The Shootist: Difference between revisions

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J.B. Books, a famous gunfighter of the Old West has traveled to Carson City to see an old doctor friend ([[Jimmy Stewart]]) about some health troubles. Said doctor tells him straight it's cancer and that Books has only weeks to live. Told to rest in town, Books makes his way to a widow's house ([[Lauren Bacall]]) and under a false name rents out a room. The widow's son Gillom played by [[Ron Howard]] quickly finds out Books' real identity and word quickly spreads that the gunfighter is in town. Soon enough, Books' old enemies with scores to settle come looking, and the town's local gambler is intrigued with the idea of making a name for himself as the Man Who Shot [[John Wayne]], uh J.B. Books...

Note: the legend that Wayne [[Real Life Writes the Plot|was dying from cancer in real life]] is just that, legend. The cancer he had from earlier was in remission. The truth was ''[[The Shootist]]'' was his planned farewell to Westerns: he had hopes of starring in more films such as detective roles he started taking earlier in the decade. It was just that he suffered other illnesses that prevented him from making more movies, and it wasn't until three years later that the cancer came back [[Manly Tears|to take The Duke at last]].

 

* [[Badass]]: Books ([[John Wayne]], natch).

** [[Badass Creed|"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same of them!"]]

* [[End of an Age]]: both in the film as Carson City is entering the Twentieth Century with electric lights and automobiles signaling the end of the Wild West as we know it; and on a serious meta-level as being the last John Wayne Western EVER signaling an end to the clear morality of Right and Wrong that Wayne's Westerns created.

* [[The Gunfighter Wannabe]]: Gillom.

** And of course over here there's Col. Potter as a jerkass town marshal.

** It's [[The Andy Griffith Show|Opie]] as the teenaged Gillom!

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Films of the 1970s]]

[[Category:The Shootist]]