The Legend of the Golden Gun

If this is the movie I think it is, it is about a cowboy who is given a golden 7-shooter (vs the standard 6 shooters) by his mentor. He is given the wisdom "always save the 7th shot for evil!".

At once point he is tested by a saloon girl and former acquaintance of his mentor and she throws a playing card in the air (7 of hearts?) and he shoots six of the seven hearts on the card and when he is asked why he didn't shoot the seventh, it's the "always save the 7th shot for evil!". When I was a kid this was a great movie, if I saw it now it might have been uber cheesy.

It's been decades since I've seen this movie, so I'm real fuzzy on it, but I'd love to find a copy of it someplace.

This 'movie' seems to me as being a pilot for a TV series. It sets up the situation and defines the characters with a little Star Wars and a little Lone Ranger mixed together. Hal Holbrook as J.R. Swackhammer (or is it Yoda?) teaches our hero how to shoot bottles in the air while blind folded (John, feel your instincts)! It conveniently kills off Holbrook's character as he is the only actor of any substance. Jeff Osterhage as John Golden (Luke or maybe the Lone Ranger) has a side kick riding a painted horse. Sound familiar? I was waiting for it to turn into a Blazing Saddles style farce but all this was played as a straight story and never did. It apparently wasn't popular enough and was never made it to a series. This is all guess work but that's the way I see it.

I saw this show on Encore Westerns in April 2011, so it's still around.

Growing up with a father that was a real cowboy. I grew up watching westerns from a very early age. I grew up watching all of the standards i.e. John Wayne, The Lone Ranger, Bonanza, Big Valley and even older stuff like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. This movie while not great acting was very good to an 8 year old. I recently saw it again on the encore western channel and every time I see it I still enjoy it. This movie is a throw back to the old westerns that when you look a them today are very cheesy. But if you look at the Lone Ranger they are quite similar in their morale compass. They tell a good story where the bad guy gets his and the good guy gets the girl and the horse. While I agree with another poster that this was probably a failed pilot it is good for what it is. I think that some people think that all movies have to be great art in order to be any good. While they are entitled to their opinion I respectfully disagree.

While I admit that I have not seen this movie since My early teens, it is one of those movies that has stuck with me over the years. I can seriously point to this as an influential movie, not because of the cheesy 70's soundtrack, but because of the spiritual aspect that at least one other reviewer noted. There was something there that caught my attention, and that is saying something.

I don't remember much about the movie, other than the master teaching the young boy about how to sense the target he was shooting at and use his mind not his eyes (sort of proto-Jedi). I also remember that the golden gun had seven bullets, not six, and that that was a key factor, but not why it was so important.

Never the less, it left an impression that I hold to to this day. I hope to find it someday. I would like to see it again, even if it was as hokey as others claim it to be.

Nice to see a movie with a moral, a good cast, good performances, especially Hal Holbrook & Keir Dullea. I felt the story was good, and the performances believable, and quite real, other than the characters always being made up. A good family movie.