Winchester '73
Universal Western Collection
It's the legendary James Stewart at his leading-man finest in this timeless western that set the standard for all that followed. Frontiersman Lin McAdam (Stewart) is attempting to track down both his father's murderer and his one-of-a-kind rifle, the Winchester '73, as it passes among a diverse group of desperate characters, including a crazed highwayman (Dan Duryea), an immoral gunrunner (John McIntire), a savage young Indian chief (Rock Hudson) and McAdam's own murderous brother (Stephen McNally). Featuring Shelley Winters as the rifle's only rival for McAdam's interest and Tony Curtis in one of his first screen performances, the gripping tale of the men (and gun) who won the West is one of Stewart's most memorable films and one of the genre's most enduring classics.
Member Reviews
Average - Jimmy_Jam
The way in which this film is built up as film noir in a western is clearly overstated. My expectations were very high for a revolutionary type western and let myself down by my own anticipation. It is a great western don't get me wrong. It deals with major themes in men such as greed, vice and agressive destruction. It does this by focusing on a rifle, following different men and not only the protagonist, which is the strongest element of the film. Also, its ties with actual history add an interesting layer to the film, mainly of information regarding the period. It is not vital to the plot, but is great for nostalgia. Overall I feel thats what the movie has become - nostalgia. To be seen just for what it accomplished in the 1950's, but which does not translate well today.Winchester '73 - Coco
More scathing than a jumbo-inflatable-target-directed liberal allegory like The Ox-Bow Incident (a fine piece of myth-unmaking in its own right), Mann’s first cold-blooded Western masterpiece is a master class in commodity fetishism and the fratricidal urges born of the Joint Commodity Index. Jimmy Stewart’s mirthless Lin McAdam, his most suspect “good guy” this side of dalliances with his royal Hitchness, is a brooding killer with capital-j Justice as the evil devil on his shoulder, egging him on. Social interaction is always just naked codification of power relations and a gun is just a glorified phallic substitute, bien sur, but it is much worse than that. The kneejerk urban nihilism of Mann’s noir-tinted crime frescos likewise underpins his alignment of archeological glyphs buried in the rockbed of American social and cinematic histories, finding him with gardening tools and pale, collecting markers of an endless succession of underworld eruptions and cold, clinical killings that mark America's passage from president to president, Western to Western, gun to gun. Law is so much narrative, power means getting to decide which part you read for in its story. This is what terminal, self-suffocating gun porn was like in the days before Taxi Driver, and Mann’s countermythologized Western feels just as dirty and morally gross by its end as Scorsese’s later noir microapocalypse. If anybody is sympathetic, here, it is, as usual, the Sioux, in their waltz to the extremities of plural, mass marketed genocides. No wonder Travis Bickle would later wear a mohawk. The spirit of revenge is as pure and natural as a breeze through the spruce trees. Sure, a one-in-one-thousand A#1 doosey of a rifle is a great buddy if you can hook it up, but it’s a heck of a thing to crawl crippled over corpses for, as the Star Spangled Banner booms in the heavens and you chew out the throat of your forefathers with yr teeth and search their pearly whites for gold filling.
cOcO2Likeable, But Darker Stewart Film - bwod
This 1950 entry by James Stewart was a bit of a resurgance, for the western genre. Anthony Mann directed what some have called a "noir western", which brought the genre back into popularity.
Stewart plays a tough gun-slinger, tracking down another man who apparently shot his father in the back. The common threads become apparent later in the film. In the mean time, a valuable rifle, the Winchester '73, passes from hand to hand, linking numerous characters in this story.
An intriguing script combined with an excellent cast makes this one a better-than-average oater.
Look for a small appearance by a young actor named Tony Curtis as a raw recruit in the U.S.Cavalry. He would go on to become one of the most popular male actors in modern U.S. cinema. Rock Hudson also appears as an Indian Chief, who will stop at nothing to eliminate the whites, who are invading his territory. A powerful role for Hudson, that would help to propel him up the chain in the Hollywood film industry. A must for western fans and James Stewart fans.
Member Reviews
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Average - Jimmy_Jam
The way in which this film is built up as film noir in a western is clearly overstated. My expectations were very high for a revolutionary type western and let myself down by my own anticipation. It is a great western don't get me wrong. It deals with major ...Winchester '73 - Coco
More scathing than a jumbo-inflatable-target-directed liberal allegory like The Ox-Bow Incident (a fine piece of myth-unmaking in its own right), Mann’s first cold-blooded Western masterpiece is a master class in commodity fetishism and the fratricidal urges ...Likeable, But Darker Stewart Film - bwod
This 1950 entry by James Stewart was a bit of a resurgance, for the western genre. Anthony Mann directed what some have called a "noir western", which brought the genre back into popularity.
Stewart plays a tough gun-slinger, tracking down another man who ...