Baseshment
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Ginger
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
dougdoepke
Good Scott oater. Looks like Columbia popped for an A-budget (for them), what with Technicolor, Sedona locations, and a large, accomplished cast. Seems Brazos (Scott) realizes the tragedy of being the fastest gun around, so he ditches the belt and heads for an old friend's place and what he hopes is a new peaceful life. Of course things don't turn out that way, otherwise we wouldn't have a real western.The plot's pretty complex, but the many characters are mainly well etched, especially Grapewin's feisty old rancher Inskip. But what really had me going are the, not one, but two leading ladies (Britton & Hart). It's not that they're just attractive, which is expected, it's that they look exactly alike. The only way I could distinguish them was the hairdo's, but those kept changing, so I kept struggling. They're more like identical twins than just movie sisters. Okay, no big deal, but I've never seen such a resemblance in decades of viewing.Anyway, Scott's near his physical peak and as convincing as ever. While Harry Joe Brown, who would later produce the legendary Ranown western series with Scott, produced this early scenic effort. In fact, some of those red rock spires soaring into the clouds are real visual grabbers. I guess my only reservations are with Cabot's baddie Bard who's too understated to compete effectively with Scott's Brazos, and a rather flat showdown. Nonetheless, it's post-war Columbia Pictures and the great Scott getting off to a fast Western start.
Cristi_Ciopron
G. Waggner made a good action movie, authentically exciting and zestful; Grapewin is the courageous oldster who at a certain moment cooks gingerbread, Dorothy Hart is embarrassing.The action scenes are very good: the chase, Brazos' fight with the wicked deputy, Brazos questioning the deputy, the shootouts.Scott himself has a silly expression in the few flirt scenes.Scott, Tucker, Kemper were a team that H. J. Brown used for westerns. Scott has often been upstaged by his coworkers.Grapewin and Withers are dependable; Cabot, the bard, looks unnervingly effective.Dorothy Hart is awful, worse than J. Miles. The other sister is only banal.G. Waggner was certainly craftier than G. Douglas. This regular western is better made than 'The Nevadan', with which it has some things in common: the team (Scott, Tucker who is better here than in the later movie, Kemper), the rebelling daughter, a similar plot about despotism; the rustling also defines an entire sub-genre. Tucker was better in this earlier outing, because his role is much simpler, a stock character, where the look was enough. (But the later movie has Dorothy Malone, and a quirkier role for Kemper. Yet again, while the henchmen from 'The Nevadan' have been remarked, and their roles are better written, here the foreman and the corrupt deputy give dependable performances; 'Gunfighters' is less ambitious, but better in its class.)I should mention also the risqué dialog of the odd scene when the gunfighter, wishing to take back the bullet, mistakes the mean sister for the good one, and a zany dialog begins, about gift, keeping it, etc., in fact the whole story isn't very moralistic, with the gunfighter flirting with both sisters (the evening at the old convent), being at ease with both of them; anyway, this playful scene is one of the best humorous moments of this genre, the unpretentious westerns as reshaped after the war and at the zenith of colors. The double _entendre of the talk, with the gunman asking about the hidden bullet, etc., makes a funny scene, with a piquant and entirely adult undertone and very unlike the rest of the movie; so, this one scene of adult fun, straight from the archetype (mistaken identity, licentious double _entendre). This kind of comedy, if deepened, would of allowed for a wholly different script.
dbdumonteil
This is a routine but entertaining western with nice colors.Randolph Scott portrays a gunfighter who is sick and tired of killing his fellow men (that's what a voice over tells us at the beginning of the film).So he decides he will retire in a horse town where his good old pal lives.But alas the friend has just been killed when he arrives and he is a suspect (A wealthy man who owns lots of acres in the country needs a suspect ,more like).The main originality is that ,generally ,the rich villain ranch man has two sons or more ( a good one and (a) bad one(s);see "duel in the sun" " broken lance").Here,for a change,the old rich person has two gorgeous daughters,one of whom's in love with one of his pa's henchmen whereas the second falls for...well you guess who.
mpbodul
I like westerns and I like Randolph Scot, but this movie really went astray in following the original novel's plot. No wonder writers hated (and still do) the Hollywood studios and the management of those enterprises.Although this movie was well done, the name change to the Gunfighters, was the first in a series of disappointments of this film. The plot line wanders well away from the novel; even the heavy drawl of Brazos Keene, is toned way down from the original to the "cleaned up" Randolph Scot version.I have generally preferred the original story in Zane Grey's novels to the movies' Hollywood versions.
