Winchester '73 (1950, Anthony Mann) with Brady Crytzer - Criterion Collection Spine #1248

"The gun really doesn't mean anything until people start obsessing over it."

In this episode of Why This Film?, I'm joined by historian and author Brady Crytzer to explore Winchester '73 (1950), Anthony Mann's landmark Western starring James Stewart. Released as Criterion Collection Spine #1248, Winchester '73 helped redefine the Western genre by shifting focus from frontier justice to obsession, revenge, and moral ambiguity in postwar America.

Directed by Anthony Mann, Winchester '73 centers on a prized rifle known as "the gun that won the West" as it moves from person to person, leaving violence and obsession in its wake. Set against the backdrop of the American Centennial and the aftermath of the Civil War, the film uses the rifle as a symbolic object of desire, revealing how fixation and mythology shape both individual lives and national identity.

Brady Crytzer brings his expertise in American frontier history to the conversation, helping unpack the historical realities behind the film's mythology. Together, we examine how Winchester '73 blends real historical figures with fiction, how it reflects changing American attitudes after World War II, and why James Stewart's performance marked a turning point in his on-screen persona.

We discuss:

• The myth of the "gun that won the West"
• How the Western frontier functioned as a place of cultural blending, not just conflict
• James Stewart's wartime experience and its influence on his postwar roles
• The film's exploration of the themes of revenge, masculinity, and obsession
• How Winchester '73 helped modernize the Western genre
• Why this film belongs in the Criterion Collection

Whether you're revisiting Winchester '73 or encountering it for the first time, this conversation explores why Anthony Mann's Western remains a crucial turning point in American film history.

You can find more from Brady from the links below:

The National Road: George Washington and America's First Highway West

Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis

Brady Crytzer

Transcript

Note: This transcript reflects the main conversation. The episode includes a separately recorded introduction and closing. 

Ron
First things first. How should we address the people that are depicted in this movie? The movie refers to them as Indians. Growing up, we were told the respectful way to address this group of people is to use the term Native Americans.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Well, you know, part of reviewing much older films and in some cases, you know, decades older films is that we have to navigate that minefield of of language of social justice of really, you know, the appropriate way to address someone. And in my field, this is something I deal with on a regular basis. Generally speaking, the most appropriate way we could address anyone of any native nation is by their

their national designation. So a Cheyenne man, a Sioux woman, a Seneca person. This movie doesn't give us that chance. It doesn't really label who any of the native peoples in this movie are, what tribe they come from. And I don't think they're really seeking to. Now that in a lot of ways, I think is a holdover from the 1940s and the 1930s. know, native peoples had

a very specific role to play in these movies. think moving forward in films after this, especially in the late 1950s, I think audiences start to demand a little more clarification who these people are, where they come from, because Native groups have different priorities. They have different agendas. Some are very friendly to, you know, American expansion, some very hostile, some in between. This movie doesn't really make that designation. So.

It's very hard to appropriately title them. I think native peoples, native nations would be fine in this case.

Ron 
So some of the questions I have for you, because of someone of your background, some of these questions are going to sound very elementary. And this is one of them. What was the Western frontier? Like how far west is west? The gun is the gun that won the West and we'll get into the rifle. But when I hear the words, the gun that won the West, my question is, well, what exactly is the West?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I do all of my research in what I call the history of the American frontier. And the thing about the frontier is that it's always moving. When you see, you know, early, early English and French settlers come here, the frontier is just a few miles from the coast. By the time of this movie, the frontier has already moved to California and even Alaska into the 20th century.

The frontier is always moving. It's a really important element of American history because, in the years preceding the setting of this movie, the Civil War, there's a lot of division between North and South. But the one thing they all agree on is that America must move West. There was a lot of disagreement for obvious reasons between North and South. Moving West was the concrete, what they called manifest destiny.

their God-given duty to go all the way to the Pacific Ocean and beyond. It's what leads James K. Polk to conquer half of Mexico, take that land. It's what leads Theodore Roosevelt and later presidents to gobble up thousands of miles of island nations in the Pacific. It's a moving standard. I think the important thing that this movie really illustrates, and it's really the one thing I want to get across to people,

is that we always think of the frontier as a place of cultures colliding, coming together in war. And that does happen, but far more often, frontiers are places of blending. That's the norm. So it's why you'll see, European settlers wearing buckskins. It's why you'll see Native American warriors and traders using lever action rifles, as in case of this movie. Everyone's borrowing from each other, trying to find the best available way.

The cowboy as we understand it, think about this, a lot of cowboy archetypes in this movie. The cowboy as we understand it actually came from Mexico, the Vaquero. And the Vaquero was the original cowboy from the hat to the spurs to the chaps and Americans adopted that when they went west. So it's a blended society. And I think that comes through a little bit in this movie, whether they wanted it to or not.

Ron 
Yeah, I mean, growing up, think we all played cowboys and Indians because that's the conflict that was always depicted. So this depiction of these are the two groups of people that are in conflict. This movie gives us something a little different. There is that conflict between, as we're going to call them, native peoples and quote unquote cowboys. That conflict does exist, but the main conflict of this film is between these two men.

but we don't really find out what their quarrel is until High Spade, Frankie Wilson shares with Lola what happened and it's in the last three minutes of the movie, which is fascinating. So while we're talking about this Western frontier, the film makes it seem like this rifle, this Winchester rifle model 1873, seem like if you have a hold of this weapon, you are invincible.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
minutes yeah

Ron
Now the funny thing about that is almost everybody that touches this rifle ends up dying. So it doesn't really make the person invincible. What's the actual story behind this? How did it get this moniker of the gun that won the West?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
You know, the Winchester lever action repeating rifles, what we would call it, is one of the really great high performing firearms of the day. But it's not alone in that. The lever action that you see them pumping their right hand throughout the movie, that's going to load and reload a black powder round in the gun. That had been around since about the 1820s. It wasn't a perfect technology. It really hit its stride.

At the time America's going west though, took about 50 years to figure it out as parts became machine made rather than handmade parts became interchangeable. Henry made a great rifle like that. Spencer made a great rifle like that. You even hear in this movie, some reference to other brands. I think that's important. They recognize that, but it's the difference between shooting a gun that fires one shot at a time. It needs to be reloaded or having a gun that

Literally in its chamber can hold 14 or even sometimes 15 rounds and reloading. It's a matter of just pumping your hand. it's not a, it's not a semi-automatic rifle, but I mean, it's the equivalent of, that technological change in a battlefield situation, even with pistols, even with six shooters, you may have one on each hip. That's 12 shots. You may have an extra, chamber in each pocket. That's an additional 12 shots. but even that doesn't.

stand up to the potency of the lever action rifle, which shot a .40 caliber round. mean, that's a heck of a bullet.

Ron 
Well, the quote at the beginning of the film is, to cow man outlaw peace officer soldier, the Winchester 73 was a treasured possession an Indian would sell his soul to own one. So the movie starts or as you know what, I listened to the audio commentary with Jimmy Stewart and he refers to these movies as pictures. So I think I might do that. I'm going to try to catch myself there. The picture, the picture opens with two men on horseback, really beautiful silhouette. And then that quote,

And right away we're thrown into this world of this almost mythical weapon. then as you're, hearing you talk about it, like, was it really this mythical treasured possession type of thing when there are other versions of it that are out there?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, and when we do see that in the film later, you know, we'll see people encounter lesser quality versions and say this gun isn't good enough. They want the best gun. You know, the, designation they give this gun in the movie was a real designation. It was one in 1000. and that wasn't really, you know, tied to any sort of true number, but every once in a while with these machine made parts, what you would find is one gun comes out of the assembly line.

