THE RETURN OF THE GUNFIGHTER

US, 1967, 98 minutes, Colour.
Robert Taylor, Ana Martin, Chad Everett, Michael Pate.
Directed by James Neilson.

One of Robert Taylor's last films. He has played this role many times, especially in his last years. The screenplay is predictable in situation, characterisation and dialogue. However, it moves with sufficient pace and involves the audience which enjoys a basic western. Chad Everett is rather bland in the central hero role. Michael Pate appears briefly as a villain. Direction is by James Neilson who made several of the Disney films in the sixties. Enjoyable if conventional material.

1. Audience enjoyment of westerns? Gunfighters, fights, betrayals? How conventional was this western?

2. The story of the gunfighter, his standing up for right, the oppressed people, the emotional complications? The truth and the showdown? How predictable, more than predictable?

3. Western locations, western town? The rousing score?

4. The plausibility of the plot - old ingredients and western stories? The gunfighter, the power hungry criminal, the vengeful daughter, the gunfighter hero? how well put together, authentic, contrived?

5. Robert Taylor and his experience in this kind of role? The introduction and his being dressed in black, gambling, shootout? His feeling victimized? The appeal of the Domingo family and his going there? His devotion to the daughter Anisa? The encounter with Sutton and helping him? The Boone brothers and the shootout? Aniza trying to discover her father's killers and the irony of Clay being Sutton's brother? The trumped-up charge against Wyatt? The imprisonment, Sutton releasing him? The final shootout? The happy ending? A portrait of a western gunfighter?

6. The Domingo family and the defiance of Clay, their being murdered, Anisa's escaping the fire? Her devotion to Wyatt, her gradual falling in love with Sutton? Her discovering the truth in the town? The shootout, the happy ending?

7. Sutton as hero with the gun on Wyatt, his story, the clash with the Boones? The divided loyalty with his brother, the discovery of the truth? His helping Wyatt?

8. Clay as villain? power-hungry, shooting enemies, having the
judge and the marshal on his payroll? His hired killers? His shooting of the judge, forfeiting all sympathy, the final clash and his death? A typical western villain?

9. The gunfighters? Butch and Sundance? Ugly and vengeful gunfighters, boasting, the tripping of Wyatt and the humiliation, the final shootouts?

10. The Boones and the shootout with Wyatt and Sutton?

11. The picture of law and order in the west, corruption, the need for individuals taking charge?

12. Predictable sequences, audience enjoyment of the basic ingredients of the western? The American heritage, themes of heroism, good and evil, right and wrong?