What it’s about
Jimmy Ringo (Peck) is a quick-draw artist famed for the number of men he’s killed, but he’s decided to hang up his guns and lead a quiet life. After gunning down a spunky young challenger in self-defense, Ringo rides to the town of Cayenne, hoping to reunite with his estranged wife Peggy (Westcott). But the dead youth’s brothers are in hot pursuit, intent on putting Ringo in the ground one way or the other.
Why we love it
Henry King’s landmark “Gunfighter,” starring Gregory Peck as an infamous shootist bedeviled by young turks who want to make a name for themselves by slaying an legendary outlaw, may have faded from view since the 1950s, but it’s an unusually tense film that plays out like a Greek tragedy. Peck’s laconic turn as the reluctant gunman is spot on, and King brings depth to Andre de Toth and William Bowers’s Oscar-nominated script with noirish interior shots and taut scene-to-scene action. Take aim at “The Gunfighter,” an under-seen Western classic!