Lawman (film)

''Lawman'' is a 1971 American revisionist Western film produced and directed by Michael Winner and starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb and Robert Duvall.

Plot synopsis

Drunken cowhands from the town of Sabbath are shooting up the western town of Bannock.TCM on Lawman
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Jared Maddox is Bannock's marshal. Days later he rides into Sabbath with the body of Marc Corman, one of the renegade cowhands shot that night in Bannock. Corman and five others were involved in the reckless killing of an old man, and Maddox has warrants for them.

Maddox calls on Sabbath's sheriff, Cotton Ryan. He demands that the five surrender to him within 24 hours. Ryan tells Maddox the five work for Vincent Bronson, a wealthy cattle rancher, and that he should avoid a dangerous confrontation. Maddox is not moved.

Ryan goes to Vincent Bronson's ranch to inform him of Marshal Maddox's arrival in Sabbath. Bronson, unaware of the killing in Bannock offers cash as compensation. Sheriff Ryan explains that Maddox will only accept surrender.

Bronson's defiant foreman, Harv Stenbaugh, wants Maddox killed. Bronson refuses, insisting on negotiation. When that falls through, his men one by one confront Maddox and lose their lives, until the final showdown in the Sabbath town square, when Maddox is forced to kill Bronson's son Jason, then kills Hurd Price who ran, and finally Bronson kneeling next to his son's body takes his own life.

Maddox rides away, back to Bannock, with justice served.

Cast

* Burt Lancaster as Jared Maddox
* Robert Ryan as Cotton Ryan
* Lee J. Cobb as Vincent Bronson
* Robert Duvall as Vernon Adams
* Sheree North as Laura Shelby
* Albert Salmi as Harvey Stenbaugh
* J. D. Cannon as Hurd Price
* Joseph Wiseman as Lucas
* Richard Jordan as Crowe Wheelwright
* John McGiver as Mayor Sam Bolden
* Ralph Waite as Jack Dekker
* John Beck as Jason Bronson
* William C. Watson as Choctaw Lee
* Walter Brooke as Luther Harris
* Robert Emhardt as Hersham
* Richard Bull as Dusaine
* John Hillerman as Totts
* Hugh McDermott as L.G. Moss
* Wilford Brimley as Marc Corman

Production

The film was based on an original script by Gerald Wilson who said he was inspired by an item he read in the journal of Charlie Siringo which said the only hired killers in the old West were the lawmen, and it was they who caused most of the violence. Wilson also wanted to say that "law and order is certainly not the only way to administer justice."

In November 1969, it was reported Michael Winner was scouting locations in Durango and that Burt Lancaster would most likely star. Winner did not want to go to Spain - where many Westerns were shot - because he wanted "an American influence". The film wound up being made in Chupaderos. Winner says he managed to hire the village for filming just before Howard Hawks tried to secure it for ''Rio Lobo''.Fastest gun in the west
Crosby, John. The Observer 14 Dec 1969: 7.

Filming began in April 1970.

It was Winner's first Western. "The West is everybody's," he said. "Americans come to Britain to film English history. Why shouldn't an Englishman go west?"

"The West is vulgar," he said. "The West is dirty. It's like a hippie colony. The problem with making a western is you get your priorities the wrong way around. You can't find anywhere to go to the toilet and yet you have to bring everything to a halt the minute one of the horses goes. And then wait to sweep up after it."

Winner later said:

I’d never even done a Western before but I got very serious about it. I had American professors come up and look at locations and I wanted to get the details correct. I asked what they usually used for oil lamps and they said that they just used new ones and threw some dust on them. I told them that was ridiculous and that they could get authentic period oil lamps for 20 quid on the Portobello Road. So the crew were all coming over from England with these things crammed in their luggage. It was the most authentic Western ever made. Everything was real. We sold the set to John Wayne who was coming in and doing another movie on the set after us.

Release dates

Alternative titles

Reception

Critical

Howard Thompson of ''The New York Times'' called the film "a potent but curiously exasperating Western" with "a baffling, oblique arrogance about the central character, played well by Lancaster, that belies his seeming quest for justice ('the law is the law'), the point of the film. But he is also a cold, egocentric fish."

Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' gave the film two stars out of four and called it "a Western with a lot of sides but no center. The bad guys are too monotonously bad to be interesting. The characters played by Lee J. Cobb and Robert Ryan are more interesting, but never get a proper chance to influence events. And the Lancaster character, as limited by Winner, seems driven by some unhealthy inner hang-up that causes the whole movie to go sour. Winner should have told us a lot more about his lawman, or a lot less."

Gene Siskel of the ''Chicago Tribune'' awarded two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "It's the opportunity to see some familiar faces that makes 'Lawman' an entertaining Western. It just has to be the faces, because the story is so depressing and poorly conceived."

''Variety'' described it as "a quite entertaining film that never hits many high spots but will amuse western addicts," adding, "Lancaster, as usual, is a highly convincing marshal, tough and taciturn. Ryan is also excellent as the faded, weak marshal with only memories. But it's Cobb who quietly steals the film as the local boss who, unlike many in such films, is no ruthless villain."

Kevin Thomas of the ''Los Angeles Times'' called it "a good solid western" with Cobb "a fine and worthy adversary" to Lancaster. Gary Arnold of ''The Washington Post'' stated that the film "smells of confused plotting, gratuitous brutality and a veritable outbreak of overripe dialogue." John Pidgeon of ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' called the story "utterly conventional" and concluded that "despite the acting, the theme—of the morality of taking life in the name of the law—is ill-served by Winner's fashionable attention to gore, not to mention his hotch-potch of styles, as tiresome as the frenetically zooming camera."

The film holds a score of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 8 reviews.

References

Notes

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External links

Official site
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Lawman
at Letterbox DVD
{{Michael Winner

1971 films
1971 Western (genre) films
American Western (genre) films
1970s English-language films
United Artists films
Films directed by Michael Winner
Films scored by Jerry Fielding
United States Marshals Service in fiction
Revisionist Western (genre) films
Films produced by Michael Winner
1970s American films