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Memorable, crazy movie

Expected more

Excellent but underrated film

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

"Invitation to a Gunfighter" doesn't qualify as your typical horse opera. This loquacious, pretentious, and ultimately sluggish sagebrusher about racism and civil rights—a little ahead of its time—foreshadowed Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" about a gunfighter hired by a town to protect it from a trigger-happy former Confederate soldier. Clearly, producer & director Richard Wilson and wife Elizabeth had other ideas in mind when they contrived their offbeat screenplay from veteran television writer Alvin Sapinsley's adaptation of a story by "Johnny Carson's Tonight Show" monologue writers Hal Goodman and Larry Klein. "Invitation to a Gunfighter" bears the burden of social consciousness. Can you imagine its executive producer Stanley Kramer of "The Defiant Ones," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "The Juggler," and "RPM" doing a picture that shunned racism and civil rights? Mind you, Kramer also produced the classic Gary Cooper oater "High Noon" and there is a touch of "High Noon" in "Invitation to a Gunfighter." Although Yul Brynner graces this frontier yarn with its striking presence and modulated performance, "Invitation to a Gunfighter" just isn't very memorable. For example, our anti-heroic gunman doesn't demonstrate his marksmanship until 43 minutes into the story and he provides only an exhibition of his shooting skills without actually either wounding or killing anybody.Ostensibly, the story takes place in the New Mexico Territory in 1865 after the conclusion of the American Civil War. A lone Confederate soldier, Matt Weaver (George Segal of "The Owl and the Pussycat"), who has spent five weeks walking home, returns to find his farm, where he had buried his mother, in the hands of a former Union soldier, John Medford (Russel Johnson of TV's "Gilligan's Island"), mustered out of General Grant's army. Naturally, Weaver is shocked by this revelation and rampages into Pecos to confront Brewster about the sale of his property. In the process, Weaver's arrival awakens several townspeople, chiefly, a one-armed former Union soldier Crane Adams (Clifford David of "Fort Apache the Bronx"), and Adams pursues Weaver into Brewster's house where he wounds him in the arm. The sheriff (veteran character actor Bert Freed) hauls Weaver off to jail where Doc Barker (Alfred Ryder) urges Weaver to hightail it out of town for good. They explain that his father's farm went on the auction block; Brewster bought it and sold it to Medford. Eventually Weaver kills Medford and occupies the property. The Civil War claimed its share of sons and husbands from the town of Pecos and has a dire shortage of young, fit, headstrong men prepared to confront the single Confederate. The town boss, Brewster (Pat Hingle of "Hang'em High") has dispatched Crane to Santa Fe to hire a gunslinger. When Crane shows up with a two-gun kid, Dancer (Dal Jenkins of "Will Penny"), who he has promised $300, Jules runs him out of town with the merest flick of his hand. Indeed, Jules stands in the shadows of a veranda and his presence scares Dancer off. Brewster is furious and Crane explains that the best gunfighter—Jules—had already left town. Jules step out of the shadows and presents himself to Brewster and the town. The hotel innkeeper recognizes the Creole gunslinger. Meanwhile, Brewster has trouble pronouncing Jules' name, so Jules give him a lesson in pronunciation. "Soft g, silent s," Jules teaches Brewster, "D'Estaig—just a touch of diphthong." Predictably, Brewster still cannot correctly pronounce Jules' name, but he forks over $500 to the stuck-up Creole gunfighter, Jules Gaspard d'Estaing (Yul Brynner of "The Magnificent Seven"), to kill Weaver. Brewster ignores the cries of Doc Barker who complains that Brewster is dispensing the legal right of due process so that Matt could tell his side of the story. Later, we learn that Medford lied to Weaver and forced him to kill him in self-defense. Jules, however, isn't your ordinary paid gunman. He has a mind of his own and dictates his own terms. He refuses to ride out to Weaver's ranch and kill him. Instead, he elects to stay in Pecos, board at the emporium, and wait for the starving, ammunition hungry Weaver to arrive so he can shoot it out with him.Later, we learn that Matt lose not only his farm but he also lost the woman that he wanted to wed, Ruth (Janice Rule of "The Swimmer") who has married the one-armed Crane. Initially, Crane argues against allowing Jules to board in the emporium, but Brewster wins out and Jules watches the stormy relationship between the unhappily married Crane and Ruth. Crane's loss of his arm has soured him and turned him to liquor. Crane can no longer play the harpsichord. Jules appears to be proficient with the musical instrument. Interestingly, Brynner would play a piano in Frank Kramer's "Adios, Sabata," several years later. Ruth wants to know if she can dissuade Jules from killing Matt. Jules sums up the town in a brief speech. "I'm in business for money and pleasure, too. A town that hires a gunfighter is always a henhouse with just one rooster, a few fat capons, a few clipped wings. What happens when a man with a gun walks in?" Nevertheless, Jules behaves oddly. He visits the Hispanic population across the bridge that divides the town into separate entities. The Hispanic spokesman confides in Jules about Matt, "He is the only man here who treats us like men." Indeed, the Mexicans bring food, but he still needs ammunition so he tries to steal from the emporium. Jules confronts Weaver but refuses to kill him initially because he wants to get an idea who is adversary is.The ending of "Invitation to a Gunfighter" is not what you would expect. The characters shoot off their mouths more than their six-guns. The dialogue is eloquent, but the action is virtually non-existent Brynner's "Magnificent Seven" co-star Brad Dexter is squandered in a superficial supporting role as a chiseling stable keeper who tries to sell the protagonist a lame horse.

