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The Shootist 
Actors : John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart, Richard Boone
Director : Don Siegel
Studio : Paramount
by Paramount
Brand : Paramount
Release Date : 2001-07-24
Publisher : Paramount
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780792172642
UPC : 097360890440
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 85 reviews)
List Price : $9.98
Our Price : $4.07
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Product Description |
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Terminally ill john bernard brooks the last of the legendary gunfighters quietly returns to carson city to be treated by his old friend dr hostetler. The troubled man seeks peace in a boarding house run by a widow & her son but its not his fate to die in peace & he become embroiled in one last valiant battle Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/11/2006 Starring: John Wayne Lauren Bacall Run time: 98 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Don Siegel |
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Americancivilwar.com essential video |
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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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Amazed |
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I know many have seen this picture before, but it added so much more seeing it at home and being able to cry freely, knowing what I know now. I was in "The Duke's" final days with him and it just made it that more special. I bought it for someone special, who could not believe that I would be ever able to find it again since it had been so long. It made him smile, yes cry, and even laughed a few times. The price was right, the search was easy, and it is a movie that will be treasured forever. |
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Great swan song |
Based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout, this movie tells the tale of a famous gunslinger who is heading for his last shootout. The movie follows the book pretty accurately except for a few changes: in the novel, the character of Gillum, the son of the widow played by Lauren Bacall, is a little different from how he was portrayed in the movie, and also the sheriff, played by Henry Morgan, has a much greater role. Swarthout also goes into much more detail about the pain J.B. Books experienced as the cancer progressed, which was glossed over in the move, perhaps for expedience sake or perhaps that wouldn't have played as well on the silver screen.
For both movie lovers and John Wayne fans this movie is truly an elegiac swan song. Wayne plays the infamous, tough, smart old gunslinger of John Bernard Books, who has killed 30 men in gunfights, with the most nuanced performance in his long career. But now he is one of the last icons of a dying age, who, diagnosed with a terminal cancer, realizes that the way of life he famously symbolizes is dying just as quickly.
Ironically, Wayne the actor was himself at the end of his career, The Shootist being his own cinematic swan song. In a Pascalian moment of art imitating life, he himself was dying of cancer.
The movie is rich with this end-of-an-age, fin-de-siecle atmosphere and symbolism: most of the town sees Wayne as a perhaps heroic but nevertheless dangerous and lawless relic of a by-gone age. Others simply want to cash in on his fame by telling a romanticized version of his life story. Just before the final shootout, Wayne rides the new streetcar to the saloon, having sold his horse, with a pretty girl. They engage in small talk, as if this is just another ordinary day. But the contrast between the two couldn't be more stark; she is just starting her life, and Wayne is about to end his in a final blaze of glory.
But although Wayne has a few admirers, most of the townspeople seem to feel the world will be a safer, although admittedly less interesting, place without men like him. And the town marshall, played by Henry Morgan of Dragnet and Mash fame, is openly gleeful at the prospect of Wayne's impending demise, which Morgan hopes will occur before some of the volatile circumstances surrounding Wayne have the opportunity to blow up in his face.
Wayne truly went out in style with this film. In contrast to his other more macho, action-oriented movies, this is a more thoughtful, reflective, introspective film that shows what Wayne could do when he was presented with psychologically more subtle, richer material. Except for the last climactic scene, when we are finally treated to a good, old fashioned shoot-'em-up, this movie is a far more cerebral and emotionally deeper film, and Wayne carries it off flawlessly with a performance that strikes a perfect balance, combining the toughness of the old gunslinger with the vulnerability of the dying cowboy whose way of life is dying with him.
For example, in the case of Gillum, the teenager who worships Books as a hero, Books briefly becomes Gillum's surrogate father when he realizes that he must teach the boy in the short time he has left that there is a lot more to being a man than being quick with a gun. When all the boarders in Lauren Bacall's boarding house hastily move out after three gunslingers unsuccessfully try to murder Wayne in his sleep, he sells his horse for $300 and gives the money to Bacall so she won't lose her house.
The movie sports numerous smaller roles and cameos by other famous Hollywood stars, and one of the pleasures of the movie is seeing so many other well-known actors and actresses from Lauren Bacall to John Carradine, Richard Boone, Scatman Crothers, a young Ron Howard, and others, who appear throughout the movie. It's as if they're all getting together for one final send-off, paying their respects to Wayne in his last screen appearance.
The Shootist may never be as famous as Wayne's other, more dramatic films, but it might be the best performance he ever gave in a long, distinguished career.
The IMDB website has some wonderful trivia about the film. I thought I'd post those here in case anyone is interested. Here they are:
This was John Wayne's final film.
This marked James Stewart's final appearance in a western movie.
John Wayne greatly admired director Don Siegel and had said he would like to have played Clint Eastwood's role in Dirty Harry (1971). Wayne was never actually offered the part however because of his age, although he later made two cop movies of his own.
There had been some opposition to the casting of John Wayne, since the producers thought that at 68 he was too old to be believable as a gunfighter.
James Stewart's remark about not having seen John Wayne for 15 years was a reference to their previous collaboration in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
Contrary to popular belief, John Wayne did not have cancer when he made this film. His entire left lung and several ribs had been removed in surgery on 16 September 1964, and in 1969 he was declared cancer free. It was not until January 1979, almost three years after this movie had been filmed, that the disease was found to have returned.
