The Shootist

In 1901 Nevada, an old gunfighter (John Wayne) rooms with a widow (Lauren Bacall) after learning he has a terminal cancer.

The Shootist was John Wayne’s final film and would be unremarkable were anyone else in the lead, but John Wayne gives the performance of a lifetime.

Having battled cancer in real life, Wayne imparts a quiet dignity to the character that feels honest and true. In the film, he talks about a man’s death being the most private thing he has, and Wayne, on some level, had to know his was coming. This role served as an improbable intersection for the lives of John Wayne the actor and John Wayne the character, finally allowing Wayne to reconcile the man with the myth.

Supporting Wayne there’s James Stewart, who played opposite him previously in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Lauren Bacall, who was familiar with cancer as well, having watched it claim her late husband, Humphrey Bogart.

Watching the film, however, you can’t help but think that this, not Rio Lobo, should have been Wayne and director Howard Hawks’ final collaboration, especially considering that much of the archival footage used in the opening montage came from Wayne and Hawk’s previous films.

Director Don Siegel does a serviceable job, but fails to build a film the equal of Wayne’s performance. The Ron Howard voice-over and Elmer Bernstein’s ill-fitting score are just some examples of Siegel’s missteps that, somehow, you just know Hawks would have corrected.