''Winchester '73'' is a 1950 American Western

film noir Film noir (; ) is a style of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas that emphasizes cynicism (contemporary), cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of Ameri ...

starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea and Stephen McNally. Directed by

Anthony Mann Anthony Mann (born Emil Anton Bundsmann; June 30, 1906 – April 29, 1967) was an American film director and stage actor. He came to prominence as a skilled director of ''Film noirs, film noir'' and Western film, Westerns, and for his Epic film ...

and written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is set in 1876 and follows the turbulent passing of a prized Winchester 1873 repeating rifle from one ill-fated owner to another interleaved with a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive. It is the first of eight films that Mann and Stewart made together, and is also the first film from which an actor received a percentage of the receipts, a practice known as "points", as compensation. Along with Millard Mitchell and Charles Drake in featured support, Rock Hudson portrays a Native American tribal leader, and Tony Curtis appears as a besieged cavalry trooper, both in minor roles at the beginning of their careers. The film received a

Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility Th ...

nomination for Best Written American Western. In 2015, the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

selected the film for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

Lin McAdam and his pal “High-Spade” arrive in Dodge City, Kansas, just as a man is forcing a comely saloon pianist onto an out-of-town stage. Lin intervenes, but backs down when he learns the man is not only the local Marshal but Wyatt Earp. Lin is on the trail of Dutch Henry Brown, to settle a personal score. They meet in a saloon but cannot draw on one-another thanks to Earp's policy of confiscating all strangers’ guns while they are visiting the town. Both Lin and Dutch enter the community's Centennial shooting contest for a prized “One in One Thousand” Winchester 1873 repeating rifle. Lin and Dutch shoot rings around the locals, with Lin besting his gruff adversary in a shoot-off. Learning that Dutch and his pals are leaving, he goes to his room to pack. There, Dutch and his men ambush him, steal the rifle, and ride away before they can retrieve their guns. Arriving at Riker's inn, the trio finds Indian trader Joe Lamont, who eyes the fancy Winchester and becomes determined to get it. He raises the price of his guns and ammunition so high that the Henry gang cannot afford them. After losing to Lamont at poker, Dutch is forced to trade the rifle to him for three hundred dollars plus their pick of weapons. Dutch then tries to win the Winchester back by betting the wad in one pot, but is cleaned out by a stacked deck. Lamont peddles his guns to his buyer, Young Bull, who rejects them as worn out and inferior. Spying the elaborately decorated Winchester, he seizes it and turns on Lamont, who is robbed, killed, and scalped. Winchester73 trailer Stewart

Meanwhile, the saloon pianist, Lola, and her fiancé Steve, are in a wagon traveling toward a new home. Pursued by Young Bull and his warriors, Steve panics, abandons Lola, and tears off alone on his horse. Discovering a small encampment of cavalry soldiers ahead, he reverses and together they race to the camp. That night, Lin and High-Spade are also chased in and safely join the group. Lin convinces the sergeant in charge there will be no attack till morning. Come daylight, he gives Lola his revolver, delicately indicating she should save the last round for herself in case things go poorly. A fierce battle ensues, with Lin shooting Young Bull and spurring a rout. Returning Lin his gun, Lola asks if she can keep the remaining bullet as a souvenir, which he grants. He and High-Spade resume their pursuit of Dutch. A moment after they leave, the coveted Winchester is found by a trooper, which the Sergeant gives to Steve. Winchester73 trailer Stewart Winters

Steve and Lola reach the Jameson place, their future home. Steve has a rendezvous planned in Tascosa with Waco Johnny Dean, "the fastest gun in Texas", but Waco and his men instead arrive just ahead of a posse that surrounds the house. When Waco sees the Winchester, he too covets it. Provoking Steve into drawing, Waco kills him. In a breakout Waco's men are shot, but he and Lola escape and ride to Dutch's hideout outside Tascosa. Dutch see the rifle and claims that it is his, which Waco yields without a fight, telling Lola he will get it back the same way he got it from Steve; meanwhile, there is a payday to earn. The gang goes to Tascosa to rob its bank and stagecoach. Lin and High-Spade arrive just ahead of the stage. Waco attempts to shoot Lin but is overpowered in a scrap, then dropped by Lin‘s rifle. In the chaos the heist goes sideways, and Lola is accidentally wounded. Dutch escapes on horseback, with Lin in hot pursuit. High-Spade reveals to Lola that Dutch is Lin's brother, who’d robbed a bank and stagecoach and returned home, then shot their father in the back when he'd refused to harbor him. Dutch manages to scramble up a rocky bluff just ahead of Lin, giving him the high ground. They shoot it out, trading ricochets till one makes a fatal mistake. Lin’s vendetta complete, he returns to Tascosa with the Winchester and reunites emotionally with High-Spade and Lola, accepting her embrace and not letting go.

