Winchester '73

Winchester '73 is a 1950 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea and Stephen McNally. Written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is set in 1876 in a variety of famed western locations and follows the journey of a prized rifle from one ill-fated owner to another, as well as a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive. It is the first Western film collaboration between Mann and Stewart, the first of eight films they made together, and was filmed in black and white. It was also the first film where an actor received a percentage of the receipts, a practice since known as "points", as compensation. Among the film's cast of supporting actors, Rock Hudson portrays a Native American and Tony Curtis plays a besieged cavalry trooper, both in small roles at the beginning of their careers. The film received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Written American Western. 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". Plot Lin McAdam and Frankie Wilson are searching for Dutch Henry Brown, with whom Lin has a personal score to settle. They find him in a saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, but cannot fight due to the presence of Sheriff Wyatt Earp. Lin enters the town's Centennial shooting contest for a prized Winchester 1873 rifle. Lin wins and goes to his room at the boarding house to pack. There, Dutch ambushes him, steals the rifle, and rides away with two cohorts. 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. Dutch makes the trade and tries to get the rifle back by gambling the three hundred in a poker game against Lamont, but loses.