Friday | February 28, 2014 9:00 pm

Gunman's Walk

Screening on Film

Directed by Phil Karlson.
With Van Heflin, Tab Hunter, Kathryn Grant.
US, 1958, 35mm, color, 97 min.
Print source: Sony Pictures

Gunman’s Walk will unfortunately never be seen in a double – or better, a triple – bill with Rebel without a Cause or Saddle the Wind. A film that plays out oedipal scenarios as well as any in the canon, it portrays confrontation with unparalleled Freudian resonance. Director Phil Karlson makes two generations collide, father and widower Lee Hackett (Van Heflin – think of The Prowler) at odds with his blue-eyed boy Ed (Tab Hunter), rival of his good brother Davy (James Darren) for love-object Clee Chouard (Kathryn Grant). An unparalleled period piece that defines what then was the classic virtue of the adult Western.