Classic Film Guide

Shootist, The (1976)

Long before Clint Eastwood revisited this Western persona in his Oscar winning Unforgiven (1992), John Wayne did an excellent job in this, his last film. He plays a gunfighter, with "a cancer", that returns to a town which knows his reputation, before he dies. James Stewart plays the physician that confirms the diagnosis; Lauren Bacall plays the woman that runs the boarding house in which he lives his last days, Ron Howard is her son who befriends the "tired old man"; Harry Morgan plays the town’s Marshal who’d just as soon have him die quickly and quietly; Richard Boone, Bill McKinney, and Hugh O’Brien play old and new rivals alike; John Carradine plays the undertaker; Rick Lenz and Sheree North play a newspaper reporter and former lover, respectively, who want to exploit his story for their own financial gain. Directed by Don Siegel, the film was nominated for an Art Direction-Set Decoration Oscar.

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