Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Blistering performances.

This is a classic western. James Stewart is one of the greatest, most talented and most likable movie stars of all time and also by what everyone who knew him said he was a great person and to top it all off a war hero in real life. It is not his best film and pretty straightforward of a western movie plot but he's fantastic, the story is still much better than most other westers of this time, and the acting is top notch (not just James Stewart). Well worth watching, you will like it unless you really hate older western genre movies in general.

I didn't really grow up with Westerns, but an early fascination with Clint Eastwood had me discovering them in a big way. I have always compared the genre of Westerns to Chocolate Chip Cookies (bare with me now on this analogy.) It doesn't matter who makes them, as long as they have the right ingredients they are near perfect. It takes an awful lot to make a "bad" Western and I can't even think of one at the moment. It always helps when you find a particular Western star that you love (Lee Marvin, Eastwood, John Wayne...Jimmy Stewart.) Winchester '73 isn't just any chocolate chip cookie, its one of the greats. Personally I wouldn't put it in league with Sergio Leon's Dollars trilogy or some of Eastwood's better ones but only because it doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the table. What it does bring is every single aspect of a great Western to the table all around the legend of a perfect gun that is being passed from person to person while one man searches for it and his nemesis. The shoot outs are fantastic, dark and even gory in a few spots. The performances range from good to great and there is no shortage of action. The film opens in the legendary Dodge City and Wyatt Earp and his crew are there too. It just feels right as a Western! The legendary James Stewart is our hero and the a great Western cowboy. Lin McAdam is tough as nails, a perfect shot and the ultimate cowboy. Perhaps the only issue is that Stewart doesn't get enough scenes in the movie. Yes he is the star but he's probably only in 2/3 of the film and that isn't enough for my taste and McAdam could have gotten a lot more great scenes. Still he is amazing as he almost always is. This character is a terrific turn for him as a tough guy and he pulls it off well. As Stewart said in his own words about McAdam, the character is emotional and vulnerable. Shelley Winters is decent as wild west gal Lola Manners. She is spirited and fiery and fun to watch. Its not a great performance but its certainly a good one. Her chemistry with Stewart is okay but nothing amazing. She plays a much bigger part in the latter part of the film and does well at it. Stephen McNally is Stewart's sworn enemy that he is chasing through the dusty wild west. McNally is terrific as a villain and the chemistry between him and Stewart is perfect. Their adversarial relationship is legendary and you know its going to come to a huge battle in the end. Dan Duryea also deserves mention as McNally's right hand man and number one goon. He makes for a great villain as well and is particularly good opposite Winters in their scenes.I would love to see this on the big screen someday because it is just insanely fun. It has everything you would expect from a classic Western from its opening scenes at the shooting competition to the closing and epic finale shootout between the two enemies. The twist to the story isn't exactly a huge shock, I sort of saw it coming but it still made a terrible finale. Early Hollywood directors always seem to direct a hundred pictures before their death but you still have to give credit where its due and Anthony Mann crafts a terrific story. The only reason it isn't a perfect score is perhaps because it really doesn't try to be anything out of the box of a cookie-cutter Western. But there is also NOTHING wrong with that. Don't even take that as a criticism because if you're a Western fan or even looking to introduce classic Westerns to a new generation, this is one for the ages. A terrific non-stop wagon ride. 8.5/10

This was the first movie in which a major star eschewed any salary, settling instead for a take of the nut. It was also the first collaboration between Jimmy Stewart and Anthony Mann in Westerns, in which Mann was to draw out the rage behind Stewart's amiable presentation of self, of which heretofore there had only been prodromal symptoms.Stewart is Lin McAdam and Stephen McNally is Dutch Henry Brown in the post Civil War West. They are at odds with each other. You can tell long before the final reveal which one is the instigator because Lin McAdam is a "good" name while "Dutch Henry Brown" sounds like the color scheme of some camouflage pattern designed for use in combat that takes place in fertilizer warehouses. In case there's any doubt, McNally is dressed in sloppy clothes that don't look simply dusty but actually black with grease, as if he'd just crawled out from beneath a car. He needs a shave too.Stewart wins a prize Winchester at a shooting match in Dodge City but McNally bops him over the head and takes off with the rifle. The movie consists of watching Stewart pursue McNally's bad guy all over the Southwest, and of watching the rifle change hands multiple times.There is a foiled bank robbery in Tascosa, Texas, which is now a ghost town. (Be sure to visit the ghostly court house.) Actually it was filmed amid the crumbling adobe, the saguaro and ocotillo of Old Tucson, Arizona. The final, inevitable shoot out between Lin and Dutch Henry takes place among high, rocky crags. A ton of lead is exchanged between the two expert rifle shots. You have never seen so many bullets fly between two men. And the misses are extremely close, sometimes only an inch or two. You may wonder how this illusion is achieved. It's done by a man just out of camera range shooting what looks like a child's toy gun, loaded with pellets made of dust.The supporting cast is made up of names and faces that are now easily recognized if they weren't before. Black and white photography can be extremely expressive in the right hands, used for the right movies, but this isn't one of them. William Daniels has done good work elsewhere but this should have been in color.

This being my first classic western I have little in the way of frame of reference for talking about it. This said by my reckoning its great stuff. A tale of a gun, masterpiece of craft, but more about men and the toil of obsession. Lin McAdam (James Stewart) encounters one Dutch Henry (Stephen McNally) in the town of Dodge City, they have prior quarrel but things really heat up when Lin wins a prized Winchester '73 in a shooting contest and Butch subsequently steals it from him. So the pursuit begins, meanwhile the gun changes several hands. But as things progress we see the film isn't really about a gun. More about Lin and Dutch and their ways, and the places they find comfort. In Dodge City Dutch is at his element, later at a bar we see him about business, schemer playing his options. But in neither place is Lin at home, just the stark desert, just when in pursuit. The obsessed, at disadvantage to the object of obsession and facing uncertainty of what lies beyond. Perhaps the crucial scene of the film has Lin's friend High Spade (Millard Mitchell) querying this uncertainty as they bed down for the night, around them nothing but cold dark, cacti and hills. When obsession is fulfilled what then, can the obsessed yet find comfort? Its a serious question that adds a layer of pathos to our hero, handled very well by Stewart. He's a good man, but a hardened and darkened one, he can charm and appeal to the films notable female Lola (Shelley Winters) who ultimately sees though the facades of all, but there's steel within. Dutch Henry is a potent foil, there's that same steel but more calculation, more mind for ease, looser and more malign. And a good contrast to his fellow evil-doer Waco Johnie Dean (Dan Duryea), smiling and vicious, not being bound by any particular circle of obsession of vengeance entirely assured in his actions. There are other lines to the plot of course, but ultimately its about the leads as slowly they draw together, there are different confrontations but it all comes down to a classic style one on one showdown. The various action scenes are all quality stuff, a thrilling horse chase and a few shootouts, all tensely handled. A fine punctuation to the psychological side of the piece, and in one important scene illustration of the way these men of the old west relate to their environment and to burgeoning civilisation. Of course the film wouldn't work as a psychological piece without astute dialogue, of which there is plenty. Short, straight and timber tough, not a word is wasted, its a great work of characterful writing. I think the final moments could have been slightly better developed, with more of a nod to the ambivalent tone of earlier, but its a fairly minor gripe given the general tone. Quality stuff say I, 8/10