Winchester '73

Lin McAdam and 'High-Spade' Frankie Wilson are searching for Dutch Henry Brown, with whom Lin has a personal score to settle. They arrive in Dodge City, Kansas, just as Sheriff Wyatt Earp forces saloon girl Lola Manners onto a stagecoach leaving town. He tells Lin that firearms are not allowed in town and must be handed in to Earp's brother Virgil. Lin and Dutch then lay eyes on each other in the saloon, but cannot fight due to the presence of the Earps.

Lin enters the town's Centennial shooting contest for a prized "One of One Thousand" Winchester 1873 rifle. Competing against many others he and Dutch end up as finalists. After matching each other shot for shot, Lin wins by successfully betting he can shoot through a stamp placed over the hole of a coin-shaped ornament from a Native American necklace. Dutch then says he is leaving town and Lin, eager to pursue him, refuses Earp's offer to engrave Lin's name on the rifle butt's plate and goes to his room at the boarding house to pack. There, Dutch ambushes him, steals the rifle and rides away with two cohorts.

As they left town in a hurry they did not retrieve their guns from Earp. This puts them in a weak position because of Native Americans in the area and because Lin and High-Spade will still pursue them. Arriving at Riker's Bar, they find Native American trader Joe Lamont who sees the prize Winchester and becomes determined to own it. He raises the price of his guns and ammunition supply so high that Dutch and his men cannot afford to buy any. Dutch's only option is to trade the rifle for Lamont's three hundred dollars in gold plus their pick of weapons from the stock that Lamont is going to sell to the Native Americand. Dutch makes the trade and then tries to get the rifle back by gambling the three hundred in a poker game against Lamont, but loses.

Lamont takes his guns to meet Native American buyers, but their leader Young Bull doesn't like Lamont's old, worn-out merchandise; he wants the newer guns that Crazy Horse used at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Then Young Bull spies the prize Winchester and wants it. When Lamont refuses to sell it, he is robbed and scalped.

Stewart shooting in the rifle contest.

Meanwhile, Lola is now in a wagon with fiancé Steve Miller travelling towards a new home. Suddenly pursued by Young Bull and his warriors, they realize that they will not be able to outrun them. Panicking, Steve jumps on his horse and rides off, claiming he is going ahead to find help; Lola is left stranded. Not far ahead however, Steve finds a small encampment of soldiers and leads them back to rescue her. Lin and High-Spade, chased by the same Native Americans, also ride into the encampment that night.

The soldiers are new to the territory and green. Lin gives their sergeant tactical advice on fighting Native Americans and they prepare for an attack expected early the next morning. When it comes, Lin gives Lola his revolver and tells her to save its last round, implying that she should commit suicide with the final bullet to avoid capture. After a fierce battle in which Young Bull is killed, the Native Americans leave and so Lin and High-Spade depart to continue searching for Dutch. Unknowingly, they ride past the prize Winchester where Young Bull had dropped it when he fell. It is found by a trooper and the Sergeant who, not wanting any officer to have it, gives it to Steve.

Shelley Winters accepting Stewart's revolver during the Native American attack.

Steve and Lola reach the Jameson house, which is set to become theirs. He wants her to stay with Mrs. Jameson and her two children while he goes to meet outlaw Waco Johnnie Dean, much to the disapproval of Lola, but Waco and his men arrive unexpectedly, chased by a posse led by Sheriff Noonan that surrounds the house. Once Waco sees the prize Winchester, he too covets it. He insults and humiliates Steve to provoke him into a gunfight, whereupon Steve draws his gun and Waco kills him. Waco and Lola then escape the posse and ride to Dutch's hideout. There, Dutch claims the rifle is his and says that if Waco does not return it Dutch will deny the outlaw a share of a big robbery he plans for tomorrow in Tascosa, Texas.

