Last Train From Gun Hill
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''Last Train from Gun Hill'' is a 1959 American
Western film The Western is a film genre defined by the American Film Institute as films which are "set in the American West that mbodythe spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier." Generally set in the American frontier between the Calif ...
in
VistaVision VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35 mm motion picture film format that was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954. Paramount did not use anamorphic processes such as CinemaScope but refined the ...
and
Technicolor Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...
, directed by
John Sturges John Eliot Sturges (; January 3, 1910 – August 18, 1992) was an American film director. His films include '' Bad Day at Black Rock'' (1955), '' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'' (1957), ''The Magnificent Seven'' (1960), '' The Great Escape'' (19 ...
. It stars
Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
,
Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known as Anthony Quinn, was an American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental virility" in over 100 ...
and Earl Holliman. Douglas and Holliman had previously appeared together in Sturges' '' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'' (1957), which used much of the same crew.


Plot

Two old friends, Matt Morgan (
Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
) and Craig Belden (
Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known as Anthony Quinn, was an American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental virility" in over 100 ...
), now find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Belden, a rich cattle baron, is the de facto ruler of the town of Gun Hill. Morgan is a U.S. Marshal living in another town with his
Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...
wife (played by
Ziva Rodann Ziva Rodann (, born Ziva Blechman ; 2 March 1933), known first as Ziva Shapir (), is an Israeli-American actress. She was a Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film star and a frequent guest star on television series from the late 1950s to the ...
) and young son, Petey. Two young drunken cowboys rape and murder Morgan's wife while she is returning with their son from a visit to her father. The boy escapes on one of the killers' horses which bears a distinctive, fancy saddle. Morgan sets off to find the killer. His one clue is the saddle, which he recognizes as belonging to Belden. Assuming it was stolen from his old friend, Morgan travels to the town of Gun Hill to pick up the trail, but once there he quickly realizes that Belden's son Rick ( Earl Holliman) is the killer. Belden refuses to turn over his son, forcing Morgan to go against the entire town. Morgan vows to capture Rick and get him on that night's last train from Gun Hill. Morgan takes Rick prisoner, holding him at the hotel. Belden sends men to rescue his son, but Morgan manages to hold them off. In the meantime, Belden's former lover, Linda, ( Carolyn Jones) decides to help Morgan. She sneaks a shotgun to his hotel room. The second rapist, Lee, sets fire to the hotel to flush out Morgan. Morgan presses the shotgun to Rick's chin on the way to the train depot, threatening to pull the trigger if anyone attempts to stop him. Lee tries to kill Morgan but shoots Rick instead. Morgan then kills Lee with the shotgun. As the train prepares to leave, a devastated Belden confronts Morgan in a final showdown and is gunned down.


Cast

*
Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in '' The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. ...
as Marshal Matt Morgan *
Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known as Anthony Quinn, was an American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental virility" in over 100 ...
as Craig Belden * Carolyn Jones as Linda * Earl Holliman as Rick Belden *
Brad Dexter Brad Dexter (born Boris Michel Soso; April 9, 1917 – December 12, 2002) was an American actor and film producer. He is known for tough-guy and western roles, including the 1960 film '' The Magnificent Seven'' (1960), and producing several fi ...
as Beero * Brian G. Hutton as Lee Smithers (as Brian Hutton) *
Ziva Rodann Ziva Rodann (, born Ziva Blechman ; 2 March 1933), known first as Ziva Shapir (), is an Israeli-American actress. She was a Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film star and a frequent guest star on television series from the late 1950s to the ...
as Catherine Morgan *
Bing Russell Neil Oliver "Bing" Russell (May 5, 1926 – April 8, 2003) was an American actor and Class A minor-league baseball club owner. He was the father of Hollywood actor Kurt Russell and grandfather of ex–major league baseball player Matt Franco ...
as Skag * Val Avery as Steve, Horseshoe Bartender * Walter Sande as Sheriff Bartlett


Filming locations

The movie was filmed in and around Old Tucson Studios outside of
Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
, Sonoita, Arizona, as well as at
Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production and distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio i ...
and their back lot in
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
.


Themes

A key theme of the film is the tragic opposition between natural law and manmade law, originally drawn in
Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...
'
Antigone ANTIGONE (Algorithms for coNTinuous / Integer Global Optimization of Nonlinear Equations), is a deterministic global optimization solver for general Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLP). History ANTIGONE is an evolution of GloMIQO, a global ...
. The backstory of the principal characters sees them operating as partner outlaws in the wilds - an effective
state of nature In ethics, political philosophy, social contract theory, religion, and international law, the term state of nature describes the hypothetical way of life that existed before humans organised themselves into societies or civilisations. Philosoph ...
. Subsequently, Morgan and Belden part ways each choosing to settle down and in their own way exemplify a lawful mode of life. Belden is an exemplar of the natural law. This is partly conveyed in the manner of
Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
's
Gorgias Gorgias ( ; ; – ) was an ancient Greek sophist, pre-Socratic philosopher, and rhetorician who was a native of Leontinoi in Sicily. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years ...
, with Belden a natural leader of men who has built his own private fiefdom at Gun Hill. He displays Gorgias' virtues in his martial courage, justice and wisdom, though each of these, as with Gorgias, largely serve Belden's own ends: this is the justice of the victor and wisdom of the political operator. To this, crucially, is added that view of natural law which begins at home and with one's own (see
Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient ...
). The plot turns on Belden regarding his obligation to protect his son as overriding the positive law of the state. For his part, Morgan is a courageous, dutiful marshall of manmade positive law ( Kelsen), indeed declaring at one point "I am the law." Morgan attempts to maintain due process throughout, for example seeking approval of his warrants from the corrupt local sheriff, attempting to see the accused, Rick, to a courthouse, and refusing to initiate violence against Belden. Yet as Morgan proceeds to enforce the law, he struggles to differentiate his own personal stake in the outcome of his actions, perhaps driving him to overcompensate by even stricter application of the law. Compare the "long view" of the corrupt local sheriff, to Morgan's tragic adherence to legal formalism. In slavishly holding to process rather than seeking an unofficial resolution, the suggestion is that much greater damage is done to all involved. The dynamic is seen in Linda's character arc: describing herself early on as someone who never gave much attention to rules, she finds in Morgan a hero lawman who could save Gun Hill from Belden's abusive control, but in the denouement she surveys the results of Morgan's law enforcement and turns her eyes from him in disappointment.


Comic book adaptation

*
Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
Four Color ''Four Color'', also known as ''Four Color Comics'' and ''Dell Four Color'', is an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic ...
#1012 (July 1959)


See also

*
List of American films of 1959 The American films of 1959 are listed in a table of the films which were made in the United States and released in 1959 in film, 1959. The film ''Ben-Hur (1959 film), Ben-Hur'' won the 32nd Academy Awards, Academy Award for Academy Award for B ...


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Last Train From Gun Hill 1959 Western (genre) films 1959 films American Western (genre) films Bryna Productions films Films about rape in the United States Films adapted into comics Films directed by John Sturges Films produced by Hal B. Wallis Films produced by Kirk Douglas Films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin Films with screenplays by James Poe Paramount Pictures films Films about the United States Marshals Service Revisionist Western (genre) films 1950s English-language films 1950s American films English-language Western (genre) films VistaVision films