I saw this western for the first time in 1996 and it struck me as being an excellent movie. Years later I saw it again in 2006 and still had the same view, I have since watched it 3 more times.This is without a doubt for me Yul Brynner's best film (from what I have seen). I am not really a fan of his, but in this movie he gives a truly commanding performance that stands out. From the opening moment you see him hoisting himself onto the roof of the moving carriage to sit at the front by the driver, until the ending where he makes Brewster (The town's crooked boss played by Pat Hingle) kneel and admit his ways, it is compelling viewing. The sexual tension between Brynner and Janice Rule simmers below the surface. The moral issues explored such as racism in the town are quite weighty although they are more implied than rammed down your throat. Also Union and confederate allegiance issues exist in this town even after the war is over.Matt Weaver(played well by a young George Segal) returns home from the war to find his house sold out from under him. Then he is wrongfully accused of murder and the town having been whipped up into a frenzy by Brewster, decide to hire a gunfighter to kill him. The job is eventually taken by Brynner, and there is an interesting twist where the tables are turned when the town feel the gunfighter is not earning his money.This film kept me fully entertained with its strong performances from the three leads and other decent performances too from the rest of the cast. Although this is not one of the all time great westerns it is certainly one not to miss and any western fan should seek it out. 7/10

Yul Brynner is a commanding presence in Richard Wilson's Invitation to a Gunfighter, a Stanley Kramer production set in New Mexico just at the end of the Civil War. Brynner is Jules Gaspard D'Estaing, a half-Creole, half-black gunfighter, hired by the town boss Sam Brewster (Pat Hingle) to kill Matt Weaver (George Segal), a soldier who has just returned from the war. When Weaver, who fought on the Confederate side, finds that his house and farm had been auctioned by Brewster as "enemy property", he guns down the man who had "acquired" his farm and stole his girlfriend Ruth Adams (Janice Rule). Now the town wants payback and hires a self-appointed dispenser of instant justice.Nattily dressed in a black suit and a ruffled white shirt, Jules is the strong, silent type, equally adept at playing poker, reciting poetry, and playing the harpsichord as he is engaging in "work and play" with his guns. He is well paid to finish the job but soon discovers that his prospective victim may be more honest than those who are joined against him. Although he makes the statement that he is no longer human, Jules' actions prove otherwise as he develops a sympathy for Weaver, becomes attracted to Ruth, and finds aid and comfort with the Mexicans in the village who have been shunted to the outskirts of town by the corrupt bosses. When Jules, seething with frustration, goes on a drunken rampage and nearly destroys the town single handedly, Sam makes a truce with Matt to get rid of the mysterious stranger and the showdown is set.Yul Brynner turns in a compelling performance as the son of a slave who wants justice more than another payday. While there is a tendency in many films to glorify murderers for hire, we can relate to Jules more as a flawed human being with a troubled past than as a cold-blooded killer. Unfortunately the other characters are not as well developed and George Segal seems miscast as the vengeful war veteran. Janice Rule is lovely but is given little to do except stand around and look pensive. The less said about the musical score the better. Suffice to say, it did not add to the pleasure of watching this film. Being a Yul Brynner fan, however, I found Invitation to a Gunfighter a satisfying experience, a film whose themes of racism and interracial love were advanced, even for 1964 when consciousness about civil rights was exploding.

This is an underrated western with a great moral lesson about both racism and judging too quickly from appearances. The townspeople led by Pat Hingle in this northern leaning western town hire Yul Brynner to gun down George Segal who has returned from the Civil War after fighting for the Confederacy. George Segal has come back to claim his land and his woman, each of which has been taken by another.AS the movie progresses it's slowly revealed that the Union leaning town is not what it seems to be. Pat Hingle plays a politician very common for 30 years after the Civil War, adept at what they called "waving the bloody shirt." Just demagogue away at who did what and where during the war and ignore the current issues both social and economic. During the course of The Magnificent Seven, Yul Brynner's Chris Adams is referred to as a Cajun. Here he's given a proper Cajun name of Jules D'Estaing and when his secret is revealed, a whole lot of people in that town have to confront their own prejudices.Makes for worthwhile viewing.