Waco acquiesces, and after the gang is told of the robbery plan they all go to Tascosa. Lola is forced to play a piano in a saloon where Waco is stationed to give gun cover for the gang's escape after the robbery. In the meantime Lin and High-Spade also arrive. Lola warns Lin about Waco, and Lin strongarms him into agreeing to take him to Dutch. Waco then attempts to shoot Lin and is killed, while around them the robbery goes awry and Lola is wounded. While Lin follows Dutch out of town, High-Spade reveals to Lola that Dutch is Lin's brother, and that Dutch had robbed a bank and a stagecoach and returned to the family home hoping to hide out. When their father refused to help him, Dutch had shot him in the back and Lin has sworn revenge.

Lin finally confronts Dutch on a rocky hill and calls him by his real name, Matthew. They shoot it out on the hill before Lin finally kills him with a rifle shot. Exhausted, Lin returns to town with the Winchester and Dutch's body. Lola runs to him and he puts his arm around her as Lin and High-Spade look down at the rifle in Lin's other hand.

The shooting competition takes place on July 4, 1876, the Centennial, as the news of Custer's Last Stand in June is just becoming known across the west.

A few days after Dutch Henry steals the prized rifle from Lin, he plays cards against the Native American trader, Joe Lamont, at Riker's Bar. Dutch Henry lays down a full house, aces over eights, stating that he just missed the "dead man's hand"—two pair, aces and eights, so nicknamed because Wild Bill Hickok was said to hold such a hand when he was murdered in Deadwood, although this was in fact a month later on August 2, 1876. Lamont had four threes.

As part of the publicity campaign around the release of the film, Universal Pictures sponsored a contest, by placing magazine ads, to find some of the rare remaining "One of One Thousand" Model 1873 Winchester rifles.[5] This resulted in many previously unknown original rifles being brought into the spotlight and drew public interest to the field of antique gun collecting. The winner of the contest received a new Winchester Model 1894 rifle, since the Model 1873 was out of production at that time.[6]

James Stewart and Jay C. Flippen

The film was originally intended to have been directed by Fritz Lang[7] but Universal did not want Lang to produce the film through his own Diana Productions company.[8] Lang's idea was to have the rifle being Stewart's character's only source of strength and his only excuse for living, making the quest for his rifle a matter of life and death.[9] With Lang out of the picture, Universal produced the film itself with the up-and-coming Anthony Mann, who was James Stewart's choice, directing. Mann had Borden Chase rewrite the script [10] to make the rifle a bone of contention instead, showing it passing contentiously through the hands of a variety of people.

Stewart had wished to make Harvey for Universal-International but, when the studio wouldn't pay the $200,000 salary he wanted, studio head William Goetz offered to allow Stewart to make both Harvey and Winchester '73 for a percentage of the profits, spread over a period of time and at a lower capital gain tax rate than a single payment to Stewart would be.[11][12] Stewart's then-agent Lew Wasserman was able to get his client 50% of the profits, eventually amounting to $600,000 from the film's unexpected success.[13][14] Stewart's deal also gave him control of director and co-stars.[15]

The film was a financial success, turning a significant profit. It has gained a reputation as a classic of the Western genre since, and durably helped to redefine the public perception of James Stewart.

Contemporary critics are enthusiastic. Writing for the Telegraph, Martin Chilton gave the movie 5 stars and described the film as "the first in a series of Western masterpieces".[18] In Empire, William Thomas calls the film "the marvellously-scripted story of a man and a gun". He also awarded 5 stars.[19] The film holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews, with an average of 8.5/10.[20]

The film received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Written American Western.[3] In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4]

Winchester '73 was remade as a made-for-TV film in 1967 featuring Tom Tryon, John Saxon, Dan Duryea, John Drew Barrymore, Joan Blondell, John Dehner and Paul Fix. The remake was directed by Herschel Daugherty with cinematography by Bud Thackery.

• Gun (TV series)
• The King's Ankus, a tale in Rudyard Kipling's The Second Jungle Book that follows a valuable object as it causes murderous acts.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Winchester '73.

• Winchester '73 at IMDb (1950 film)
• Winchester '73 at IMDb (1967 TV movie)
• Winchester '73 at the TCM Movie Database
• Winchester '73 film stills
• Winchester '73 at Dan Duryea Central