Review of Winchester '73

This is a good movie, well worth watching. However, I believe it has been overrated by some critics. For example, my Comcast online movie guide rated it as four stars, the highest. I would have given it three stars. Out of IMDb's ten star system, I have given it a seven.

Here's some things that made it good:

• An unique storyline with a series of subplots woven around an inanimate object - the rifle - as it changes ownership amongst the various characters in the movie.

• Contains two elements I consider essential to a "classic" Western". First, it has Indians in the plot and there is some attempt to treat them as three dimensional characters with legitimate grievances. Second, there are Civil War themes running through the movie. The "West" was essentially a very short period of time between 1865 and 1885. Very few people in the West during that time were untouched by the Civil War, in fact, for most it was by far the most traumatic and defining event in their lives. I like to see this somehow referenced in my Westerns.

• Besides John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart probably comes across as the most natural, likable cowboy/Western character of all the Hollywood actors. He basically lights up almost any Western he's in. This is an especially good movie for Stewart fans, because he demonstrates a dark side, although this is not well developed by the plot. The movie would have been a lot better if they went further with that idea and maybe downplayed Shelly Winter's role.

• There's a great scene where Lola is being driven in a cart by her fiancé. They are attacked by Indians and her fiancé has a "yellow" panic attack, pulls the cart over, jumps on a horse and rides off, leaving his fiancé to her fate with the Indians. This is very shocking and I don't recall ever seeing a scene like it in any movie.

• Interesting bit parts by a very young Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis.

Here's some things that detracted from the movie and caused me to subtract stars:

• We don't find out until the very end of the movie that "Dutch Henry Brown", the man being tracked down by Lin McAdam, is actually his own brother. This movie would have been MUCH, MUCH better if we had known this from the outset. This would have added tremendous complexity to the McAdam's character, as he struggled with feelings of guilt, maybe throw in a few Abel and Cain references, etc.

• Shelly Winters' character just doesn't work for me. I like Shelly Winters, she played a similar role with great humor and effectiveness 18 years later in "The Scalphunters". But here, I think the script is the problem. The female role seems gratuitous.

• Stephen McNally was a weak heavy. He is miscast here. He comes across as an ethnic 30's gangster type, very out of place in 1875 Kansas. Given this movie's weaknesses, it really needed a more charismatic bad guy. Duryea's "Waco Johnnie Dean" should have played the role of the brother.

• I didn't understand the purpose of High Spade, Lin's companion and friend. Usually the puropose of the buddy is to tragically die, fueling the hero to self righteous revenge. This seemed to be telegraphed in a scene where Lin emphasizes to High Spade that life is barely worth living without good friends like him. In most movies, this is a buddy death sentence, but High Spade waltzes through the rest of the film unscathed.

In "The Searchers" Ethan Edwards had a buddy during his similar multi- year epic journey of revenge. But Martin Pauley had a key role in later plot developments and provided critical comic relief. Also Edwards and he and a complex relationship.

High Spade provides no value to the movie. Lin's characterization could have been more compelling if he had been alone. This worked fine in a movie released a couple of years later, Fritz Lang's "Rancho Notorious". In that movie, Arthur Kennedy conducts a long journey of revenge without a buddy. (Interestingly, Fritz Lang was supposed to direct "Winchester '73", but dropped out when Jimmy Stewart was cast in the lead. This was Stewart's first Western and Lang thought he was miscast. Bad move by Lang. Stewart was then give director control and chose Anthony Mann, setting up the decade long Stewart/Mann collaboration)

• They did a great job with the demonstration of marksmanship at the beginning of the movie, but it only served to make the lousy rock destroying shootout at the end of the film that much more disappointing.

• If they had a award for "Worst Portrayal of Wyatt Earp" in a movie, this would be nominated.

• The movie is almost totally devoid of comic relief, a concept unknown to Anthony Mann.

In conclusion, this is a good demonstration of why John Ford was a genius and Anthony Mann wasn't. In "The Searchers" Ford fully developed the dark side of his popular hero, Wayne and used humor effectively as a counterpoint. "Winchester '73" had the potential to be as good as "The Searchers", but came up well short, mostly for those reasons.

If Duryea had played the brother and they had revealed the brother connection early, this movie might have cracked my all time top 20 Westerns.