Towards the end of Lawman, Burt Lancaster says that the towns are getting fewer and fewer who need his kind of services. I guess that's a comment on civilization's leavening influence.
You're a town marshal in the old west. You're doing the job alone, maybe you have a deputy or two. Burt says you got to stick to the rules, but as we see in Lawman he wings it quite a bit.
Lee J. Cobb and some of his employees and retainers from his town of Sabbath shoot up Burt Lancaster's town of Bannock and one of Bannock's citizens is killed. Lancaster trails them to Sabbath and arrives with one of them slung over a pack horse. He gives the names to Sabbath's Sheriff Robert Ryan and the story begins.
Lancaster finds that the men he's trailing are all kinds, some professional gunmen, some family men caught up in the moment. Makes no matter to him, he's bringing them in. One of them is the common law husband of a former girl friend, Sheree North, who's settled in Sabbath.
Lawman is a pretty grim western tale. It's kind of a cross between Edward Dmytryk's Warlock and Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven. Themes from both of those films can be found here.
Lancaster gets good support from the cast. I particularly liked J.D. Cannon as Sheree North's husband and Richard Jordan as the young cowhand from Lee J. Cobb's spread.
I think more than western fans will appreciate this film.
You're a town marshal in the old west. You're doing the job alone, maybe you have a deputy or two. Burt says you got to stick to the rules, but as we see in Lawman he wings it quite a bit.
Lee J. Cobb and some of his employees and retainers from his town of Sabbath shoot up Burt Lancaster's town of Bannock and one of Bannock's citizens is killed. Lancaster trails them to Sabbath and arrives with one of them slung over a pack horse. He gives the names to Sabbath's Sheriff Robert Ryan and the story begins.
Lancaster finds that the men he's trailing are all kinds, some professional gunmen, some family men caught up in the moment. Makes no matter to him, he's bringing them in. One of them is the common law husband of a former girl friend, Sheree North, who's settled in Sabbath.
Lawman is a pretty grim western tale. It's kind of a cross between Edward Dmytryk's Warlock and Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven. Themes from both of those films can be found here.
Lancaster gets good support from the cast. I particularly liked J.D. Cannon as Sheree North's husband and Richard Jordan as the young cowhand from Lee J. Cobb's spread.
I think more than western fans will appreciate this film.