Invitation to a Gunfighter

Stanley Kramer is one of my favorite producers and directors, so it's almost a sure bet I'll watch anything he puts his name on. Invitation to a Gunfighter had a bit of a strange start, with George Segal putting on a Southern accent to match his Confederate uniform, but I decided to stick with it. It turned out to be a very entertaining western, and even though I didn't like the way it ended, I was glad I watched it.

George returns from the war to his home in neutral New Mexico. Because the Confederacy lost the war, George's farm was repossessed and sold, and everyone in town has turned against him. With no home, his sweetheart Janice Rule married to someone else, he confronts the head honcho (and persuasive bad guy) in town, Pat Hingle. Pat tries to get George arrested, but George breaks out of prison and kills the man who bought his farm. Now a wanted man, and a feared one, Pat hires a gunfighter to take care of the local problem. Yul Brynner's entrance in town is very too-cool-for-school, and his strong, silent type is very attractive. It's no wonder Janice can't keep her eyes off him - but will she keep her hands off him?

Many westerns feature a less than stellar actress who can't shake her contemporary presence. Whether it's too much makeup, too blonde a wig, or too strong a modern accent, the B-actresses often featured in westerns are disappointing. George, in one of his early roles, tries hard to be a rebellious Southerner with nothing to lose. Yul gives a very good performance full of conflict, and even some emotional tenderness. Janice is pretty obviously from 1964 California. Oh well; you can't win them all. If you're a Yul Brynner fan, you'll really like this movie. It may seem like a standard action flick, but he puts a lot more into it. And ladies, he looks really good while he's doing it.

A modest little matinée western with little in way of style with its methodical direction, but leading the way are the strikingly prominent performances from Yul Brynner, George Segal, Pat Hingle, Janice Rule and backing it up is a lyrically well-oiled script stringed to a customary, but accessibly gripping premise that patiently builds upon its unfolding situations.

A confederate solider Matt Weaver returns back to his small town after the civil war to find out his home has been sold by the dominating town boss Sam Brewster. Causing a ruckus, Brewster hires the interestingly mysterious gunfighter Jules Gaspard d'Estaing to take care of Brewster; however Jules gets caught up in the devious shades of a town run by corrupt figures.

The way the story pans out is thoughtfully projected and the framework delivers it in an unconventional manner with some psychological interplays. The way the steely protagonist uses the situation to gain what he wants and hand out much needed justice within the shameful town simply holds you there. It's literally chatty, but never does it outstay its welcome. A sternly defined Brynner is outstanding (as the camera magnetically follows him around) and likewise is a booming Hingle. When the action/shoot outs occur they're rather sparse, but toughly staged despite its obvious studio bound sets.

I have always like westerns and would consider this one a must-see. It's quite dated in places with many of it's attitudes rooted in the 1950s and some really laughable dialog. But it's moral stance and it comments on society's treatment of it's poor, it's minorities, it's women, hits you like a slap to the face. It's always a pleasure to watch Yul Brenner at work and he really carries this movie. George Segal is okay as his presumed antagonist but the real bad guy(s) in this movie are not so easily identified. I was stunned to see how much of the plot of this movie influenced one of my favorite Westerns of all time - High Plains Drifter. The resemblance is uncanny - of course HPD does it better but still I have to recommend this to anyone who likes Westerns.

"Invitation to a Gunfighter" is a film searching for a consistent tone. By turns it's stilted, silly and melodramatic, and the result is mostly just confusing. The kernels of a very good movie are present, but often left "unpopped." For example, the town is initially portrayed as morally upright, and Brynner's character as amoral, and the film tries to flip this on its head. The trouble is, we rarely see anything to prove this; instead, we're forced to fill in the blanks ourselves from sparse pieces of (vague) dialogue. The story is so buried in subtext and so much is not shown that scenes like Yul Brynner's drunken rampage is robbed of its dramatic potential because we haven't seen anything that would seem to justify it. On it's own, that could have been a powerful idea, since Brynner's character is given a back-story like nothing these townsfolk have ever known, but in that case, the movie devotes far too much time to the troubles of the townsfolk instead of focusing on Brynner's inner turmoil.

The acting is all over the board in this one, as well. Brynner's performance can't be faulted; he's his usual simmering, silent presence, but seems miscast in a role which could have been quite interesting if it weren't so poorly-written. Janice Rule seems confused in her role as Ruth Adams (and well she should be, forced to serve as the love interest between--count them--three men, all trying to kill each other at some point or another), and spends most of it looking vaguely sad and disinterested, and Pat Hingle is neither evil enough nor serious enough to make a compelling villain. Clifford David fares better as the perpetually angry Crane, and George Segal, as the unfortunate Matt Weaver, is just about the only member of the cast that seems to have any idea what he's doing. The rest of the townsfolk are a mixture of clichés and stereotypes that make it seem as though Yul Brynner mistakenly wandered onto the set of "Blazing Saddles." Brynner's presence, and the multi-layered, operatic scale of the plot might warrant repeat viewings, and the film should be credited for trying to tackle weighty issues of morality and racism, but ultimately "Gunfighter" misses its mark. The classic mantra in storytelling is "show, don't tell," and this film doesn't do that, rendering what should have been a very good movie into a very mediocre one.

Co-star George Segal gives a creditable performance as Matt Weaver, the one Reb soldier in a Union town who returns home from the war to find his house and woman taken away from him. When he is later thought to have killed homesteader John Medford (an unbilled Russell "The Professor" Johnson), the townspeople agree to hire a gunslinger to eliminate Matt. The man they hire is a smooth Creole with the fancy name of Jules Gaspard D'Estaing (Yul Brynner). Jules doesn't really like the place, or the people, but he hangs around long enough to take their money, and ultimately go to war with his own conscience.

What this viewer appreciated about "Invitation to a Gunfighter" was the fact that it didn't play out in an obvious, formulaic way. It's definitely a Western with a social conscience, taking place in a supposedly enlightened town where racism can still be revealed in modest ways. The screenplay is by producer / director Richard Wilson ("Man with the Gun") and his wife Elizabeth, working from an adaptation (by future 'Night Gallery' veteran Alvin Sapinsley) of a story by Hal Goodman & Larry Klein. There is a fair amount of nuance here, and not just gun fighting. Most unexpected was the drunken rampage that our hired killer goes on in the final third of the picture. What we learn from the evolving storyline is how things are not always the way that they appear to be.

Brynner, as always, has a very commanding screen presence. If other viewers overall don't care much for the film, they can at least agree that it delivers for fans of the star. Janice Rule has definite appeal as the wife of the local storekeeper (Clifford David); other familiar faces appearing throughout include Strother Martin, Clifton James, Brad Dexter (one of Brynners' co-stars in "The Magnificent Seven"), Mike Kellin, Bert Freed, and William Hickey. Pat Hingle is excellent as the town boss who knows just how to keep his citizens riled up and passionate. Future big-time cinematographer John A. Alonzo (who'd also acted in "The Magnificent Seven") plays Manuel here.

In general, "Invitation to a Gunfighter" makes for reasonably interesting viewing, and is paced quite efficiently, clocking in at a little over an hour and a half.

Seven out of 10.