A Gunfight (1971)

John Chard

7.0

Feb 9, 2017

Whoever wins loses. A Gunfight is directed by Lamont Johnson and written by Harold Jack Bloom. It stars Kirk Douglas, Johnny Cash, Jane Alexander, Karen Black and Raf Vallone. Music is by Laurence Rosenthal and cinematography by David Walsh. Will Tenneray (Douglas) and Abe Cross (Cash) are two ageing gunfighters who after meeting each other in town hit it of straight away and actually like and respect each other. However, with both men in need of money and the whole town intrigued as to who would win in a gunfight between them, Tenneray hits upon the idea of the two of them having the g…

CinemaSerf

6.0

Sep 19, 2025

Hmmm, I’m not sure this is really anyone’s finest hour nor does it really pay much of an homage to it’s genre as we see two ageing shootists struggling to make ends meet. “Cross” (Johnny Cash) fancied his chances pan-handling but all he got was backache; “Tenneray” (Kirk Douglas) satisfies his days trading on his reputation whilst poncing drinks from the gullible and the easy impressed. With two such famous gunpokes in town, the locals are expecting a bit of fireworks, but what they actually get are a couple who come up with a somewhat less murderous and more theatrical solution to their cash…

Wuchak

7.0

Mar 20, 2026

**_Two aging gunmen meet in a Southwest town_** The quick-draw contest was mostly an invention of dime novelists and moviemakers. Sure, you can cite the Wild Bill Hickok and David Tutt gunfight over a pocket watch in the town square of Springfield Missouri in 1865, a few months after the Civil War ended. Good luck finding any other documented examples. In the Old West, if you wanted to shoot someone, you just did it. For instance, when Wild Bill was eventually killed, Jack McCall merely came up from behind at the poker table and shot him in the head. Even when fair quick-draw duels rarely h…