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I saw this movie last night on TV and thought it is weird enough to discuss here in the board, specially since some ofthe regulars have a soft spot for westers.

"A gunfight" is one of those revisionist westerns that popped up in the 70s revising general topics of the genre (robberies, gunfights, fight with natives) under a different light. Those movies often put emphasis on the decadence of myths or try to give a different, more realistic (or just opposite) approach to the above mentioned topics, while often emphasize violence or sexual elements.

Plot: Our movie starts with a stranger, Abe Cross, coming into a town. Soon his presence is noted by the villagers, who identify him as a gunfighter of long and bloody career. Soon they told him that another gunfighter, now retired, lives in town. He is Will Tenneray, another living legend. who now has a family and earns a living revisiting real and idealised duels in the saloon.

After meeting each other, both gunfighters realise that the villagers expect them to fight each other to find out who is the best shooter. Bets are done until an interesting sum of money is reached, and both Will and Abe, who despite knowing each other have more mutual respect than friendship, decide to duel, part in order to solve their economical problems, part because it is what they expect on them to do.

Comments: Great idea, poor execution. While the plot makes an interesting analysys on the myth of gunfighter, providing a situation in which two tired gunmen end up fighting each other not because they really want to, but because they have to live to a myth they created themselves.

But if the plot is interesting, the situations are often reiterative or too bluntly expressed. Dialogue is poor as well, and acting mediocre. Johnny Cash seems to have shoot the film between concerts, and he sleepwalks through the whole movie in his usual black clothes. Kirk Douglas is also mediocre. Already in his late 50s when the film was done, he seems oblivious to that and he plays his role as cocky and sexually active as if the film had been shot twenty years before, oblivious that what the character needed was precisely for him to look older and tired.

Director Lamont Johnson, of "Lipstick" and "Spacehunter" fame also seems to sleepwalk through the movie. His camerawork and staging seems just out of some TV movie, although he manages to stage the final duel with some flair.

All in all, a half-way interesting, if lesser, western.

I saw this on the big screen. Neville pretty much describes it accurately. One point. It was suppose to be filmed in Mexico, but the idea of two men trying to kill each other in a bullring, was too controversial for the Mexican officials to allow shooting in Mexico.

Say, Nev, which one was which character? Was Cash Cross, or Tenneray?

Ooops. I forgot to mention that. Thanks, Flangepart. Kirk Douglas plays Tennery, the gunfighter that  now has a family, and Johnny Cash plays Abe Cross, the gunfighter in perennial black clothes.

What channel was playing it? I might check it out.

Er... it was on Spanish national TV, Scott. I just saw the VHS for less than 4 USD at Amazon, though, so it's not that unfindable.

Oh, and another curiosity: I kept staring at one of the supporting actors, Dana Elcar, who plays the saloon owner, thinking I hjad seen him before somewhere, and after a quick look at the IMDB it turns out that he later played Peter Thronton, MacGyver's boss in the TV series.

A similar film in this revisionist vein would be the Stacey Keach western "Doc" from around the same time. Been a while since I've seen either, but I'd say it's better than "A Gunfight" but not as good as say "McCabe and Mrs. Miller".

There's also other films like "Bufalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull History Lesson" starring Paul Newman and directed by Robert Altman. It has a lot to say about mythmaking, the Old West, and show business.

Kirk Douglas and Bruce Dern starred in a great underappreciated revisionist western directed by Douglas called "Posse". Dern is a trainrobber/gang leader being chansed by Douglas who is a US Marshal in the pocket of the railroads who is campaigning for US Senator and staking his election chance on capturing Dern.

Some people like John Huston's "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" starring Newman again. It has a large cast of notables and some interesting scenes, but meanders as it tries to make its point about the taming of the West and what progress does to the men who lived there. Great scenery chewing from Anthony Perkins and Stacy Keach (again also) in brief parts.

The original "Monte Walsh" starring Lee Marvin and Jack Palance is always worth a look. More about what happens to all the forgotten cowboys who worked the cattle ranches when big business and the railroads ended the need for most of them.

Monte Walsh...oh, yeah. I'd reccomend that one.
It was a sad film, and moveing. Yeah, i'd get that one if i could.