That is absolutely perfect. They cared a lot about groupings. Groupings are, you know, if you aim at the same point and shoot five times, how many bullets get within two or three inches of each other, that's called a grouping. If it was especially well tuned in that way. And if, you know, the lever was particularly smooth, they would call it a one out of 1000 and they would charge more for that than they would a one out of 100 was another label they had. Then there was their basic model. So

I know in the movie they say like President Grant has one of these. It is a highly desirable weapon that was probably the equivalent at the time to about $4,000. But it wasn't, the difference between life and death for many, people. It was a luxury item. But that's how we behave. That's how we are. The scene, the movie begins with young children with their faces pressed against the glass, looking at this.

rifle and adults for that matter drooling over this rifle. It was an item you wanted. So I think that's, I think it does a good job of letting it be known this is something worth pursuing. I think a little perspective helps.

Ron 
want to talk about James Stewart. it's so funny, Jimmy Stewart is from my hometown. So when I hear James Stewart, I'm like, Googling, when did he start going by James? I always know him as Jimmy. Jimmy Stewart and Anthony Mann collaborate on eight pictures from 1950 to 55. Winchester 73, this was their first collaboration. Stewart's drafted into the US Armed Forces in March of 41. And by the end of World War II, he had piloted 20 combat missions.

Can you talk a little bit about Jimmy Stewart, his service to the country and kind of where he was in this part of his life?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, we'll never see anyone like him again. a star of that magnitude with such an incredible, service history. You know, His grandfather was from Apollo, Pennsylvania. He was a civil war general. I almost bought his house at one point in his grandfather's house. Jimmy grew up in that house. His father served, ⁓ it was important to Jimmy and his family that he serve. And, and the service he had was not easy by any stretch. It was probably the most.

nerve wracking type of service in World War II you could have because he was flying these B-24 bombers over Germany that had huge payloads of explosives and almost no way of defending themselves. So they were really sort of sitting ducks, big and slow for German ground artillery. And that took its toll on him. And 20 missions is, you know, it's almost unfathomable even in the war because so many men would break down from it and they'd have to run them

back to back to back day after day. When Jimmy came back from war, one of the first movies he made was Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. And not a lot of people really have a sense of this, but like a lot of these bomber pilots and bomber crews, Jimmy was suffering from really serious PTSD panic attacks. If you've ever had a panic attack, it absolutely freezes you up. It just stops you in your tracks. You feel like the world's ending.

And while he's making It's a Wonderful Life, especially that famous scene where he's running around jubilant, he's redeemed, he's hugging everyone. Right before they filmed that scene, he was in the middle of one of these panic episodes. And as soon as the scene ended, he collapsed and he was done for the next several days. I mean, What an amazing guy. And he'll stay in the service in some way. He was in the Army Air Corps.

during World War Two, he'll fly an observation mission in Vietnam as a brigadier general. So he's still the highest ranking major Hollywood star there ever was. And I don't think anyone will ever top that.

Ron 
So when you're looking for a house to buy, how big of a pro is it that you have to weigh on your pro and con list that this was a Civil War general's house, Jimmy Stewart's grandfather? Did you have to talk to the wife a little bit about that and say, yeah, but honey, it's a Civil War general's house.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
And he grew up in it.

⁓ yeah. If it was, if it

was just me, I'd be there, you know, I'd be talking like Jimmy Stewart and I'd be walking around town like Jimmy Stewart. but it wasn't to be, it may come for sale again. Not for us though.

Ron
So I

think we can jump into the film So we start with the shooting competition set to take place on America's Centennial. we're in July 4th, 1876 in Dodge City, Kansas. So Dodge City is maybe the most recognizable name

Brady Dutch Crytzer
Let's go.

Ron 
of the American West. And I say that because I recognize it. So it must be pretty recognizable from a historical perspective.

What was Dodge City to the American West? And what does that represent to the 1950 audience?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah. So the way I'd answer that is by saying there's really, there's really two types or two versions of the American West in the American mind. I would argue even still today. There's the American West as it actually was in the 1870s and 1880s. And then there's the way we remember the American West, which has a lot more to do with kind of those old spaghetti Western films, as they called them, television shows like Gunsmoke and

wagon train and things like that. Dodge City was kind of the intersection of both of those because Dodge City was in southwestern Kansas. It was right along the Santa Fe Trail, which was one of the major highways west, which by the way, led to Mexico. Santa Fe at the time was still part of Mexico when the Santa Fe Trail begins. It's a busy town. They call it the queen of the cow towns. was kind of had a little bit of everything you'd expect from a western

city. That is to say it was a place where people passed through all the time. Wealthy people from New Orleans and New York, Charleston, Philadelphia, Mexican ranchers and farmers from California and Point South, Native peoples would pass through there. It was very much where the West was happening at the time. So yes, like any big city, you'd have fights, you'd have ⁓ arguments break out. I'd make the argument that

That's probably more gun violence in any given American city today than ever. There was a city back then. but that's where, Hollywood takes over because there are places like front street in Dodge city, the long branch saloon in Dodge city, real places that later Hollywood and television will capitalize on gun smoke, for example, you know, had a lot of their stories in Dodge city. So it builds into this larger than life place.

I would say most Americans had heard of it in the 1870s, but far more Americans knew about it in the 1950s, much more because of the glamorized version they were being fed.

Ron 
loaded is that date. It's not an accident that the writers and director or whoever came up with the idea that they chose specifically this date of the American Centennial because it also it's not that long after the Civil War ends.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Right. July 4th, 1876, America's celebrating its 100th birthday. It's, call it the centennial. We had one in 1976 too, the bicentennial. And most people in their 50s and 60s can remember all the excitement around that. But the centennial was not talked about the same way because every town in America, big and small, was preparing parades, galas.

barbecues, celebrations, they were ready for that 100th birthday. And just a week earlier, late June, June 26th, George Armstrong Custer's Seventh Cavalry is completely annihilated by Sitting Bull and the Sioux. And the interesting thing about that is it's one of the worst military defeats in American military history. Custer was probably easily the most famous commander in our army. Most Americans, because of the slowness of information,

don't learn about that crushing defeat until about July 3rd. So Custer's defeat is like a national trauma that hangs over all these celebrations. you want to celebrate the Union for winning the Civil War. They defeat this great General Robert E. Lee. We talked about how, you know, people did incredible of a leader he was, what have you, if you agree with that or not. Well, then this group of quote unquote savages, as they call them.

annihilates that same army. So you have to kind of have a reckoning here was defeating the Confederates not as big of a deal as we thought, or maybe is the Union Army not as strong as we thought? Because the last thing they wanted to admit was that a group of, know, Sioux warriors living on the frontier could just absolutely wipe the floor with these men. I will also say, you know, in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Most of the US Army soldiers had what's called a Spencer carbine. was a single shot rifle, pretty, pretty heavy duty rifle, but a single shot rifle. Most of the Sioux had lever action repeating rifles like the Winchester 73, which they got through the free market of trade. So that was like an added level of humiliation to this. They had these fabulous rifles where our US Army soldiers had only what the government could provide them, which were pretty archaic by those standards.

