Cash on the Line

By J.C.

Country Singer Johnny Cash shucks his guitar for a top gun's rig in A Gun-fight.*Johnny's horse gets bitten by a rattlesnake out on the trail, so he comes into town to find another mount. He also gets himself a shave, grabs himself a meal and a woman, and meets up with Kirk Douglas, once the town's fastest gun but now retired. Kirk and Johnny glower at each other a great deal, then settle down into the kind of edgy friendship that is good for about 15 minutes of running time. Eventually both men are needled by the bloodthirsty townspeople and driven by thier own sense of honor, competition and greed to shoot it out. Instead of humdrum showdown on main Street at high noon Johnny and Kirk decide to go for their guns in a bullring conveniently located at the edge of town. Tickets will be sold, faster gun takes the proceeds. The spectators in the bullring may get a lot for their money, but the movie's trick shock ending thoroughly flimflams the filmgoer. . J.C.

*Like almost half the movies made these days, Gunfight was financed outside Hollywood. But its backers were not ordinary investors. The Jicarilla Apaches, a tribe of about 1,800 New Mexican Indians with a substantial income from oil and gas investments, put up $2,000,000. Says Chief Charlie Vigil: "We consider ourselves a corporation like any other." The chief liked the idea of bankrolling Johnny Cash because he is one-fourth Cherokee.

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