Showdown (1973 film)

1973 film

June 20, 1973 (1973-06-20)

Running time

99 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

Showdown is a 1973 American Western film produced and directed by George Seaton and starring Rock Hudson, Dean Martin and Susan Clark.

Plot

Childhood friends Billy Massey and Chuck Jarvis go in opposite directions after Chuck ends up married to Billy's former sweetheart. Billy becomes a bank robber, Chuck a lawman. But they end up joining forces against common enemies in a final showdown. A series of life circumstances put two close childhood friends pitted against each other. The seemingly inevitable ending takes a twist that allows the friendship to continue after Billy commits an act of bravery that he knows is suicidal but saves Chuck's life.

Cast

Rock Hudson as Chuck Jarvis
Dean Martin as Billy Massey
Susan Clark as Kate Jarvis
Donald Moffat as Art Williams
John McLiam as F.J. Wilson
Charles Baca as Martinez
Jackson Kane as Clem
Ben Zeller as Perry Williams
John Richard Gill as Earl Cole
Philip L. Mead as Jack Bonney
Rita Rogers as Girl
Vic Mohica as Big Eye
Raleigh Gardenhire as Joe Williams
Ed Begley Jr. as Pook
Dan Boydston as Rawls

Production notes

It was the final film for Seaton, who three years earlier had directed Martin and an all-star cast in the blockbuster hit Airport. It was also Dean Martin's last western.

In a November 1972 episode of the TV series McMillan & Wife called “Cop of the Year,” McMillan (played by Hudson) visits the set of a Western film titled "Showdown" that is in production (directed by Seaton, who plays himself) to ask the special-effects supervisor about how to make a gunshot wound appear on the chest of a gunman—who, in the shot being filmed, is the victim in a showdown.

Reception

Quentin Tarantino later wrote that "the slightness of the whole project is surprising. But along with the pairing of Hudson & Martin, who share the screen for the first time, it’s the films low-key modesty that ends up being one of its most charming features."^[1] Leonard Maltin awarded this film two-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "agreeable but unexceptional."^[2]