Ron 
So Lin McAdam is played by James Stewart. He's on horseback with his confidant, his good buddy, high spade, Frankie Wilson, played by Millard Mitchell. They're clearly searching for someone when they ride into Dodge City. Lola, played by Shelly Winters, she's being pretty roughly handled by a man, being shoved out of town. The explanation later given is, with the big celebration coming up,

People will be upset that we have dancing girls here, whatever dancing girls would mean in 1876, I guess. Lynn attempts to intervene with this. This is our introduction to tell the audience, this is Lynn McAdam, James Stewart. He's our white knight. He's not going to stand by and watch this woman be manhandled by this person. their guns are then confiscated by this man. He's enforcing order in this town and he reveals himself to be

Wyatt Earp. When I first watched the movie, that's when I kind of sat up in my chair a little bit. Cause I'm like, Whoa, wait a minute. Why are we using the name Wyatt Earp here? Why are we grounding this fictional story with these real characters, especially people like Virgil and Wyatt Earp that really got my attention.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, Earp is, I think a lot of the choice to use Wyatt Earp echoes Anthony Mann's choice to use Dodge City. It's a recognizable quantity. Now this was not easily done. This was a very opportunistic choice because Earp was the sheriff of Dodge City in 1876 and 1877. But one of the things about Earp is that he goes everywhere. He's kind of a fly by night. know, he'll end up in the...

Alaskan Klondike by the end of this all. mean, he's Seattle, he's everywhere. So it was fortuitous that he's in Dodge City in 76 and 77 because you can align it with the Custer defeat. You can make Dodge City the centerpiece. It just gives viewers something familiar to grasp onto because as we'll talk about, this movie does a lot of things and goes a lot of directions they really haven't seen before. So I think that's the choice behind that.

Ron 
There's another name that popped up on my latest watch too that I didn't consider. I didn't catch it. I had to put the subtitles on because I was having trouble understanding what they were saying is Bat Masterson. was he also a law enforcement official in Dodge City at the time?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
He was one of these traveling sheriffs. You know, as these towns pop up, lot of Western towns, what we call boom towns, they only pop up because gold or silver is discovered nearby. They have no history. They have no sense of permanence. Everyone knows they won't be there for long just until the gold runs out. So having a sheriff or a judge or a doctor or an attorney was essential for a town like this, but sheriff, especially so guys like Masterson and

Earp kind of made a living bouncing from one boom town to the next as the West continued to expand.

Ron 
Everything I know about the Earps I know from watching Tombstone. And I just looked up the year Tombstone came out. I was seven years old. Why the hell was I watching Tombstone? Mom, if you're out there, what the hell? also in that movie, they depict that when you come into this town, you have to give up your weapons. So it's happening in Tombstone. It's happening in Winchester 73. Was this unique to this city where the Earps?

were or is this something that was more widely accepted? Imagine confiscating weapons when people come into your town in this day and age.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
⁓ it was the norm in the American West. They knew that lots of people, lots of alcohol, lots of bad blood. That's one thing. Having all of that with six guns in your hand is another. I think that's maybe the single greatest misconception that we have about the American West today is that everyone was this sort of gun toting individual settling scores. It was not, if you would have been in Tombstone in the 1880, there would have

greeting you at the front of the town would have been a sign that said no guns in town. It was very obvious to them. Today you visit Tombstone, see a sign that says the town too tough to die. That's not exactly how it's going to work out. But yeah, you see more guns in a Walmart today than you would have seen in a place like Dodge City in 1876. And that's one of the things that struck me about this film when I first saw it was Wyatt Earp has this office of just dozens and dozens of guns.

Ron
Yeah,

yeah, there's a room that's completely full. Yeah, it's completely full. And Virgil's complaining of how full the room is of guns whenever we first meet him.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Check your gun when you go in. Yeah, it's

And

notice even the bad guys, so to speak, the movie hand over their guns. They don't fight it. They maybe are a little reluctant, a little, but they understand that's just the rules. But once you leave town, this is true, then all bets are off.

Ron 
I love the way that, this, I should have wrote it down, the actor who plays Wyatt Earp. He gives this little smile whenever Lynn and Frankie seem to be resist, they resist a little bit of handing their guns over, which obviously as you're saying now would not have happened. They would have happily handed it over because it was something that would have come to have been expected whenever you visit these towns. But Wyatt gives this little smile, like, yeah, when I say my name, I'm sure you will hand the guns over.

So he himself almost has this mythological way about him too, if people think of him as this higher being, perhaps.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, that was true

at the time. Yeah. mean, and, and that did give a small town, not to say Dodge city is small, but when Earp moves on, that does give them a little cache. Come here. It's safe. Wyatt Earp is our sheriff.

Ron
They learn about the shooting contest that if you win, you can earn yourself a Winchester 73, the one in a thousand rifle. And they start talking about who's the favorite and Wyatt says, well, think Dutch Henry Brown ever heard of him. And Lynn McAdams says, I don't recall the name. He repeats that line again when they go into the saloon because Lynn spots Dutch Henry Brown played by Stephen McNally.

They jump up and they're reaching for their pistols that aren't there anymore.

And Wyatt comes behind him and says, I thought you didn't know him. said, I didn't recall the name. that's our first hint that that's not even a hint. That's super obvious. These two men clearly know each other. We don't know what happened. We don't know why they may be at odds with each other. So we know early that Lynn and Frankie are looking for somebody. Well, we just found him and Dutch sends Lin a glass of milk.

which is a taunting gesture. What is the idea behind sending someone a glass of milk at a bar? Is there a frontier mythology that I'm not aware of? Is it something like you are a weak man, drink milk instead of alcohol? What is the deal? What is the deal with sending someone a glass of milk?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, I you know, honestly, I can't I can't say that there was some long standing mythos of sending someone a glass of milk. I think that's pretty universal what he's trying to say. What what What throws me off is that Jimmy Stewart drinks it after he sends

Ron 
Yeah, he does. Well, he goes to throw it at him and Wyatt walking

back and forth between the two parties keeping the peace. And he goes to launch it and he says, you know, Wyatt calms him down. And then he drinks the milk. So, so I guess if you really want to piss somebody off, you can send them a glass of milk at the bar. next time you're out and about.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
He drinks the milk, yeah.

Well, and there is something

I could mention about that. It's that, you know, you're drinking alcohol in these saloons and bars. There isn't necessarily clean water all the time in the West. There's still, I mean, water sources are still difficult to find in a lot of these communities today. So milk was probably the safer option if it was fresh than water was, because you don't know what kind of pathogens are in water. So people did whatever they could to avoid drinking water.

Most of the time that turned into drinking alcohol.

Ron 
Yeah, I looked at it as it's a child's drink. So you're not man enough to drink the booze. So here's a drink for children. Yeah, got it. So now we go to the competition and Wyatt Earp is introducing the rifle and the contest. He describes it as quote, the finest gun in the world. Every so often one gun out of every 10 or 20,000. It comes out just perfect. Naturally, it ain't for sale. The Winchester people give it a name, one of a thousand. So.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
It was, yeah, message received, yeah. Message received.

