John Wayne doubles as aging gunslinger and aging film star in this turn-of-the-century Western, in which the heroics of living and dying by the gun take an ironic back seat to the less glamorous possibility of living past one's prime and dying at the hands of the notorious 20th Century killer, cancer. The impressive career of the legendary shootist J.B. Books (John Wayne) is summarized in the film's opening via clips of previous Wayne triumphs, Red River and Rio Bravo among them. But when Books rides slow and proud into Carson City in the year 1901, he is confronted by a contemptuous townspeople whose assessment--that he is all tuckered out--is confirmed by Books' doctor (Jimmy Stewart), who tells him he has cancer and six weeks to live. Books moves into the boarding house of widow Lauren Bacall, where he intends to confront his maker in the rugged individualism of his own bedroom, but is besieged by callers coming to witness the old tiger's unglorious comeuppance.
Director Don Siegel, considered a master of fast action montage, here creates a quiet, stately arena for the convergence of mythic elements - the characters (gunslinger, doc, widow, son...), the actors (Wayne, Stewart, Bacall and others), the dying West and the dying Western. (JB)