“Ostensibly an adventure story, Winchester '73 is really a study in obsession in which a gun, the gun, crystallizes all the hostility and insecurity of the old West. The schematic, circular form of the narrative suggests not quite that this gun made the West but that it filled a gap left by failures of law, character or purpose. As such, the movie has an unconscious rapport with those areas of American society in which the gun has become both a character and a force. Moreover, the jewelled clarity of Anthony Mann's imagery and the interlocking cleanness of the plot begin to resemble the ‘perfect' machinery of this one-in-a-thousand weapon.
“Winchester '73 is also the first assembling of Anthony Mann's stock company, his first film at Universal and his meeting with James Stewart. As the rifle goes from hand to hand, we meet Will Geer as Wyatt Earp, Millard Mitchell as the buddy, John McIntire as an Indian trader, Charles Drake as a coward, Jay C. Flippen as a cavalryman, as well as Stephen McNally, Shelley Winters, and Dan Duryea as Waco Johnny. These supporting characters are all as bold and vivid as court cards in a poker game. Duryea, especially, had a grinding, grinning ease in himself that seemed to know supporting players had fun and not too much responsibility. And because this is Universal in 1950, when the studio still had an apprentice scheme, watch out for Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson in bit parts.” David Thomson