On this day in movie and book history - The Shootist (1976)

The Shootist

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Miles Hood Swarthout and Scott Hale,

based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout,

was released in the United States on July 21, 1976.

Music by Elmer Bernstein.

Cast:

John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart, Richard Boone, Hugh O’Brian, Bill McKinney, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North, Rick Lenz, Scatman Crothers, Gregg Palmer, Alfred Dennis, Dick Winslow, Melody Thomas Scott, Kathleen O’Malley, Jack Berle, Johnny Crawford, Chuck Dawson, George Dunn, Duke Fishman, Christopher George, Jonathan Goldsmith, Leo Gordon, Charles G. Martin, Jim Michael, Ernesto Molinari, Ricky Nelson, James Nolan, Nick Raymond, Henry Slate, Bob Steele, Ralph Volkie, John Zimeas.

Recommended reading:

The Shootist

by Glendon Swarthout.

Introduction by Miles Swarthout.

Filmed as The Shootist (1976), directed by Don Siegel.

Published by Bison Books.
First published 1975.

ISBN-10: 0803238231
ISBN-13: 9780803238237

Description:

"Such style...such a strong central idea...the showdown is an unremitting as the build-up." – Sunday Times of London.

"This is an extremely well-written Western and gives the reader vivid insight into the workings of the mind of a wanderer and gunman." – Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sunday Advocate.

"The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout is the taleof the Old West's version of the modern 'hit man'. It is a splendid story, well-told and with a really satisfying ending." – Charleston, South Carolina Evening Post.

The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a man of principle and the only surviving gunfighter in a vanishing American West. He rides into El Paso in the year 1901, on the day Queen Victoria died, there to be told by a doctor that he must soon confront the greatest shootist of all: Death. In such a showdown, against such an antagonist, he cannot win. Most men may end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a man-killer has a 3rd option, one which Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner.

As word spreads that the famous assassin has reached the end of his rope, an assortment of vultures gathers to feast upon his corpse--among them a gambler, a rustler, an undertaker, an old love, a reporter, even a boy. Books outwits them, however, by selecting the where, when, who, and why of his death, and writing in fire from a pair of Remingtons the last courageous act of his own legend. The climatic gunfight itself is an incredible performance by an incredible man, and by his creator, Glendon Swarthout.

 

The Shootist will rank with such classics as Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident, but it is much more than a Western. When, in the final afternoon of his life, J. B. Books crosses a street and enters a saloon to make something of his death, we cross, we enter, with him. He is us.

From a corner of the south window Gillom Rogers spied on the new lodger. The man unpacked his valise and put things in a drawer of the chiffonier, then hung his Price Albert coat in the closet. When he turned from the closet he was in shirt and vest. The boy's eyes rounded. Sewn to each side of the vest was a holster, reversed, and in each holster was a pistol, butt forward. As he watched, sucking in his breath, the man took the weapons out, revolved the cylinders, filled a chamber in one he had evidently fired, and replaced them before hanging the vest, too, in the closet. The pistols were a pair of nickel-plated, short-barreled, unsighted, single-action .44 Remingtons, obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black gutta-percha, the other pearl.

Gillom slipped away to take the horse to the livery, letting the breath of revelation out of his lungs. He was seventeen, and spent much of his time in saloons. He was not yet served, but he enjoyed himself and picked up a great deal of miscellaneous information, some of it true, some of it of doubtful authenticity. But the man in corner room was no stranger to him now. He had heard enough scalp-itch, blood-freeze tales to know that only one man carried a similar pair of guns in a similar manner...

On this day in movie and book history - The Killers (1964)

The Killers

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Gene L. Coon,

based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway,

was released in the United States on July 7, 1964.

Music by John Williams and Fred Steiner.

Cast:

Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Clu Gulager, John Cassavetes, Ronald Reagan, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Virginia Christine, Don Haggerty, Robert Phillips, Kathleen O’Malley, Ted Jacques, Irvin Mosley, Jimmy Joyce, Burt Mustin, Davis Roberts, Hall Brock, Peter Hobbs, John Copage, Tyler McVey, Seymour Cassel, Scott Hale, Leon Alton, John Barton, Paul Bradley, James Gonzalez, Richard Lane, Ethelreda Leopold, Hans Moebus, Ron Nyman, Leoda Richards, Cosmo Sardo, Sammy Shack, Don Siegel, Ted Smile, Bert Stevens, Nancy Wilson.

Recommended reading:

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

by Ernest Hemingway.

Published by Scribner.

Published 1998.

ASIN: 0684843323

ISBN-10: 9780684843322

ISBN-13: 978-0684843322

Description:

In this definitive collection of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s short stories, readers will delight in Hemingway’s most beloved classics such as The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hills Like White Elephants, and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection, totaling in sixty stories. This collection demonstrates Hemingway’s ability to write beautiful prose for each distinct story, with plots that range from experiences of World War II to beautifully touching moments between a father and son. For Hemingway fans, The Complete Short Stories is an invaluable treasury.

On this day in movie history - The Big Steal (1949)

The Big Steal

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Gerald Drayson Adams, Daniel Mainwaring and Geoffrey Homes,

was released in the United States on June 29, 1949.

Based on the short story The Road to Carmichael’s by Richard Wormser,

published in The Saturday Evening Post (1942).

Music by Leigh Harline.

Cast:

Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Patric Knowles, Ramon Novarro, Don Alvarado, John Qualen, Pascual García Peña.

On this day in movie history - Crime in the Streets (1956)

Crime in the Streets

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Reginald Rose,

was released in the United States on May 23, 1956.

Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

James Whitmore, John Cassavetes, Sal Mineo, Mark Rydell, Virginia Gregg, Peter J. Votrian, Will Kuluva, Malcolm Atterbury, Denise Alexander, Dan Terranova, Peter Miller, Steve Rowland, Robert Alexander, Doyle Baker, Paul Bryar, Richard Curtis, Shirley Heart, Frank Mills, Duke Mitchell, Jimmy Ogg, Syd Saylor, Ray Stricklyn, Paul Wallace.

On this day in movie history - Dirty Harry (1971)

Dirty Harry

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink and Dean Riesner,

based on a story by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink and Jo Heims,

was released in the United States on December 23, 1971.

Music by Lalo Schifrin.

Cast:

Clint Eastwood, Andy Robinson, Harry Guardino, Reni Santoni, John Vernon, John Larch, John Mitchum, Woodrow Parfrey, Josef Sommer, Mae Mercer, Albert Popwell, Lyn Edgington, Ruth Kobart, Lois Foraker, William Paterson, Debralee Scott.