By Fred Blosser
If
you fear losing your energy and creativity (among other things) as soon as you
enter your sixth decade, just consider John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Henry
Hathaway, and take heart. Ford worked
until age 71 (his last Western was “Cheyenne Autumn, 1964, and his final film,
“7 Women,” 1966), Hawks until 75 (“Rio Lobo,” 1971), and Hathaway until
76. Hathaway’s final Western was “Shoot
Out,” which opened on October 13, 1971, when he was 73. In the movie, Clay Lomax (Gregory Peck) is
released from prison after serving a seven-year sentence for bank robbery. Lomax’s eyes have a steely, distant glare as
he buckles on his six-shooter. “You hate
me, but there’s someone out there you hate more,” the warden guesses. “Someone” is Lomax’s former partner, Sam
Foley (James Gregory), who betrayed Clay and shot him in the back as the pair
fled with their stolen money. Clay was
captured and Sam got away. Lomax intends
to find Foley, who now lives comfortably on their loot, passing himself off as
a retired businessman. In turn, learning
that Lomax is a free man again, Foley hires three loutish gunmen to trail his
former
friend. The leader of the trio, Bobby
Jay (Robert E. Lyons), offers to kill Clay, but Foley says no; just keep an eye
on him and let me know if he comes this way. Does Foley hope that Clay will just go away? Will he try to make amends if Lomax pays a
visit? Or will he use the pistol hidden
in his desk drawer? It isn’t exactly
clear, and maybe Sam himself doesn’t know.
On
the other hand, there’s no doubt about Lomax’s lust for revenge. But first, leaving the penitentiary, he has
to stop at the railroad depot in nearby Weed City, where he has arranged to
meet a former girlfriend, a prostitute, who holds a sum of money in safekeeping
for him. The money arrives but not the
girlfriend, who died on her way from Kansas City. Instead, the woman’s now-orphaned daughter,
six-year-old Decky (Dawn Lyn), steps off the train. To claim his money, Clay has to take Decky
too. The stymied ex-convict tries to hand
the little girl off to a succession of people, without any luck. Orphaned, abandoned children are about as
welcome in the fictitious Weed City as they are in real life.
Clay
doesn’t know where to find Foley, but a mutual acquaintance, Trooper (Jeff Corey),
does. The crusty, wheelchair-bound
saloon owner agrees to divulge Sam’s current location—for $200. Bobby Jay and his friends also show up
Trooper’s establishment, keeping tabs on Clay. You’d think they’d try to draw as little attention to themselves as
possible, but they’re as stupid as they are malicious. When they provoke a fight with Lomax, he
cleans the floor with all three. The
louts later tangle with Trooper after they damage his property and refuse to
pay the abused saloon girl they spent the night with, Alma (Susan Tyrell). They murder Trooper, but the saloon-keeper
manages to disclose Foley’s whereabouts before he dies. Lomax heads out to find his quarry, several
days’ ride away in Gun Hill, with Decky in tow. Along the way, having bonded after a gruff start, they find shelter from
a rainstorm at a ranch owned by a lonely widow, Juliana (Pat Quinn). Juliana’s ranch hands are away in town for
the night, giving her and Clay a chance to strike up a romance. But the isolation also puts Juliana, her
young son, Lomax, and Decky in danger when the volatile Bobby Jay and his
friends turn up and invade her house.
“Shoot
Out” was produced by Hal B. Wallis and written by Marguerite Roberts. Both had collaborated with Hathaway on the
wildly popular “True Grit” two years before. The three hoped to repeat that success with a similar story about a
growing attachment between a flinty old gunfighter and a spunky girl, even
costuming Dawn Lyn’s Decky in a smaller replica of Kim Darby’s outfit from “True
Grit.” But the strategy backfired when
critics measured “Shoot Out” against the 1969 Western and found it
wanting. They might have been kinder if
they had known that well-written, briskly directed, unpretentious Westerns like
“Shoot Out” were approaching the end of their shelf life in the 1970s. Ford and Hawks had become favorites of
younger critics like Peter Bogdanovich and Robin Wood, but appreciation for
Hathaway’s considerable talents lagged, and still does.
Marguerite
Roberts had worked in Hollywood for nearly as long as Hathaway. He started in the prop department in 1919 and
directed his first feature, a Zane Grey Western, in 1932. She began as a studio secretary in 1927 and
sold her first screenplay in 1934, beginning a long career as a screenwriter
that was interrupted from 1952 to 1962. During those ten years, she was blacklisted for refusing to name names
before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A scene in “Shoot Out” suggests that Roberts
retained painful emotions from the experience. Having burst into Juliana’s house, the unhinged Bobby Jay terrorizes his
hostages when he proposes to display his marksmanship by shooting a cup off of
the widow’s son’s head. Juliana argues
the gunman out of putting her son in danger, but doesn’t resist when he orders
her to move the cup to Decky’s head instead. The credits for “Shoot Out” cite Will James’ 1926 memoir, “Lone Cowboy:
My Life Story,” as the source for Roberts’ screenplay, but the real inspiration
seems to be George Eliot’s “Silas Marner.” The sentimental 1861 novel was once the bane of 15-year-olds for whom it
was required reading in high school English classes, before it was replaced by
more contemporary fare like “Catcher in the Rye.”
A
new Blu-ray edition of “Shoot Out” from Kino Lorber Studio Classics presents
the film in a sharp hi-def transfer that looks equally attractive in its sunny
outdoor scenes, filmed in New Mexico, and in the rich, masculine red and green
lampshades and upholstery in Sam Foley’s private office. In a fine audio commentary, critic Nick
Pinkerton notes that the production punches up its standard revenge story with
the violent, sexually frank revisionist elements common in the Westerns of the
early 1970s, a trend that Hathaway himself helped pioneer with “Nevada Smith”
in 1966. Gone is the old B-Western
pretense
that saloon hostesses did no more than serve drinks and dance the can-can. Trooper’s four prostitutes are sad, alcoholic
women with impoverished pasts, who suffer physical and verbal mistreatment from
the men they solicit. If the fate of
Decky’s mother is any indication, their life expectancy from illness,
alcoholism, and exploitation will be short. The train conductor who delivers Decky to Clay’s care (played by Paul
Fix, one of several Western old-timers in the supporting cast) asks Clay how
old her mother was. “Thirty,” he
responds. “She looked fifty,” the
conductor says. “Shoot Out” was rated
“GP” (the short-lived precursor of “PG”), classifying it as suitable for
general audiences, but advising “parental guidance.” The newly instituted MPAA ratings system was
tricky to figure out. I wonder how many
parents interpreted GP to mean “bring the kids,” on the assumption that a movie
with Gregory Peck and a little girl couldn’t be any saltier than the
watered-down TV Westerns of the era.
Pinkerton
calls the subplot about the embittered gunman and the orphaned child “cloying,”
but it’s a matter of opinion. Dawn Lyn’s
role is crafted and performed with a nice balance of feistiness and vulnerability,
and she and Peck play off well against each other. Is Lomax the biological father of Decky, as
we infer from her mother placing her in his care . . . or not? The question becomes academic once each
develops a soft spot for the other. In
addition to the Nick Pinkerton commentary, the Blu-ray also includes the
theatrical trailer and previews of other 1970s Westerns from KL Studio
Classics.
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Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)