Cast

Production

The film was originally intended to have been directed by

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), better known as Fritz Lang (), was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety Obituari ...

, but Universal did not want Lang to also produce it through his own company, Diana Productions. Lang's idea was for the rifle to be Stewart's character's only source of strength and his only excuse for living, making the quest for his rifle a matter of life and death. With Lang out of the picture, Universal produced the film with up-and-coming

directing, Stewart's choice, as he had admired some of Mann's prior work. Mann had Borden Chase rewrite the script to instead make the rifle a bone of contention, showing it passing contentiously through the hands of various people. Mann said, "I didn't like the property; I didn't like Winchester at all. This was Lang's version. I was working at Metro and everybody was pressuring me to make the film and I said, 'I'd like to make the film, if you let me rewrite it completely. I want a new writer, new everything; I don't want the property the way it is.' Finally, after a lot of haranguing, they agreed that I could do that and I brought in Borden Chase and we started from scratch on the script and it developed day by day." Stewart had wished to make '' Harvey'' for Universal-International, but the studio could not afford his $200,000 salary ($ in today's dollars), so studio head William Goetz offered to allow Stewart to make both ''Harvey'' and ''Winchester '73'' for a percentage of the profits, spread over some time and at a lower capital gain tax rate than a single payment to Stewart would be. Stewart's agent Lew Wasserman was able to get his client 50 percent of the profits, eventually amounting to $600,000 from the film's unexpected success. Stewart's deal also It is acknowledged as the first confirmed time in the sound era that a film actor received some of the movie's receipts as compensation, a practice acquiring the term "points".

Casting

Stewart was already cast in the part of Lin McAdam and spent a lot of time practicing with the rifle so that he would look like an authentic Westerner. As Mann later related, " tewartwas magnificent walking down a street with a Winchester rifle cradled in his arm. And he was great too actually firing the gun. He studied hard at it. His knuckles were raw with practicing... It was those sorts of things that helped make the film look so authentic, gave it its sense of reality." An expert

marksman A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision shooting. In modern military usage this typically refers to the use of projectile weapons such as an accurized telescopic sight, scoped long gun such as designated marksman rifle (or a sniper ri ...

from the Winchester company, Herb Parsons, did the trick shooting required for the film and assisted Stewart with his training. Shelley Winters was cast as a saloon pianist. Winters did not understand the film, nor think much of her part in it, saying, "Here you've got all these men... running around to get their hands on this goddamn rifle instead of going after a beautiful blonde like me. What does that tell you about the values of that picture? If I hadn't been in it, would anybody have noticed?" The part of Wyatt Earp was given to Will Geer, Millard Mitchell was cast as High-Spade Frankie Wilson. That same year, Mitchell appeared in '' The Gunfighter'' starring

Gregory Peck Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, 12th-greatest male ...

. He would appear in another Stewart-Mann Western '' The Naked Spur'' (1953) as a grizzled old prospector. Jay C. Flippen appears as cavalry sergeant Wilkes. He would also appear in the second Stewart-Mann Western '' Bend of the River'' (1952) with Rock Hudson, who appears in ''Winchester '73'' as a Native American. The Stewart and Mann collaboration established a new

persona A persona (plural personae or personas) is a strategic mask of identity in public, the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional Character (arts), character. It is also considered "an intermediary ...

for Stewart, more violent and disillusioned than ever before, but still likable.

Locations

''Winchester '73'' was filmed at: * Mescal, Arizona, U.S. * Old Tucson, 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, Arizona, U.S. * Backlot, Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, U.S.

Reception

Release

As part of the publicity campaign for the release of the film, Universal Pictures sponsored a contest, by placing magazine ads, to find some of the rare remaining "One of One Thousand" Model 1873 Winchester rifles. This resulted in many previously unknown original rifles being brought into the spotlight, and drew public interest to the field of antique gun collecting. The winner of the contest received a new Winchester Model 1894 rifle, for the Model 1873 was out of production at that time.

Box office

The film was a financial success, turning a significant profit. It has since gained a reputation as a classic of the Western genre, and durably helped to redefine the public perception of James Stewart.

Critical response

Twentyfirst century reviews have been enthusiastic. Writing for ''

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

'' in 2000, William Thomas called the film "the marvellously-scripted story of a man and a gun". He awarded five stars out of five. In 2015 Martin Chilton of the ''

Telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

'' also gave the movie five stars out of five, describing it as "the first in a series of Western masterpieces". The film holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 27 reviews, with an average of 8.5/10.

Honors

The film received a