Ron 
It's funny how this is framed because he also mentions that two people, two specific people that own this rifle, President Grant and Buffalo Bill Cody. We are chock full now of true historical figures that are recognizable to even the layman audience And the film continues to

throw them at us. This gun must be special because even the president and one of the most famous names of the West have it. And now, when you win a contest, one of you random guys are going to also have it.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
It was, yeah.

It was funny, to say it wasn't for sale. mean, it was you could buy one. Like I said, it was about 4000 today. Today's dollars, $100 then. it just gives the. It just gives the weapon the cache it needs to carry a movie, you know, in so many ways, this gun is the star of the movie. It's the protagonist. And it's hard to do that when you have a figure as big and as notable as Jimmy Stewart.

Ron 
You

Right, right.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
It's hard to take the focus off of him and put it on an inanimate object. So you have to make these steps to kind of build that up in the viewer's mind, I think.

Ron 
Well, Lynn and Dutch make it to the final of this shooting contest as they would, and they have to go to a tiebreaker. My initial note watching this was the level of accuracy in the shootout is absolutely ridiculous. However, when I listened to the audio commentary, and if you haven't done that with the criterion release, it's so good because you have Jimmy Stewart about nine years before his death, watching the movie with somebody and describing, he's going down memory lane of the things that

that he recalls from making the film. And he says that there were sharpshooters who shot this coin out of the air as it was flipped. So the camera is down on the ground behind the shooters so we can see the coin being thrown in the air. And you can see the coin kind of move a little bit. I feel like there's an easier way to do this, but Stuart recalls that there were people that actually shot this coin out of the air. That seems unreal to me.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, you wouldn't have that on a movie set today. ⁓ but that is, that is not of all the things that you could say are maybe a little bit far fetched in this movie. That's not one of them. people could make shots like that. There are still people who could make shots like that today and not just like trick shooters. mean, if you are a person who commits himself to shooting with these guns, you can do some pretty impressive things. We even have stories on the Santa Fe trail of Arapahoe and

Ron 
No, absolutely not.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Comanche young men being trained to shoot coins out of the air with bows and arrows. So this makes it even easier. I mean, this was a real thing. This really happened. But they wouldn't let just anyone in this competition. Obviously, Dutch and Lin must have some kind of a reputation for being sharpshooters to even be considered as part of this competition.

Ron 
Yeah. they get in because they give $2. I think it is to enter the competition and kind of just sign up at the bar. So watching this, I had this thought, it almost begs the question of if these guys are this accurate that they have to go to a tiebreaker where you have to shoot a hole through a stamp. That's onto a something from that he takes from this natives, necklace. If they're this accurate, what's it matter if they have the Winchester or not? They're doing this with these.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
Yeah.

Ron
other repeating rifles, what's it matter for them to have the Winchester?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
You know, it's a good point. mean, I think Lyn's motivation is revenge. I mean, that's the key throughout all of this. Dutch's motivation may be revenge to a degree, but I think it's escape. He's always on, he's the one always on the move. Lyn's the one who was following him. This gun complicates things a little bit because it gives, as we'll see, Dutch reason to come back and engage Lyn again.

when he could have just slipped out the back door when this was over. He wanted this weapon, which leads us to one of the next big scenes in the movie.

Ron 
Yeah, Lynn wins the shooting contest. And there's another hint that these men grew up together because you notice the way they pull the rifle up to aim, it's kind of off to the side. And then before they pull it onto their shoulder, they do this little like snap action to aim the rifle. They show, I believe they showed, one of them does it first and they go down the line of the men holding the rifle. Like maybe anybody would just pull it up to their shoulder, their head. And then they get to the last man.

which is either Lynn or Dutch, can't remember which one. And he does that little move that he pulls his, rifle up to his shoulder and flips it close that he can, it's like, no one would probably do that. But that's another hint that these men came up together doing something. Dutch decides he's got to get out of here. He has other plans of things he's going to go do. We'll find out what that is. And Lynn goes to,

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Right.

Ron
gather the gear and Dutch and his henchmen attack him and steal the rifle. It's a nice little action sequence there. It's the first of many times the rifle change hands. have a whole list here of the times the rifle changes hands. is the, well, winning the contest technically is one. This is the second when it gets stolen, probably within a few minutes of each other. The essay that accompanies a disc written by Imogen Sarah Smith. She calls the rifle an object of desire and dispenser of death.

I read that and that really stuck out to me because that's really what it is. later and we get Waco Johnny Dean, he has eyes on that and it's like love at first sight. Young Bull, when he gets eyes on it, it's like love at first sight. It's this object of desire and all it does is bring death. Dutch and his men, when they leave, they don't have ammunition because they never went back to where Virgil Earp is to gather their

weapons. They don't have their weapons. They don't have ammo. What they have is they have the Winchester that they stole. And I think they had to shoot and fight to get out of town. So they're without ammo. And they come across a place that seems to be a destination for people called Riker's Bar. And this place looks like it is existing. It looks like someone just took the desert and just dropped this stone building in the middle of nothing. What role did these places play on the frontier?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Well, I think, you know, it looks very isolated. It looks like, like you said, it's it's come from nowhere. One of the things that I think we should be clear about is that, the West is a very big place. It's a very open and dangerous place in terms of natural weather changes and animal attacks and things like that. But there are specific routes between towns and communities. These people are not ranging blindly into the wilderness. There's a road. There's a path.

to follow. So much as you'd see, you know, a Buc-Ease or a rest stop along an interstate today, they're going to be coming everywhere now. Little stores like this were strategically placed because you have a customer base that's always going to be there. Whoever passes through is going to stop at your place, even just for a drink. There is, again, a clear way from town A to town B. It's not as

Ron 
You have Bucky's out there.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
It's not as roaming and ranging, I think, as movies would make it seem. These people were on very old paths in some cases, ancient, even ancient Native American paths, because this wilderness is so harsh, there's really only one or two ways reasonably to get through them that's close to water, close to shelter, with time, you know, time in mind. So these are clearly delineated paths. Little trading posts like this would have been used by everybody, both American and Native American.

Ron 
Well, we do see somebody that's already there. ⁓ the character's name is Joe Lamont and Joe Lamont is played by John McIntyre. he's not in the movie very long, but he really does command a presence. I jokingly said he looks like he's dressed like a magician. He's got a different, he doesn't have really a traditional cowboy hat on. He has this top hat and a vest and we see him. he's messing around with playing cards and everything he does, he flips over the top card and it's an ace of spades.

and he shuffles them around, he flips it over. It's the ace of spades again. And it's like, uh-oh, Dutch, don't get involved with this guy. He's clearly going to do something nefarious and steal from you. But of course, Dutch is a screw up. I mean, I think watching this now multiple times, Dutch is a loser. We find out what he does later. he lost the contest. He steals the winnings anyway. He goes to this bar and he meets Joe Lamont.

And Joe Lamont is somebody that has these old weapons and he talks about that he's going to go sell them to this tribe. And he's called out for these guns. They, they don't even work. These are broken weapons. How are you selling them to these people? Well, these people are not people to him. These are a means of gaining money. He's going to sell his junk to them. we'll get to that, but when Dutch and his group arrive, they don't have ammo. So.

