The Shootist 1976
by
Don Siegel
The Lion in the winter of his life chooses your stable to spend his last days and meet the Maker. Imagine the gush of pride and excitement a colt feels that he would get to host and serve the legend. The Shootist is the swansong of John Wayne, and the great actor managed to sign off in some style. In his last onscreen shootout, he managed to kill three of his hotshot adversaries, before being shot in his back.
Ron Howard plays the young man in whose lodge the legend seeks shelter. He hero-worships JB Books, the killer of thirty men, and the most famous shootist extant. Lauren Bacall, the stern mother and the owner of the lodge, shows care and sympathy towards the dying man, once she realizes that Books is an honourable man.
Jimmy Stewart plays a doctor who confirms the original diagnosis of cancer given by a local doctor, and thereby confirms Wayne's fears. "I would not choose the death I described if I had your courage". With JB Books' death the last practitioner of the old code is dead. And pray what was the code-
“I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”
The Shootist is a must watch film if you like Westerns, Wayne and Jimmy Stewart.
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