at times and dragged terribly at times, there's too many scenes of long, boring dialogue which is completely pointless and at times irrelevant to the plot and there's scenes in which the characters tend to veer off into some of the most dreadful conservation I've ever heard.DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER is an exciting and awesome western with an intelligent, tight script and good strong characters portrayed solidly by a group of fine actors. As is the case with dozens of other westerns like it, GUNFIGHTER is definitely deserving of a DVD release.9/10.

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.

How many times have I seen films on television which have astounded me with their depth and profundity and whose titles I have never heard before? Or which never come up in discussions of the classics? Death of a Gunfighter was one such movie. (The Devil's Doorway from 1950 with Robert Taylor is another.) Gazineo from Brasilia rightly compared DoaG with the Shootist (John Wayne) as portraying the passing of the frontier into more modern political structures. Especially the sharply etched scenes in the town council showing all the ethnics (Cathoic priest, Jewish merchant) being led around by the nose by the progressive Episcopalian (or whatever denomination he's supposed to be.) But there's one movie nobody has compared this film to: High Noon (Gary Cooper). DoaG is like a "High Noon noir." In High Noon the hero manages to conquer his enemies entirely on his own despite being deserted by the Establishment. But in DoaG the members of the whole establishment are the enemies and the hero does not manage to conquer them; on the contrary they get their own way most gruesomely in the end. This is somewhat of a unique plot in the history of westerns. Beautiful music by Oliver Nelson (1932-1975). What a loss to the movies! Imagine Carroll O'Connor in a pre-Archie Bunker role. That's a rarity in itself! When classic westerns are discussed DoaG must be included..