Winchester 73 (1950)

Film: Winchester 73 (1950)

Stars: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Rock Hudson

Director: Anthony Mann

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Jimmy Stewart: click here to learn more about Mr. Stewart (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Frequently with legendary actors, we don't think of their careers as having lulls, but with Jimmy Stewart, this was the case by 1950.  Though he starred in what would ultimately be the role he was best-remembered for in 1946 (George Bailey in the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life), the film had a mixed result at the box office and actually was considered a flop when it first ran.  The next few years brought about movies that are considered to be classics today (specifically Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and the film noir classic Call Northside 777), but it was clear a new generation of actors was replacing Stewart, who had not really had a hit film that had captured the public imagination since before the war.  That changed in 1950, though, when Stewart's career opened a new door.  Stewart made what would end up being his first of eight films with Anthony Mann, which would largely be critical & commercial successes throughout the 1950's, and would reimagine the war hero and Frank Capra's everyman type as a classic cowboy, giving him a spot as one of the most important western stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. The film that started this collaboration was Winchester 73.

(Spoilers Ahead) Winchester 73 is one of many, many big screen takes on the famed Dodge City myth, and starts with Lin McAdam (Stewart) and Dutch Henry Brown (McNally) in a shooting contest to win a famed Winchester 73, the best gun in the west.  Lin wins, but is stood up by Dutch in his apartment and has the Winchester 73 stolen from him.  Thus ensues a chase, which involves both men meeting up with a variety of figures, including a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold named Lola (Winters), Waco Johnnie (Duryea), a wild-eyed bandit who kills Lola's boyfriend to be with her, and a group of Native Americans led by Rock Hudson of all people as Young Bull (a case of redface that I didn't know happened until I saw his name buried in the opening credits, one of Hudson's very early films before his eventual breakout in 1954's Magnificent Obsession).  As the film goes, we realize that Lin & Dutch are brothers, and Lin is still angry about Dutch murdering their father years earlier after their dad refused to provide cover for Dutch after a bank robbery.  The film ends with Lin killing Dutch with the titular gun, their feud now ended.

I really liked Winchester 73, I'm going to be honest, and two films into Stewart's partnership with Mann (I watched this month's out of order) I'm thrilled by the movies that they made together.  This film doesn't quite hit the mark of an all-time western classic (the stakes are there, but it doesn't have the harrowing nature that something like Shane or The Searchers would bring to their final showdowns), but it's close.  There's something so magnetic about Stewart in this role.  He's not a natural cowboy.  The "awe shucks" charm that he brought to something like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington isn't absent here, but it adds a mystery to him.  He's kind, but capable of great violence.  Stewart plays with this well, making his Lin a man of honor, but a man who is foremost set on his mission.  It's a great juxtaposition, and likely why the public was drawn to him; he struck a different, more intelligent chord than other western figures like John Wayne & Gary Cooper in the same era.

The rest of the film works really well too.  Sadly we are deprived of a song (side note for those who are not well-versed on westerns of this era-they almost always had a great ballad associated with them sung by someone like Tex Ritter or Frankie Laine), but the cinematography from William Daniels (who won an Oscar for The Naked City) is splendid, crystal clear & deliciously shot in medium close-up.  There's a moment about halfway the movie where Jimmy Stewart sees a just-waking up Shelley Winters, her cleavage as low as you could get it in 1950, and you see the lust before he remembers he's a man of honor all in one take-it's a great moment, and indicative of the kind of knowingness that Mann & Daniels would frequently bring to their work.  Duryea, whom I'm fast-realizing might be the best character actor of the Classical Hollywood era who never got an Oscar nomination, is marvelous as a late addition to the movie as Waco Johnnie, totally unnecessary to the plot, but he plays his villain as lusty & has better chemistry with Winters (who is good but, again, unnecessary, which she complained about when reflected on this movie and said (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much) "all these men were more interested in that gun than a beautiful blonde like me!") than Stewart or any of the other actors.  All-in-all, well worth your time if your first reaction to me saying "Jimmy Stewart" for a theme of westerns was one of surprise.