“The Gunfighter concerned the plight of a man who wanted to be peaceful but was goaded by a community which relished violence... It marked a sharp departure from accepted ideas of the Western as escapism. Although set in the 1880s, it held a metaphor that was pertinent to the mood of the year in which it was first shown. Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck) was a professional gunman, notoriously fast on the draw, continually on the run from his enemies, and regarded as the traditional man of action. But he was tired. Tired of running, tired of killing: he wanted no more of it. He was the kind of man with whom numerous members of a 1950 audience could identify: an anti-hero. The Gunfighter, equally, was a suspense movie, tense and economic in structure; but it became known as the first of the psychological Westerns, and its impact was deep. Jimmy Ringo returned to the small town of Cayenne after an absence of years, to collect his wife and child and take them to a place where they might begin to live a quiet life. Since his wife had reconciled herself to doing without him, and was reluctant to renew their relationship, Ringo waited for her in a saloon without very much hope, because the sheriff, an old friend and former gunman himself, had warned him to get out of town as soon as possible. But word of his presence spread... The whole town gathered outside the saloon to catch a glimpse of him... Ringo's patience wore thin...
“The eloquent black-and-white photography made its contribution to the tense atmosphere, drawing contrasts between the sunlit street and the comparative gloom of the bar-room, where the composition of shots placed emphasis upon a clock. Time was running out for Ringo.” --Gordon Gow, “Hollywood in the Fifties”