So Joe Lamont uses this story of Custer, and you touched on this, he's trying to convince Dutch that you need these repeater rifles. So besides the fact that he's being hustled, because clearly Joe knows a mark when he sees one, why is he using this story of, and you did touch on this, he's using the story of Custer to convince Dutch, hey, you need these.

And Dutch doesn't hesitate. So clearly the story has gotten to Dutch.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
You know, Custer was, as I said, the most popular man in the military. He was the equivalent of a superhero today in an era that really didn't have fictional superheroes. The way he was defeated by the Sioux was so extremely violent and complete that it froze a lot of Americans in their tracks. If the great General Custer could fall in such an ignominious way, what chance do we have? And the other side of that is

As I mentioned on the frontier, there is war, but most of the time there's a very tepid peace. And in times of peace, trade is the norm. know, things are peaceful when native peoples and settlers are trading. That's the indicator. It's not war and peace in the native world. It's war and trade. With that defeat, Americans know retribution's coming. They know the president has to respond with force to avenge Custer. So

everyone realizes that everywhere from the Canadian border to the Texas border, peace is likely to crumble. They are on the precipice of war and any good relations are gone. I mean, you're within a week of Custer's defeat at this point. So it's as raw as it could ever be.

Ron 
Well, he decides to gamble because they need ammo. And I love that this character of Joe he's looks like he's playing solitaire and Dutch is helping him. He's pretending like he doesn't know what to do. He's fumbling the cards when he goes to shuffle. Clearly a hustle and he wins all of the money from Dutch and his crew. And Dutch is forced to sell the Winchester for 300. And I think he says something like whatever guns that you want, six, whatever guns that you want.

and they are then.

Brady Dutch Crytzer So triple, you're

looking at least triple if not quadruple value on that at the time.

Ron 
So they are off to a place called Tesco. So when Dutch goes to leave, I think Dutch has it as my, doesn't matter. I'm gonna try to get this back from you anyway, by force, because that's just the person I am and that's what we do. Their end game is to get to a place called Tesco. And I think we've heard this now a few times at this point in the film. Is this place functioning like a Dodge City? Does it represent something different?

What was Dasgosa and what's the distance between these two places? I'm trying to get a sense of the amount of time it's taking to get to and from.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, I couldn't give you the exact distance, but remember there are paths, there are well established roads. You want to get to your next stop quickly. I mean, you don't want to be in the wilderness for more than a few days at a time because that could be life and death. Tescos is kind of the next station along the way. Think of it as an exit on a freeway. What's our next stop? Where's the next place to water, to rest? You're always moving.

But there is a clear pattern of where you want to go. In some places, trails will split. You can go north to, you some fort, you can go south to some trading post, but Tesco's is one of these options he has. It's sanctuary and shelter. If you want to put the trading post as the midway point for all intents and purposes, that would be okay.

Ron 
So Joe takes his Winchester and his leftover weapons that are ruined. He goes to make a trade with Young Bull and Young Bull and his people. And the weapons are old and inferior, some don't work. And Young Bull says, this is gun I want, when he catches a glimpse of the Winchester. He doesn't want the guns that are old and inferior. He wants that weapon as soon as he sees it.

The rifle again, asserting itself as the most powerful object on the screen. So I want to pause for a moment and talk a little bit about how the native people are depicted in this movie. We get a young Rock Hudson who's playing young bull.

He's wearing a prosthetic nose to, I guess, look like what we think native people look like. Lynn speaks to a person at the shooting competition in broken English. So he thinks that he can understand him better. The bartender, Riker, he makes a comment, quote, there's some things that even I wouldn't sell to an Indian. Joe Lamont is disdained essentially for being a quote, Indian trader.

So how should we understand the language and attitudes on these people? And a film made in 1950, and then it's also set 74 years earlier.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
in a lot of ways, this movie is going to be in the reason we're talking about it, redefining an entire genre of film, which of course is the Western. It's not just redefining it. It's, it's modernizing it. So if you would have seen a Western movie in the thirties and forties, you would have been very hard pressed to find any actual Native American people in these films because no one seemed to mind.

Audiences didn't didn't clamor for that kind of authenticity. Think about the era when this comes out, the early fifties, the American civil rights era is starting to heat up. You know, we have Brown versus Board of Education coming up in just a few years. I believe there's starting to be an emergence of this call for authenticity in the way they portray people. Look at the films of the teens and twenties, African Americans were always

portrayed by white men. Look at the plays of Shakespeare, know, women were portrayed by men in costumes. I think this is something that changes as society changes. So we're coming up to the point where people crave authenticity, maybe to a degree, I don't overstate this, but are starting to recognize the importance of racial justice. Certainly, they want this character to be in the movie because that's authentic for the West.

But having Rock Hudson, you know, this very impressively built and handsome white man playing young boy is not going to fly much longer. So this movie is very much a moment in time about the 1950s more than about the 18 seventies.

Ron 
Yeah, this is Rock Hudson's, this is one of his earliest roles. I think it's his first real big role and he's in red face playing, playing Young Bull And the threat of these, these native people's attacking seems ever present Dutch and his boys come across what looks like Joe and he's sitting by this fire. He has that distinctive hat makes me think that was why the decision was made for him to wear that hat so we can know who it is. And they head down to collect their lost gear and they find that Joe is the Winchester nowhere.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Right.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Ron 
to be found. And the threat of this attack of these native people seems to be ever present. Was that a central fear on the Western frontier

Brady Dutch Crytzer
⁓ yeah, it's absolutely a present fear. And I think they mostly got this correct because remember everyone's using the same paths, the same roads, the same trails. Most of these are native American trails. If you were to encounter a group of native peoples under normal circumstances between town A and town B, that's usually generally a good thing. You can trade with them. They can give you things. It's very transactional, but in the shadow of war, Custer's defeat, this ongoing war on the plains.

That's all gone now. Native peoples are never going to raid towns. They're never going to raid Dodge City because they'd be outgunned. They rely on hit and run tactics, raiding tactics, striking with huge force quickly and getting out of there, getting what they need and leaving. That doesn't serve itself well in a city. It's perfect for these kind of transient journeys. Odds are the Americans that they'll encounter will be isolated alone, maybe group of four five at the most.

sitting targets for 150 Native warriors, whatever nation they may be from.

Ron 
Well, we see a couple of sitting targets here with Lola and Steve are finally crossing to, Jameson place. It's some place they're going to buy. Native peoples are chasing a horse and carriage.

carrying Lola and Steve, Steve played by Charles Drake. I got a soft spot for Steve, poor guy, just can't win. As the threat is closing in on them, Steve stops the carriage, takes the horse and rides off to get help and he leaves Lola behind. And he returns finding cavalry in the valley. And this is offering some sense of hope to them. And it made me laugh cause I thought, wait a minute, Lola rode the

carriage, he didn't have to leave her there. They still made it there. So he had time to get the horse, ride off, find where the calvary was, come back, tell her this way, and then she rode the carriage and he rode the horse. They made it safely to where the calvary was. What is the calvary doing there in the middle of this valley? I assume that they stopped to rest and sleep overnight and then found themselves surrounded. Am I reading this correctly?

