Lawman

Towards the end of Lawman, Burt Lancaster says that the towns are getting fewer and fewer who need his kind of services. I guess that's a comment on civilization's leavening influence.

You're a town marshal in the old west. You're doing the job alone, maybe you have a deputy or two. Burt says you got to stick to the rules, but as we see in Lawman he wings it quite a bit.

Lee J. Cobb and some of his employees and retainers from his town of Sabbath shoot up Burt Lancaster's town of Bannock and one of Bannock's citizens is killed. Lancaster trails them to Sabbath and arrives with one of them slung over a pack horse. He gives the names to Sabbath's Sheriff Robert Ryan and the story begins.

Lancaster finds that the men he's trailing are all kinds, some professional gunmen, some family men caught up in the moment. Makes no matter to him, he's bringing them in. One of them is the common law husband of a former girl friend, Sheree North, who's settled in Sabbath.

Lawman is a pretty grim western tale. It's kind of a cross between Edward Dmytryk's Warlock and Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven. Themes from both of those films can be found here.

Lancaster gets good support from the cast. I particularly liked J.D. Cannon as Sheree North's husband and Richard Jordan as the young cowhand from Lee J. Cobb's spread.

I think more than western fans will appreciate this film.

This is perhaps the best of those enigmatic Michael Winner productions that focus the plot on the emotions and personalities of the protagonists of the film. I love Michael Winner productions. They are never shot in a studio; and his realism is virtually unapproachable by any other director of the time.

Lawman is a story of pride,arrogance and people fixed into paths of life which they cannot change. Burt Lancaster is sterling representing "The Law"; a force that cannot be swayed. He desires, or thinks he desires, to be something else, but he is indeed the law, and cannot escape his fate. The characters of the town, the men he comes to arrest for a killing, all follow their own ordained paths. Because not one of them can, or will, bend or accept the events that are occurring, they all converge on the final climax that is one of the greatest statements of human futility that I have ever seen in a film. The climax of this story is fantastic, and almost totally unexpected. No one should spoil it for you, even a little.

There are a number of truly great character actors in this film, and each gives a flawless performance. In True Michael Winner form, the action is stunning and the violence is portrayed with all the realism that shows how awful and devastating it can be. This is a gritty, but deep story that holds one in its grasp without pause. I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, Lawman is a rare film; almost never broadcast. If you are fortunate enough to find a copy for rent,or purchase, do so with all haste. It's a Winner!

Michael Winner's "The Lawman" reveals that a sheriff - traditional officer responsible for law and order, symbol of virtue and right - is 'not' always morally excellent and virtuous or that his prey thoroughly bad...

Burt Lancaster is cast as a merciless avenger, unmoved by love or pity, determined to one end: Exterminate the opposition...

The criminals here are, in fact, some law breakers, drunken cowboys - who by bad luck - have killed an old man during a rough enthusiastic drinking bout...

Lancaster - blind to his faults, unwilling to judge or to be less severe, and with no intention to arrest - hunts his prey down, one by one, until the last man...

There is no poetic eloquence here, no tension as the two protagonists walk slowly towards their duel, no feeling that right is victorious, no good has conquered evil, no decisive clash to capture the audience's imagination... This is pure brutality: Gratuitous graphic sequences - sickening and revolting - of destroyed shoulders and collapsed faces... Uncalled details of death that may damage the sonorous knell of the 'classic Western' with its ideal behavior and precise rules traditionally observed...

The Western showdown is strictly ritual, quick, clean and purely emotional... The outcome predictable... The moment of suspense exciting as anything the cinema has ever produced...

The showdown in "The Lawman" is disturbing in the way of vision... It follows on in the tradition of Palance/Elisha Cook Jr. ultimate confrontation in "Shane," and excels Sam Peckinpah's commitment to an ideal of self-expression through violent death... It may well mean that a film like "Shane," "High Noon," "Vera Cruz," or "The Fastest Gun Alive," can never be made again...

Here is another great American Western that slipped under my radar.

Where to start, Dircted by Michael Winner, starring Burt Lancaster in whats got to be the best Western I've seen him in so far, with Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Duval, Albert Salmi, Ralph Waite, JD Cannon, John McGiver, John Hillerman, Wilford Brimley and Sheree North in whats gotta be the biggest & best role I've seen her in. Plus a great supporting cast of all good actors in realistic parts.

This is sort of a psychological/action Western hybrid with an emphasis on very good action, so its got a lot of dialog but its great dialog that sounds true with a good ear for Western slang.

A guy named Ray Moyer did the set design, and this is another standout of this film, a great job, he is as good as Carlo Simi, I couldn't believe how much detail was crammed into this film. Everything looks spot on, the town set is fantastic, the ranch's are great, interiors highly detailed. Roberto Silva & Herb Westbrook did the Art direction and they deserve mention too.

There is a whore house set thats great it features a crippled gambler/pimp who hobbles about on crutches who is a past friend of Maddox, he has this skull clock sitting on his card table that is a nice touch. All the whores are real looking women not caricatured or dressed overly flashy.

The landscape & town sets were all shot in Durango, Mexico and some of the buttes featured were just beautiful, don't remember seeing these locations before but the rock in the outcrops look similar to those seen in the Magnificent Seven.

The story basically revolves around Bannock Marshall Jared Maddox (Lancaster) a "mankiller" he has the nickname "The Widowmaker". Maddox is after a bunch of drovers who shot up his town during a drunken spree killing an old man. The drovers work for big time cattleman Vincent Bronson (Cobb) near the town of Sabbath, New Mexico.

Maddox has a reputation for being quick on the draw, and always getting his man, we first see him riding into Sabbath with a corpse. He ties up at the Sabbath Marshall Cotton Ryan's (Ryan) office and he tells Ryan what happened and who he's after. Ryan tells him that the men all work for Bronson, and that he'll ride out to the ranch & tell them that Maddox wants to bring them back for trial to Bannock. Bronson's men decide to tough it out and face Maddox.

This film even has a love interest thats handled the just the way it should be in that it doesn't detract from or slow down the narrative one iota.

The score is nothing that sticks in head and pretty forgettable, its not an Spaghetti Western , no picaresque characters or humor, but it does have some SW influenced action as do a lot of the post Leone & Peckinpah films of the 70's.

The ending is worth the price of the DVD which I just ordered. Michael Winner best film, IMO.

Check it out you wont go wrong.

This movie stands out as one of the best of a subgenre that doesn't have a lot of great movies representing it. The Post-Western Westerns starting coming out in the mid-sixties until Westerns were hard to come by during the mid-seventies.

These "modern" westerns are distinguished by turning the "white hat good guy" and "black hat bad guy" on their ear. The good guys are not only not perfect, but ruefully flawed, and the bad guys are often people who made mistakes along the way and would not be a threat to society if they were left alone. Examples of other "modern" westerns are Unforgiven (The Clint Eastwood movie), Hang 'Em High (notice a pattern- another Eastwood movie), and Dances With Wolves.

Lancaster's Marshall Maddox is doing his job, but at this stage in his career, he is a walking, talking, killing machine who is ready to kill anyone who gets in his way, and some people who want very much to get out of his way. He is typical of the modern western. Where older westerns emphasized clear moral and ethical boundaries, modern westerns portray a world much less certain and easy to navigate. A world full of shadows and lots of gray ambiguities.

This is a perfect representation of how people felt in 1971. This is a very good film.