Review of Winchester '73 (1950) by Hamilton D — 01 Jul 2011

Winchester '73 cleverly interweaves plots and characters as it follows the one-in-a-thousand perfect Winchester as it passes from revenge-hungry Lin, to murderer Dutch Henry, to an amoral gunrunner, to a warring Indian chief, to coward Steve, to psycho Waco Johnnie Dean, back to Dutch Henry and then Lin.

Charles Drake is suitably tragic as Steve, Dan Duryea downright terrifying as Johnnie and Stephen McNally convincingly nasty as Dutch, but if you're watching this for James Stewart as Lin, and following his plot to kill his father's murderer, then you might get bored with how little he is in it. This is an ensemble cast, and yet everyone is expendable other than Lin at the centre of it all. Still, Stewart is both likeable and convincing as the hero, and Shelley Winters plays an interesting and strong Lola, having to put up with her unlucky lot in life as she is also passed around some of the characters.

But among some good performances, the witty dialogue is often poorly delivered by some of this ensemble cast and it's a shame that the plot is mildly cliched. In the end, there are tighter, more compelling westerns out there.