Brady Dutch Crytzer
Yeah. So, you know, that, that scene obviously has meant it reveals a little bit of Steve's character and probably make Lane look a lot better. I think that's up. It's very purposeful there. but the, it happens, you know, you leave, leave, abandon your people. ⁓ so after the civil war and really in the years leading up to it, the U S government understood the situation I described earlier in times of peace, native peoples and Americans will trade in times of war.

Ron
Mm-hmm.

Poor Steve.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
they'll fight and massacre each other. So the way that the government handled that was by putting soldiers in the West in different forts all across the West. And they would almost mandate that trading exchanges, commercial exchanges happened near or at these forts, because their job were to to referee the settlers and the natives. If there's a dispute, they would work it out. If there was a

Sort of a situation that went south, they would police it. That was the point. Now, when the Civil War begins, we need troops here in the East. They pull those people out and the West, this devolves into violence. mean, just horrific violence, massacres on both sides in all corners of the West. And that was again, in the Civil War, but in the aftermath, we're still kind of living in the wake of all that violence. Because these people have done the worst of the worst to each other.

kidnappings, rapes, murders, massacres, that kind of has a ripple effect. So it would not be uncommon for A, the cavalry to be anywhere in the West at any time. And it especially would not be uncommon for civilians to seek them out because they not only brought safety, but they also brought this sort of ability to mediate interactions between the two sides.

Ron
Well, Lynn and High Spade also get chased into the same valley. And there's actually a discussion we hear between, I believe it's whoever's in charge of the Calvary, I'm not sure his military rank that they share, and Lynn and they're discussing Gettysburg in the middle of this frontier battle, which obviously is yet another recognizable civil war battle that is being mentioned in a Western decades later, which I found to be very interesting.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah,

it is. It's the one we all know. And that's true today. And that's true back then, especially in the 50s. They could have thrown out any random battle. What is going to have more of an impact than Gettysburg? Because it reveals a big history. It reveals valor. I survived this largest battle of the war, the largest battle in the history of the Western Hemisphere. It just carries a weight and a heft that other battles don't.

Ron 
Mm-hmm.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
And you'll see a lot of future Western movies do this too. I mean, you can't get away from the fact that all this is happening within a decade of the Civil War ending. I mean, the Civil War is the traumatic experience of not just that generation, but the next generation too, for a number of reasons. So if you want to make a general statement, you could say all Westerns are in a way Civil War movies, because so many times it's kind of a trope and happened so much.

main characters on either side end up being members of the blue and the gray from a decade earlier.

Ron
So there's a big battle that ensues, which I feel bad for the horses. Every time I see these, these older movies, Jimmy Stewart in the commentary they asked him, how do you get these horses to fall? And he said, well, the riders would go practice with them, teaching them to fall safely. And the rider then being able to jump off of the horse at the right time. So they didn't get crushed under it. And he said, previously when they were making films, they would put out these wires and trip the horses.

And sometimes the horses would get hurt and they'd have to, kill the horses because they had broken legs So my God, we come a long way in movie making? That's just terrible. I feel bad for these horses sometimes.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
gosh. You know, one

of my favorite movies is Jeremiah Johnson. He's a mountain man in the 1840s. He's hunting and trapping. It's Robert Redford. But one of the things he does is hunt elk. And they actually in the film shoot an elk and kill it. And they film the whole thing, which I mean, today it's like unheard of. It's really shocking.

Ron
Jesus.

It's like you're watching an animal snuff film. So they are surrounded and they're likely to die there. I mean, they're more than likely to die. And they then call back the idea of what happened. I think they, did they talk about Little Bighorn? And they use the strategy that the Sioux, I hope I'm not butchering this. They use a strategy that Sioux used. Is it the Sioux at Little Bighorn? Lynn is using this. This is their strategy. So this is how we counter.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yes.

Right.

Ron 
But there's a really cool battle here and Young Bull is killed and the quote unquote good guys win the battle. The rifle is dropped on the ground and it's found later by Tony Curtis. You may have heard of his daughter, Jamie Lee. This is one of his first big roles. He actually has some speaking parts in this.

is a first big role. And before they ride off The person who's in charge of the Calvary says, we could have used you at Bull Run and Lynn and High Spade look at each other and he said, we were there. We were just on the other side. And it calls into question everything that I think about Lynn and High Spade because when you're going through school,

and you're learning about North and South, it's to be framed that North is good, South is bad. it's so ingrained in my mind that when I hear my hero, Jimmy Stewart, was on the bad side, it changed for a split second how I looked at those two characters. Am I way off base in thinking that way

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
What I would say is this, you know, within about 20 years, maybe even less of the Civil War ending, the South realized politicians, leaders, so on, that they were on the wrong side of history. I mean, before the Civil War, they were very open advocates of slavery. They were saying, we're going to fight slavery. G.T. Yelverton of Coffee County, Alabama at the Alabama Secession Convention says this war is the servant of slavery. They weren't afraid of that.

Ron 
with this character.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
But in hindsight, it was a bad look. There's no question. So in the seventies, they begin this we call lost cause sort of mythology, trying to make the war about anything other than slavery, which we know it was this scene you're talking about is an extension of that because right around the twenties and thirties, it becomes in vogue and fashionable to be the rebel.

You know, that's what the southerners were. They were the renegades. They were the spitfires. They weren't really caring about slavery. They were kind of like the first bikers, if you would. That's nonsense. But I think that's what Anthony Mann is doing here. I don't know whether he realizes that or not, but we'll see it with Clint Eastwood in later movies. Good, the bad and the ugly. We'll see it with a lot of figures.

It wasn't cool to be a Union soldier. It was cool to be a rebel. But we know where that comes from. So that's, think, the most important.

Ron 
This is actually the fifth time that the rifle changes hands because it's found on the ground by Tony Curtis's character and he wants to give it to Lynn who's already ridden away with Frankie. So he gives it to Steve.

And Steve and Lola then continue on their trek across to the Jameson place that they're going to purchase and maybe get married and have some children as Steve really wants to. But Lola's kind of not happy with Steve right now. He rode off without her. He calls himself Yella and they arrive at this home.

And Steve has a meeting scheduled with Waco Johnny Dean. And I really tried to pay attention on this latest watch. We don't really know why he's supposed to meet with Johnny Dean. We don't know what deal they have in place with this man. I mean, I could posit that Steve maybe is going to be involved in this heist of Wells Fargo. So he has the money to pay for the Jameson place. I don't know. that's my best guess, but we never really know. Waco Johnny Dean played by

Dan Duryay.

He is my favorite character in the movie. as soon as he pops on screen, he's so charismatic. He's got this laugh that he does and he's so confident and charismatic. Is he an echo of a historical figure as well? He's this fastest gun archetype that we hear so much about.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
You know, yeah, Dan Durye in this movie, I would say he is an echo of a historical archetype, probably not as old as you would want him to be. I can remember my grandfather talking about as a young boy in the thirties watching cowboy movies. And he always liked them because the good guy always won. But one of the things that these early Westerns would do is they'd get this, this figure of this bad guy and they'd make him

extremely difficult to hate. He was attractive. He was charismatic. He would be he'd be funny. You want to like him, even though he's bad. It was like a real it's a trope that most of these movies did. This is kind of the last movie where we see that. Because if you think about Westerns to come in the late  50s and early 60s, even into the 70s, bad guys really become bad guys. Yeah, they kill people, they do bad things, but they're grizzly looking they're

faces are dry and sneering, have crooked teeth. They're not attractive as a bad boy anymore. But in the 30s and 40s, guys like Waco, Johnny Dean, they were a part of these movies. These people that you had a difficult time hating because they were so likable. And that's where this movie, I think, is really at kind of a crossroads because in one sense you have you have Lynn,

James Stewart doing all these things that protagonists would never do before. Not killing for justice, just killing for revenge. But at the other end, you have this almost cartoonish character of Waco, Johnny Dean there. He's kind of a throwback to 10 to 15 years earlier. And we won't see many characters like him again as the genre moves forward. One of those things I think people lose the stomach for or the interest in as we get closer to the modern sense of America in the 20th century.

