Watch The Gunfight at Dodge City For Free

Wonderful character development!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

"Virginian" star Joel McCrea displays his virile charisma as legendary frontier lawman 'Bat' Masterson in "Fort Massacre" director Joseph M. Newman's an above-average but often predictable "The Gunfight in Dodge City," that Walter Mirisch produced a couple of years after John Sturges' superlative shoot'em up "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Mind you, "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" was casual about its fidelity to facts, and "Two Guns and a Badge" scenarist Daniel B. Ullman and "Fort Massacre" scribe Martin Goldsmith are just as guilty. Indeed, Dodge City, Kansas, existed, and there was a 'Bat' Masterson as well as an Ed Masterson. However, Ullman and Goldsmith have altered the circumstances around Ed's unfortunate demise to stimulate conflict on our hero's motivation to eliminate the culpable adversaries. The production values are better-than-average, and the cast features several familiar faces, even those lurking on the periphery. Look for Robert Mitchum's younger brother John, for example, as a boisterous cowboy eager to whoop it up. Aside from seasoned western veteran Joel McCrea, the cast includes John McIntire, Richard Anderson, James Westerfield, Walter Coy, Don Haggerty, and the always dependable Harry Lauter as Ed Masterson. Basically, aside from the general facts, "The Gunfight at Dodge City" amounts to a dusty, standard-issue horse opera about the taming a wild cattle town and the evils of killing. Newman confines the action to a trim 81, so neither it nor he wear out their welcome. "Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend" lenser Carl E. Guthrie deploys his Cinemascope lens for the best effect, and this western looks better than it deserves. Western aficionados will notice that our hero is caught between the two typical women--the saloon girl and a preacher's daughters--and the outcome clashes with what usually occurs in a western. If you enjoy westerns, you'll find that Newman handles with clichés with competence.

This is old formula Western, which of course is better than the new formula crap that was shoved down our throats from about 1965 till about 2000, whether we liked it or not.This was made in the days when the characters in the Westerns were written to look like mature grown up people who knew what rugged life was about. Lets face it. The spaghetti westerns ruined the genre for a quarter of a century, because the characters came across like spoiled brats who never walked outside of an arcade room.This Western is loosely about a fictional part of Bat Masterson's life. It would be better if it wasn't Bat, so we could accept the plausibility of the story, but that doesn't matter. This story is certainly more feasible than the "Tombstone" version of Wyatt Earp.What sells the story is the characters, the good and the bad guys. The two bad guys are very three dimensional. One is a little loco, so his fate is understandable.The final gunfight with the more rational bad guy at the end was what weighted this down. At the end, we see a change in the bad guy, not that he's good, but that he's somewhat alert to the changing of the times. I thought the final gunfight was contrived, and it would've been better with a more toned down ending.Still, it is the characters that make this worth watching.

Somehow this western did not come out right. It is not the fault of the actors, McCrea is as good as always and Julie Adams is better than in any film I have seen her. No problem with the story either. I did not like the action scenes, except when there is a fistfight between McCrea and Don Haggerty. The shootouts were too quick, no strategy whatsoever,and not dramatic enough. The director can be blamed for that. Comparing this film with "Colorado Territory" made in 1949, a great western with McCrea you get to the conclusion that instead of evolving, in some cases the westerns regressed. This was to be the final film made by McCrea in his career. Good thing, Peckinpah saved him from this sad goodbye.

Just what the audience could expect from director Newman: a routine action-packed western with veteran Joel McCrea as the legendary Bat Masterson. It is not so much the story that makes this film worth watching, but the appearance of Timothy Carey (uncredited-unbelievable!) as one of villain Haggerty's henchmen.