Death of a Gunfighter was directed by Robert Totten and finished by Don Siegel who took over when Totten was fired as he did not get on with star Richard Widmark.

The gunfighter is Marshall Patch Frank (Widmark) the long tome sheriff in a small town in transition at the tail end of the nineteen century. The bad guys have gone and the town council wants to become respectable and attract new people and new industry. Their once feared Marshall in an anachronism and after one shooting too many they want him out.

The Marshall does not one to leave, he was promised the job for as along as he wanted. He also has dirt on these important men in the council. In the background are some slimy men such as Carroll O'Connor who wants to see the back of the Marshall for their own reasons.

I once heard a critique of the film Shane. One man rides into town, gets rid of the bad guys and then leaves. In reality he would stay, feted as a hero at first and eventually morphs into another bad guy before some years later he is confronted by someone else.

This has what happened in this town. The Marshall did not leave and is now out of place. When he is confronted by the country sheriff a Mexican that he recruited once as a deputy despite the misgivings of the then town council, he punches him and throws him out on the street. It becomes clear to this viewer that the Marshall's unbending ways will be his undoing.

Richard Widmark gives a fine performance of a confused man who realises that he past his sell by date and wants to stick around not knowing that he is stinking the place out. Belatedly he marries Lena Horne the local Madame and for the time it is a daring interracial romance.

This is small scale character study. A western with veterans of the genre such as Royal Dano and Harry Carey jr but not always the stereotypes of the normal western films. It does suffer by trying to paint Widmark as too black and white a good guy when he needed more shades of grey. Maybe this is the creative differences that led to the original director departing.

We see other characters telling him that it is always Marshall's way or no way without it being properly spelt out.

At the end the town decides to get its own type of justice as the only way to bring the violence to an end.

The central theme here is the idea that the town fathers of Cottonwood Springs want to find a way to get rid of their Marshal Frank Patch (Richard Widmark),because he evolved into a lawless gunman who killed opponents for no good reason. However I don't think the picture did a very good job of building that premise. The Marshal had a single gunfight at the beginning of the picture, taking out a drunken Luke Mills (Jimmy Lydon) who died some time later. In all other respects, Patch did not come on like a hot head or a bully, and when you get right down to it, he seemed to be a fairly reasonable lawman. At no time did he approach the savagery say, of a character like Gene Hackman's Little Bill Daggett, Marshal of Big Whiskey in 1992's "Unforgiven". So the basic plot of the story didn't work for me.

Perhaps then, more could have been made of the psychological angle when it was mentioned that Patch knew too many of the town's dark secrets, like who slept around with who, and what shady business dealings they might have been involved with. This idea wasn't taken very far either, leaving another plot line simply dangling.

Probably the best that can be said about Patch and the picture in general, is that he wasn't going to run just because he wasn't wanted. So you had some Will Kane ("High Noon") in his character, and like Kane, he married his sweetheart before the final showdown. Though the cowardly murder of Patch that followed was inevitable given the premise, it was just that, a murder, and not a successful resolution for the town of Cottonwood Springs, which would have to live with that stain after the final credits rolled.

1969 seemed to be a seminal year for TV and movie portrayals of interracial romance. TV's first black woman/white man kiss occurred, ready for this?, between Captain Kirk and Lieutanant Uhura on an episode of Star Trek called 'Plato's Stepchildren'. That same year, things got a little bolder when ex-football player Jim Brown heated up the screen with Raquel Welch in the Western "100 Rifles". That may explain the only reason for Lena Horne to appear in this one, as her role was entirely secondary otherwise. In fact, the picture missed another opportunity by never referencing her race, when that could have added another dimension to the town father's disregard for their peace officer.

A Western that shows how the "West growed itself up and got itself civilized".Richard Widmark gives what is probably his last great performance as a Sheriff whose way a doing things don't sit right with the "powers-that-be" personified by town merchant Carrol O Conner.This movie ,like Invitaion to a Gunfighter made some years before it reveals just how gutless and desperate the power-brokers are when there's no one to do their bidding.The film still holds up (even with the much mentioned two directors)though it has that "back-lot"look to most of it.John Saxon has a brief but memorable piece of work in this must see film for western fans or good movie fans.