Ron 
I want to talk about Steve. And Steve is full of regret for being what he says is yellow. And he left Lola when the native peoples first attacked them when they were on the carriage. There is a critique on the idea of masculinity in Westerns in that the idea of bravery can mean your life, but being dead is better than being labeled a yellow bellied coward. And we don't ever find out

how Steve would have redeemed himself, or if he could have redeemed himself. In his eyes it was, have to defend myself against the fastest gun in the West, almost knowing it's certain death, but I'd rather die than be labeled a coward.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
I think you're right about that. think that that probably will stick around for probably another 30 years after this movie. Even in the 80s, you kind of see that's the idea there. Remember, I mean, there was two types of people in the Old West according to movies. There was the quick and the dead. And I think that's kind of what that feeds into. He is kind of a chump. I don't know how else to say it. But I don't think he would play any differently today either.

I mean, if it's one thing to kind of talk your way out of a situation, that doesn't make you less of a man. Look at Wyatt Earp in this movie. All he does is diffuse. No one's going to question his masculinity. But Steve abandoned his girlfriend, and that's the unforgivable sin.

Ron 
And Waco provokes him knowing Steve is a chump. He knows he can be provoked and he provokes him into... Yeah, thank you. That's all right, you're allowed to swear. He provokes Steve and Steve draws his pistol and Johnny being known as, having a fast left hand kills Steve and takes the rifle. Of course, that's obviously the number one thing. I think this is the sixth time now the rifle has changed hands in some way.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
That's the PG version of how I would describe him.

Ron 
And Johnny Dean, just being the wily villain, he convinces that they catch the house on fire. The people that are, there's people chasing this Johnny Dean and his group, and they use this Jameson place as refuge for the moment. And the people chasing them, are law enforcement. They set the place on fire to smoke them out. And Waco convinces his people, we got to go out the front door. got to.

fight our way out and then he jumps out the side window with Lola and they get on the same horse and ride away to Tesco.

And they, Lola and Johnny Dean arrive in Tesco, and Dutch and his gang are already there.

And Dutch just reclaims the Winchester says, no, that's mine. And Johnny just gives it up to him. And now the rifles completed a big loop back to the person who originally stole it. When Dutch discusses the plan to rob a bank and stage coach, Lola finds a picture. We're probably maybe 15, 20 minutes away from the end of the movie at this point. And Lola sees a picture of young Dutch.

Young Lin and an old man.

They're discussing this idea of robbing.

A bank? I'm assuming it's a bank, stagecoach. Westerns often center around this idea of stagecoach robberies, train robberies, bank robberies. Is this a rampant issue in the 1870s? This organized crime of robbing these stagecoaches? I feel like every Western I have ever won, that's being very hyperbolic. A lot of Westerns that I've seen center around this idea of,

this big Western illegal activity that these men must be stopped.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah, it gets back to the idea I mentioned earlier of when Native Americans raid isolated travelers. This is when bandits using that same mindset will raid and get their big score. You don't want to attack the bank. There's usually a safe. The reason Wells Fargo existed was because in the 1849 and onward, people would find gold in California and Wells Fargo using stage coaches.

promised, guaranteed, and ensured that they would get your gold to a bank east of the Mississippi. Because your money wasn't safe until you got it into an eastern bank. That's the idea. New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New Orleans, Chicago. So that's how Wells Fargo really got its start. And stagecoaches were the way they did it for years until the advent of railroad. But even then, this idea of money in

transit was its most vulnerable point. You weren't going to get it in the bank in California, Nevada or Texas or Kansas. You weren't going to get it when it's in the bank in Chicago. You had to get it in between. as you mentioned, stagecoaches and trains were the way things were transported, including people. it's that same ethos of ambush, I think, that we see from both Native peoples and American criminals.

Ron 
Wells Fargo, that's a name that also survives to today. did they kind of have a monopoly on the banking industry at that point?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Yeah.

Well, it wasn't it wasn't banking. was transportation. That's the big thing. They would eventually start dabbling in owning banks as their need was less required, I guess you could say, with the advent of trains. Once trains came along, you know, the idea of a stagecoach robbery kind of vanished. You're to put all your stuff on a big armored train. They had to find a new way to make money. So they got into what they are today, more of a financial institution. But what really made them indispensable was

that they guaranteed transportation of goods in the stagecoach era. And that's a brief time, 10 to 15 years, but it made them universally essential in the West. And that's why they're still here today.

Ron 
Dutch and his group go to rob this. See, that's why I said bank because it says Wells Fargo and it's a building and then outside of it is a stagecoach. So I guess that's why I had it in my mind. And plus I'm thinking of today Wells Fargo. Lynn and High Spade ride into Tascosa because that's where they thought this whole time that Dutch and his group are going to be. And they see Lola playing the piano at this bar and she warns him to watch.

Johnny Dean's left hand, watch that left hand. This startled me a little bit because Jimmy Stewart grabs his, Jimmy Stewart, Lin, the character, grabs Johnny's left arm and the camera is down low pointed up at Jimmy Stewart's face and he looks possessed. And I'm like, wait a minute, this is my It's a Wonderful Life guy

who's happy and the nicest man on earth. And he looks absolutely possessed here. I'm sure at the time audiences looked at this and were a little surprised at what they were seeing. This violent version of Jimmy Stewart.

There's a action sequence. Lola is wounded and Dutch goes to escape on horseback and Lynn chases him. And we finally learned that Lynn and Dutch are brothers as Frankie exposes whenever he's on the ground holding Lola saying, he knows he's dangerous because Lynn and Dutch are brothers or something like that.

I actually love the conclusion of this. They ride off and Dutch gets the high ground on this rock formation. This is unlike a lot of climaxes and films that we've grown used to because there isn't any music. There's absolutely no score. It's just sound effects and dialogue of these men yelling back and forth at each other as they fire off rounds at each other. How do you feel about this last sequence here? Do you have a differing opinion than me that I loved it?

Brady Dutch Crytzer
Well, no, was, you know, it was a really different kind of ending. Because, you know, I had the benefit of watching it at home streaming, right? So I made the mistake when this big fight starts of checking the timestamp, like how much time is left in the movie. And there's like a minute left, a minute and half left. And I thought like, holy cow, like, did I down, do I have this whole movie downloaded? Is there more movie I'm missing? But the thing is,

Ron 

Ha ha ha.

