Like High Noon, this is ostensibly a western that should be regarded as a classic film. It's set in the west but could work just as well in any other setting. Also like High Noon, the action is light and downplayed on purpose. The mood is meditative with quiet moments and an economy of scenes. There's only about 6 locales for the entire picture. Henry King directed just a couple westerns and this is one of the best in the canon, edited by the great Barbara McLean with such a deft hand. The motifs throughout center on regret and inability to escape one's past. A notorious gunfighter Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck) is winding down in his life, world-weary of the gunfighting lifestyle. On the run from his past he makes his way to a saloon in a new town. Wherever he goes, though, his reputation is known and he's confronted by a cocksure upstart who thinks Ringo can't be as tough as they say. Invariably, the naive hotshots try drawing against him and Ringo skins his smoke wagon in self-defense, always beating them to the draw. Thus we're left wondering if the gunfighter's reputation for killing twelve men isn't as bloodthirsty as presumed: were the last several he killed young guns trying to prove their manhood and he was only defending himself? Peck plays this gunfighter with reserve and inwardness.

In the opening scene, his character looks disheveled and his clothes don't fit right. His hat is quaint and he doesn't look threatening at all. But when a young fella taunts him before drawing, Henry King (or McLean) do something extraordinary with the cutting: we never see Peck draw. We see the young fella reach for his holster and then instantly a gunshot from off screen followed by a cut to Peck with his gun already drawn. Your eye doesn't even register action happening at all with these cuts. It's such an unusual stylistic decision to clue the audience early that this isn't a traditional western. It has a point to tell. Later on Peck is hounded by three cowboys out in the frontier and he gets the jump on them. He doesn't kill them but takes their horses and continues onwards. The story establishes itself like a stageplay when Peck returns to a town where he once fell in love with a girl, now a school teacher. They seem to have been lovers and perhaps married with a son. Peck just wants to see her one last time. So he remains in the saloon, hiding from the outside world while his reputation dogs him. The barkeep passes word to the sheriff who happens to be old friends with the gunfighter and is alarmed enough to bring several deputies to the saloon and ask him his business.

Suspense builds as Peck's presence alone is accumulating attention and gossip in town. All the children in the town gather and look in the windows at this famous gunfighter. His fame is poison and of course another hothead looking to prove his worth tries to challenge him. Peck bluffs him by pretending he has a gun under the table so the guy leaves. Meanwhile another older man is setting up a rifle in a second story window across the street to snipe at Peck for allegedly killing his boy. Peck happens to see the rifle and finds a way to leave out back and flank the position to catch the father in his room. He disarms him and we learn that Peck never encountered the boy and the father was mistaken; false rumors are a byproduct of fame. Throughout the film there is another similarity with High Noon in which the clock pendulum and clock face is frequently shown to imply that time is running out. At 10am he expects the three cowboys who accosted him outside of town to catch up with him.

The Gunfighter (1950) was made a few years before High Noon and I wonder if it had any influence on the latter film. The whole movie is mostly quiet dialogue and scenes of waiting and reflection, with wonderful interior shots and psychological introspection. It features excellent women characters too: the schoolteacher/wife reluctant to meet with Peck and the supporting female saloon singer beckoning her to meet with him. Peck also has a compelling scene with his son in one of the saloon bedrooms. We see Peck's character brighten and become naively exuberant whenever he talks about wanting to escape and start over with them. His wishthinking is childlike and he has a kind, soft-spoken way about him that makes him sympathetic; he sometimes reminds me of Stallone's Rambo in the opening scenes of First Blood.

The film is setting itself up for tragedy, though. I wasn't anticipating it early on or during the middle half of the picture since there were few subplots going on to distract me. By the time Peck meets with his son and he talks to the wife about him leaving town and coming back in two years, it was clear this is going to end tragically. Sure enough Peck exits out back as the three cowboys arrive in town and the mass of onlookers outside swells. The cowboys set up a sniping position in a barn out back, but the sheriff catches them in time. This is a moment that relieves tension but it's a bait and switch. Peck gets on his horse to finally leave town and then the young upstart who was bluffed earlier in the saloon shoots him in the back after calling his name. Peck's reflexes are such that he responds fast enough to shoot back, but he's mortally wounded and falls off his horse. His last moments have a classical and melancholy air. It's almost like the scene is inspired by old paintings of dying heroes or illustrations of Horatio Nelson's death. The sheriff then beats the upstart pretty badly in the barn, like a father whooping his boy. The sheriff muses that it won't be long before "the man who shot Ringo" meets his own grisly fate with so many others wanting to challenge such a man, thus continuing a cycle of violence.

Ringo's wife forgives and reconciles with him posthumously at his funeral. The film ends with a vague silhouette of a cowboy riding off into the sunset (Ringo), a metaphor for Ringo going to heaven, finding redemption, or just an ode to the cowboy itself. Notable too is Peck's authentic mustache which the studio mogul Darryl Zanuck hated. It's curiuos to see how western stars in the 40s and 50s were expected to be clean shaven and here King is going for authenticity. This is a tightly edited and constructed film at 84 minutes. Not much happens; it's mostly pensive and very effective at exploring fate and remorse. It has something to say apart from being a western. This is about dismantling the stereotypical image of the western gunslinger as a dime novel famous hero. It's telling us the dark side of that fame and what happens when a man changes, wants to escape his past, but fatalistically cannot.