This article is about the 1971 American film. For the 2011 Canadian film, see The Mountie (film).
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In the opening scenes drunken cowhands from the town of Sabbath are shooting up the western town of Bannock. An old man is accidentally killed.[2]
On the trail of the shooters Jared Maddox Bannock's marshal rides into the town of Sabbath with the body of Marc Corman. Corman and five others were involved in the reckless killing and Maddox has warrants for the remaining five.
Maddox calls on Sabbath's sheriff, Cotton Ryan, and demands that the men surrender to him within 24 hours. The sheriff warns Maddox that they work for Vincent Bronson, a wealthy cattle rancher who all but owns Sabbath. Maddox is not frightened and coolly warns Ryan he will "kill these men where they stand" if they do not surrender.
Ryan goes to Bronson's ranch to inform him of Marshal's arrival in Sabbath. Bronson is unaware of the killing in Bannock and offers cash as compensation. The Sheriff explains that Maddox cannot be bought.
Bronson's foreman, Harv Stenbaugh, wants Maddox dead but Bronson insists on negotiation. When that falls through, his men resolve to kill the marshal, an effort which leads to a dramatic gun fight in Sabbath's main street. There are no shiny guns and new boots in this movie, it's dusty and coarse the harshness of life in those times is captured in a manner unseen in today's westerns.
Burt Lancaster plays a no nonsense "killer of men" who betrays his own code of moral conduct in a way that seems unavoidable. The gunfights have palpable emotional significance and are not cheap theater. The characters belong to the country and the time in a way that is lost to modern western film making.
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.[3] Wilson also wanted to say that "law and order is certainly not the only way to administer justice."[4]
In November 1969, it was reported Michael Winner was scouting locations in Durango and that Burt Lancaster would most likely star.[5] Winner did not want to go to Spain - where many Westerns were shot - because he wanted "an American influence". The film ended up being shot in Chupadero, New Mexico. Winner says he managed to hire the village for filming just before Howard Hawks tried to secure it for Rio Lobo.[6]
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?"[9]
"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."[10]
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.[11]
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."[12]
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."[13]
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."[14]
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."[15]
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a good solid western" with Cobb "a fine and worthy adversary" to Lancaster.[16] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post stated that the film "smells of confused plotting, gratuitous brutality and a veritable outbreak of overripe dialogue."[17]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."[18]
^Mole sees the light: DEREK MALCOLM reviews new films and talks to Gerald Wilson who wrote the script for Scorpio
Malcolm, Derek. The Guardian 25 Oct 1973: 14.
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