When viewing footage of the final gunfight in the bar, John Wayne saw that it was edited to show him shooting a guy in the back. He said, "I've made over 250 pictures and have never shot a guy in the back. Change it." They did.
To add a sense of realism to John Wayne's character, archive footage from several of his westerns was used to introduce J.B. Books after the beginning credits. Included was footage from Red River (1948), Hondo (1953), Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1966).
When J.B. Books (John Wayne) arrives at Dr. E.W. Hostetler's (James Stewart) Office, Dr. Hostetler mentions that it has been 15 years since they last saw each other. John Wayne and James Stewart last worked together on "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", filmed in 1961, 15 years before.
John Wayne was only cast as Books only after five other star names had passed.
John Wayne fell ill during the production and was hospitalized for a fortnight. It was uncertain at one point whether the film would actually be completed.
John Wayne was great to the Carson City locals while he was staying at the Ormsby House Hotel during the filming. He signed autographs for young people readily, including one signed for future famed Nevada Opera lead mezzo soprano Mary Anna Replogle.
The title of the film comes from a famous quip by the gunslinger Clay Allison. Allison, a bounty hunter and hired killer whose marksmanship and drunken, homicidal rages made him feared across Texas, would reportedly tell anyone brave enough to ask that he was employed as a "shootist".
John Wayne liked working with Lauren Bacall in their first film, Blood Alley (1955) so much that he hand-picked her as his leading lady for this film.
George C. Scott was originally offered the role of Books, and accepted it on the condition that not one word of the script be changed. However, the role was given to John Wayne after he expressed interest. The producers claim they had wanted him all along, but did not believe he would be interested in the film.
An interviewer asked Ron Howard if Wayne had given him any tips on acting. He said that, during the filming of the final shootout, Wayne took him aside and said he had some advice for him. As Howard eagerly awaited some profound advice, Wayne said "Ron, if you want to look menacing - close your mouth."
Wayne did a TV Public Service Announcement for the American Cancer Society that began with a clip of the scene in which the doctor tells Books he has cancer.
Maureen O'Hara was considered for the role of Bond Rogers, but director Don Siegel felt she wasn't suitable for the part.
Lauren Bacall's character's first name was a reference to Ward Bond.
At the beginning of the seventh day, Gillom whistles a Scott Joplin song made famous to audiences three years earlier in The Sting (1973).
The engraved Colt Single Action Army revolvers used by J. B. Books in this film were in reality a pair of 1950's-made replicas presented to John Wayne by the long-defunct Great Western company. Being Wayne's personal weapons, it is unlikely he would have allowed the bores to be restricted to prevent firing with live ammo as most movie guns must be, so it can be assumed that Wayne had the only live-firing weapons on the set.
Hugh O'Brien wanted to be in the film, so he was given the character of Pulford, who was originally in the novel. Pulford was a card dealer. In the movie, his gun fight with a patron is depicted as occurring after Books comes to town. In the book, however, the gun fight took place much earlier.
The name of Scatman Crothers's character, Moses Brown, is an allusion to the McCandles Ranch cook played by Bill Walker in Big Jake (1971). |
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"THE DUKE " SAVES THE BEST FOR LAST! |
'The Shootist' is a great picture, if not a bit eerie that it echoes the tragic fate of it's beloved legendary star. It's even stranger that John Wayne was not the first choice to star in this film! Can you imagine this film with anyone else playing his part? When Wayne was finally cast, many Hollywood stars like Lauren Bacall, James Stewart, Ron Howard and Richard Boone came to "The Duke's" side, and for little or no money gave it their all to make Wayne's last picture a great one!
The film shows a much more subtle side of Wayne's abilities as a actor. Not much action to speak of, but Wayne does convey his feelings beautifully through his eyes and speech. The makers of this film cleverly use footage from Wayne career as a cowboy star to fill the back-story for the character in the movie and it works perfectly to set up the film.
This is one of my favorite westerns and one of Wayne's finest moments. It also signified the end of an era "the great western" was gone forever! The DVD transfer looks clean, but this film deserves the special treatment! |
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Art imitating life |
While giving Wayne credit as an enormously popular personality, I have never thought of him as much of an actor. He is always swaggering, wise-cracking John Wayne. Ironically, this film, in which duplicates his real life role of a dying cancer patient, Wayne shows his full depth as an actor.
The Old West, along with its most colorful characters, is irreversibly changing. In the same way that Wayne, riddled by cancer in real life, is changing. Wayne isn't the only one. Richard Boone, Hugh O'brien and others know the sun is going down on a way of life that lasted no more than twenty-five years. There will be no room for wanderers and gunslingers. What better way to end it than in an act of mutual suicide?
Yes, I know that's NOT what the film is supposed to be about but that's what it is about. Boone and O'brien, in an effort to right old wrongs and to inherit the ailing gunfighter Wayne's glory, decide to shoot it out. Everyone is prepared to die and, not remarkably, everyone does.
Like Kirk Douglas' "Lonely are the Brave", this is a 'small' film about the end of the old West. It's a great movie.
Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico |
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The Shootist |
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I bought this dvd as a gift for a friend. I have seen this movie and it is excellent. It was shipped fast and was received in excellent shape. |
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