Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23688 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-06-04
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Formats: Black & White, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 89 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Winchester '73 is the first in a remarkable string of five classic westerns that James Stewart made with Anthony Mann in the 1950s (followed by Bend of the River, The Man from Laramie, The Naked Spur, and The Far Country). It is also distinguished for having helped revive the Western at the box office, and for being the first film in which the star forsook a huge up-front salary in favor of a share of the profits--a strategy that made Stewart rich and forever changed the way that Hollywood does business. The movie itself is pretty darned impressive, too. Stewart traces a stolen Winchester rifle through several owners until he finds the man he's looking for. The final spectacular shootout in craggy, mountainous terrain is justly famous. --Jim Emerson

Synopsis
In the old west, cowboy Lin McAdam (James Stewart) wins a valuable Winchester 1873 repeating rifle in a shooting contest--which his brother(Stephen McNally)instantly steals. This leads to a rousing series of adventures for McAdam, as he attempts to track down the weapon, which passes through the hands of a number of dangerous people. Meanwhile, Lin must also deal with the cold-blooded murder of his father. Seeking vengeance, the cowboy sets out to find the killer. When he does, the two men match skills in a violent, deadly showdown. Anthony Mann's edgy, psychological western features a powerful performance by Jimmy Stewart as a man obsessed.

Customer Reviews

Winchester 73
I ordered this film over Amazon. Brilliant film, with the oh so necessary English subtitles. It was cheap, and delivered to my door. How perfect is that!

The first of the great Anthony Mann-James Stewart Westerns
Winchester `73 was the film that moved director Anthony Mann from the b-movies to the big league, rescuing James Stewart's floundering post-war career in the process by casting him as a conflicted hero (although since he inherited the project from Fritz Lang, maybe Lang deserves the credit for that). Both men would go to much darker places - Mann already had with the remarkably bleak Devil's Doorway, which remained shelved by MGM until the success of Broken Arrow convinced them to release it - but a movie about a man hunting down his own brother as the rifle of the title is handed from person to person along the trail before it ends up in one of the director's beloved mountainside shootouts is still stronger meat than you'd expect from the studio system. Great dialog, an impressive supporting cast - Dan Duryea, Will Geer, Millard Mitchell, Stephen McNally, Shelley Winters, Charles Drake, Tim McIntire, Jay C. Flippen, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson among them - and Mann's outstanding visual sense raise the bar with this one.

Sadly, the print used for the DVD could stand some restoration, although there is an interesting audio interview with Stewart on the disc.

A Gun with a Bloody History.
"Winchester 73"(50) is the first western in director Anthony Mann's fine series of westerns all made in the fifties, and all starring the affable James Stewart. This was followed by "Where the River Bends"(52),"The Naked Spur"(53),"The Far Country"(54) and finally "The Man from Laramie"(55). The only other bodies of western films that bear comparison are John Ford's cavalry trilogy and Budd Boetticher's magisterial series with Randolph Scott. All these films were made in that halcyon western period of the fifties.

The story involves Stewart attempting to track down the murderer of his father. The story starts off with a rifle shooting competition in Dodge city, where Marshall Wyatt Earp played by a portly Will Geer rules the roost. Stewart wins the prize which is a one in a thousand Winchester 73 repeating rifle. Shortly after winning his prize it is stolen from him by bank robber Stephen McNally. The gun then passes through a rogues gallery of owners for whom it brings rather bad luck. This includes a gun runner, an Indian chief and a rather psychotic gunman. Will Stewart get his prized possession back? Will he finally catch up with his father's murderer? We head to a blazing finale with a final twist to the story.

The film was made in very stark black and white which does not detract from the film. It was the only film in the series to be made in this format. In this film Stewart plays a more traditional western hero. In the later films Mann develops Stewart's roles into the more vulnerable and angst ridden hero we become more familiar with. The films plot device where we follow the guns bloody history through a series of unfortunate owners bears remarkable similarities to Francois Girard's "The Red Violin"(98), where the violin replaces the Winchester as the object that brings much bad luck to its many owners. Winchester 73 has an unusually fine cast. That charismatic actor Dan Duryea plays the psychotic gunman with casual aplomb. It was a role he later specialized in. Rock Hudson plays the young Indian chief. He later played an Indian in "Taza son of Cochise". Tony Curtis also appears very briefly in one of his earlier roles as a cavalryman. Shelley Winters is the guns rival for Stewart's affections.

Whilst this is a very fine film indeed, it is perhaps one of the weaker films in the series. Stewart's character matures into a more complex hero in the later films. In "The Naked Spur" he teeters on the verge of a mental breakdown and in "The Man from Laramie" he becomes the bitter vengeance seeking nemesis of Arthur Kennedy. These roles demanded that little more of Stewart's considerable acting abilities. Stephen McNally as the chief villain is perhaps a little lightweight compared to the likes of Kennedy and Robert Ryan who also appeared later. Perhaps Duryea would have been better in this role? But overall these are minor flaws and this is a fine start to a very fine series of westerns. Highly recommended. Four and a half stars really.