The Shootist dvd movie.|
The Shootist buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $9.98 Features • Anamorphic • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • Subtitled • Widescreen • NTSC In Theaters : 20 August, 1976 DVD Release : 24 July, 2001 |
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The Shootist description The last film of John Wayne could not have been more fitting, full of details that can't help but make one reflect upon his legacy in the movies and his life as a star. Wayne plays a career gunfighter in the autumn of his life, trying to hang up his pistols after he discovers he's dying of cancer. Boarding in the house of an attractive widow (Lauren Bacall) and her son (Ron Howard), Wayne's character opts for peace in his final days but is dogged by his reputation when a handful of killers seeks him out for a final fight. Howard is fine as a fatherless boy who needs the strong mentor the hero represents, and James Stewart--who costarred with Wayne in the great Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--plays the doctor who gives the big man the bad news. Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) thoughtfully directs a very special and sensitive production. --Tom Keogh |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | One of my favorite films and I think one of Wayne's very best |
| This is one of my favorite movies. I think it is one of the best of the films that deal with the death of the Old West and the transition to smaller and unheroic modern times. J B Books is a valedictory character on several levels. For those of us who know Wayne's biography, we know this was his last film and appreciate what a fine job he did with the role. It is also, in its way, a valedictory to the kind of Western that Wayne made with a clear hero and bad guys.
Yes, you can claim that Books, who has killed dozens upon dozens of men, was a "bad guy". However, that is also another measure of its valedictory nature. The movie shows us how men died at the end of Books' gun. And Books himself claims that he ended up killing men who deserved it and largely in self-defense because he was living in the wild country. The civilized types who have never been in the boots in which Books walked see all killing as an example of bad character and hire others to kill on their behalf. So, it is also the valedictory of courage and the transition to the safety seeking city dweller. You know: us. Towards the beginning of the film, JB Books seeks out Dr. Hostetler (a fine small role for Jimmy Stewart) to confirm a terrible diagnosis he had gotten elsewhere. Books hears that he is going to die quite soon and in a painful and awful way. He gets a bottle of laudanum from the Doc and asks if it isn't habit forming and the Doc confirms that it is. The lack of the "but" is one of the many nice moments in the film. We are taught by this more obvious exchange to look more closely for all that is not being said in a surprisingly subtle Waynestern. (Actually, most were more subtle than the caricature his detractors have scribbled for us.) The Doc points him to the Widow Rogers (magnificently played by Lauren Bacall) where he can rent a room. Books is quite clear in his demands and so private he won't even share his name. The widow is instantly put on guard by the guns and her new boarder's secretiveness. She also has a near adult son named Gillom (Ron Howard in one of his very best roles). Gillom takes an instant dislike to the guest because he doesn't like the way he is being bossed around and sets out to find who this big old man is. When he finds out it is J B Books, the cover is blown and the whole town disregards his desire for privacy. I don't want to spoil all the delights of the story, but it is fascinating how people want to condemn Books, but still use him to enhance their own lives. Sheree North as Books' past love, Serepta has one of the more heartbreaking scenes. Harry Morgan has a great turn as Marshall Walter Thibido (the name reveals his character). And the three men who will finally face Books are Bill Kinney as Jay Cobb, Hugh O'Brian and the faro dealer Jack Pulford and the glorious Richard Boone as Mike Sweeny. Some have criticized this final challenge as contrived. In a way, it is because it is required in these kinds of stories. But each of the three does have a real motivation. Sweeny hate Books for killing his brother, Pulford has a reputation to protect, and Cobb wants nothing to do with it but is put into the fight by Thibido because he has been such a big mouth and bully to everyone else. I also enjoyed Scatman Crothers as the liveryman Moses Brown. He has an important role in showing us Gillom's development and struggle. This film has a very important sub-plot about Gillom's transition from boy to man and deciding what kind of man he will be. In the beginning he is full of boyish energy and willing to take the attention of any man who will pay attention to him. Once he becomes attached to Books he is attracted to the glory of his reputation, but the reality of Books puts him in a conflicted state of mind. And the choices he makes outside the saloon during the final conflict and inside at the end of it reveal how far Books has come. Gillom's final walk home, at first towards his mother makes us think he is going to her for comfort, but he turns and then she follows him. His journey to manhood is completed in the furnace of sorrow and turning away from rage at the last. A terrific movie. I hope you will see it. Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI |
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