Hehe.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
It encapsulates the purpose. think the purpose of the movie is, is Lynne getting revenge, his perception of justice, because they have this gunfight. We, as you said, discover that these are, these are brothers. He kills his brother and the movie's over and it's mission accomplished from his end, from his perspective. so it was very intense. The, the gunfight itself on this rocky cliffs.

a lot of near misses leaning behind rocks. It felt a lot like a World War Two movie to me. They weren't standing in the middle of town like Marty McFly, right? Shooting at each other with six guns. That's what audiences had seen. We have to remember this is a post-war audience and many of them had seen combat and they want something more real than that. If you're fighting in Iwo Jima, if you're fighting in Europe, you know you're not standing in the middle of the road shooting at each other. It's a very close personal

situation with a lot of near misses. And I think, I think that was very much present in Anthony Mann's mind when he made that scene.

Ron 
It's hard for me to watch anything anymore and say, that's different or that's new. I've seen way too much to be surprised at a lot. It does happen sometimes and it's a very, very pleasant surprise. And something that I found surprising in this sequence is the ricochet sequence because I had not seen that before. And I learned that from, 80 something year old Jimmy Stewart talking on the commentary that they had people with weapons.

Shooting these pellets of some kind that when they hit the rock they exploded in this white chalky substance to make it look like These ricochets were actually happening I can't imagine being an actor squeezed between these rocks and people actually shooting these pellets At the rocks next to me because some of those are getting pretty close to them

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Really close, yeah.

Ron
So I really enjoyed the end of it. And this now is the eighth time that it has changed hands because after Lin kills his brother, Matthew is his actual name, character name, Lin returns to Lola. As Lin is returning, we hear Frankie tell Lola that Dutch killed their father. Dutch robbed a bank and when he came home,

to hide, his father refused to hide him and shot him. And there's a minute and a half left in the movie, I think. It's less than two minutes left it's interesting because the rifle becomes the centerpiece of the film. Whereas in most other films you watch, you get the motivation behind what's driving the characters forward. This movie doesn't tell you what the motivation is. You just know that this person doesn't like this person and one is running away from the other.

final shot of the movie. It's a zoom on this blank engraving. But whenever Lynn wins the contest, Wyatt says we're going to engrave this with your name on it, it says great, I'll pick it up later, whatever. Well, that never gets the opportunity to happen. Do you have any thoughts on what the film is trying to say by zooming in on this blank engraving?

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
⁓ you know, to me, the gun is the West and the West is when you study this time period, a fleeting period. mean, the wild West, as we think of it, maybe a 30 year period, max. If you stretch it all the way to the year 1900, I think the blank nameplate on the gun just symbolizes that the West is home to many people with many different motivations.

all seeking the same thing. Maybe it's fame, maybe it's fortune, maybe it's a new start. And that story is going to continue and be told over and over again. I mean, there's a lot of symbolism behind it. Anytime you have a blank tombstone or a blank nameplate on a gun, for example, the question becomes who is the next person? Who's the next one to have this weapon? It also indicates the story continues. And I think that's really important because we have a definitive ending to this movie, but that's almost an open end.

It makes you wonder where will this gun go next?

Ron
Yeah, it's like violence doesn't deserve commemoration is just kind of what I took from it. There's all the violence that surrounds this weapon. There's no need to commemorate it in any way by adding someone's name, but I kind of like your spin on it a lot better. The name of the film itself is Winchester 73, which I find to be interesting because Is the rifle really the true subject of the film? I mean, you've already discussed that really the true subject is revenge or at least a major motivation.

Is it the subject of the film? Is it really just the mechanism that brings these two brothers back together? The gun really doesn't mean anything until people start obsessing over it. mean, Lin and Dutch's conflict existed well before we knew the rifle existed.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Right, the gun, you know, it brings us into their conflict. I think. It gives us a way to understand these two men's lifelong obsession with hating each other. I think about The Gun, as the name of the movie. The other movie that I think about when it comes to you know, a gun taking center stage is Bob Clark's Christmas Story with Ralphie.

They even open up with the same scene. Ralphie with his face pressed against the glass looking at this Red Rider BB gun. just as they do in the beginning of this movie. Would that movie have the same resonance if it was not called A Christmas Story, but it was called Red Rider? I don't think it would. I don't think it would. So there's something different about this movie that served it at the time. If the movie was just called Lynn's Revenge, maybe it doesn't make as much sense.

but focusing on the gun is enough to give us a better grasp of that story and maybe some of the other stories around us too, including Steve's story and Young Bull's story. mean, It's the tie that binds, I suppose. It's a choice. I think it worked out really well for this picture though.

Ron 
Seems like fixation itself is the problem. Everyone has some sort of fixation. And then when the rifle appears, their fixation becomes the rifle. With the exception of, well, two people. Frankie Wilson couldn't care any less about the rifle. But Lynn doesn't seem to care about the rifle either.

Brady Dutch Crytzer 
Right.

Well,

it's the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones, right? Look at how many people die in the last 20 minutes of that movie trying to get the Holy Grail. And the ones that survive, Indiana Jones is the one who lets it go. It's that same trope. mean, that was certainly weighing on the mind of George Lucas when he, a famous lover of Westerns when he made that movie too.

Ron 
Yeah, if I'm Lynn, I'm probably getting rid of that thing because Dutch stole it. died. Joe Lamont won it off of Dutch and he died. Young Bull kills Joe. He takes it. Young Bull dies. Waco Johnny Dean takes it from Steve. Waco dies. Dutch takes it back from Johnny Dean. He dies. So maybe Lynn should maybe bury the damn thing and be done with it.

Brady Dutch Crytzer
Hahaha.

Ron 
So as we close every episode, guests gets a chance to give their answers to why this film. So why Winchester 73? Why does it deserve its place in the Criterion Collection?

Brady Dutch Crytzer
You know, I've thought about this a lot and I've prepared a long, long winded answer for you, Sometimes in history, which is again where I come from, movies can capture the feeling of a society in a way that we just can't ignore. It takes the temperature of a country at a certain time. And what we see throughout the history of film is that

Anytime we experience a national tragedy or trauma, there's a response to it in the way films are made, what works and what doesn't. You know, after the Great Depression, we get this big sweeping rejuvenation of American literature, guys like William Faulkner and so on, writing these incredible books that become the defining books of the 20th century.

The Vietnam era, we get all of these gritty real movies like, you know, The Godfather and Dirty Harry. And most people would say the post Vietnam era was probably the greatest period of American cinema ever. Look at us now after COVID, right? In the 10 years before COVID, every movie was a Marvel superhero movie. You couldn't go wrong with that story. It was a basic formula. After COVID, people have lost an appetite for it.

seeing the good guy win every time because we know that even when you win sometimes you still end up losing. So for me Winchester 73 is the post World War II era. You have men coming back from war. No one came back unscathed either mentally or physically. Many people never came back at all. The idea of the cowboy always winning, justice prevailing, the man only draws his gun in the name of the law.

That doesn't play anymore for Americans after World War II. So Jimmy Stewart kills his brother, not for some sense of restoring law and order, it's personal revenge. You have people randomly shooting each other in this movie, just settling scores and settling beef. Jimmy Stewart wins the gun in the beginning and gets it unfairly stolen from him. Well, that's life. Life's tough sometimes. So I think this movie...

is gonna redefine the Western genre by making it more real, stripping away kind of the cartoonish elements of it, of good versus evil, and showing the West for what it really was, which was a difficult place where the good guy didn't always win.