John Wayne’s final Western The Shootist could have ranked alongside Unforgiven had the star stuck to the original book. John Wayne fronted over 80 Westerns throughout his career and he was happily typecast as a cowboy. He stuck with the genre right to the end, with his final two movies being Westerns.

Of course, Wayne came up in a different era and hated how violent movies became around the 1970s. Wayne found The Wild Bunch’s bloodshed “distasteful,” and even dulled the violence of his most brutal movie, Big Jake, with some ill-placed comedy sequences. He was also, famously, not fond of Clint Eastwood’s Westerns.

Talk of a John Wayne/Clint Eastwood feud is largely overblown, though it’s true that the former pᴀssed on working with Clint due to his dislike of Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter. Eastwood remained an admirer of Wayne regardless, and even came to visit “The Duke” on the set of his final film, The Shootist.

The Shootist revolves around Wayne’s тιтular gunslinger, a legendary gunslinger dying of cancer. While it wasn’t necessarily intended as Wayne’s final big screen outing, ill health prevented him from working after it wrapped. It features one of his most vulnerable performances too, though the star made sure to sand the edges off the source material.

John Wayne’s The Shootist Could Have Been As Dark As Unforgiven

The Shootist novel is about the final days of a regretful killer

Wayne’s The Shootist opens with a montage of scenes from across his 50-year career, which, in a meta sense, establishes his character Books as a legend in his own right. The story details Books’ final days as he comes to terms with his impending death, his bloody legacy, and tries to do some good before the end.

While not a classic in the same way as The Searchers, The Shootist is still a solid little Western. The film gives Wayne’s character more depth than his average Western hero, and he is backed by a cast that includes James Stewart and Ron Howard as Books’ protégé Gillom.

An issue with the film is that, despite its premise, it never leans into the full darkness of the story. The film is about a bad man trying to earn a little redemption, but The Shootist novel is about a bad man burdened with regret and unable to escape his own past.

Glendon Swarthout’s book is a bleaker journey, and in the same way Eastwood took a self-reflective look at the myth of the Old West with Unforgiven, Wayne’s Shootist should have done the same. In the book, Books has more time to focus on his regrets, while the pain he endures from his cancer is given greater focus.

The biggest change between the film and novel is Gillom himself. In the book, the boy is established as being a violent brat going down a bad road, while Howard’s version is more of an innocent who idolizes Books. After the final shootout in the novel, Gillom kills the wounded Books for a chance to claim fame as a gunfighter.

In The Shootist’s ending, Books survives his final shootout only to be sH๏τ in the back. Gillom enters and kills Books’ attacker, but is so sickened by the act that he tosses the gun away; this lets the dying Books know Gillom won’t follow in his footsteps. However, the source material made it clear Gillom would become a “shootist” himself.

Wayne’s Protectiveness Of His Screen Image Hurt The Shootist

Wayne didn’t want to get too nasty for his last movie

Eastwood told a telling story about Wayne on an episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio, which was relayed to him by The Shootist director Don Siegel. During the finale, Books decides to end his life via a shootout with his three biggest rivals, and as originally scripted, he was meant to shoot one of them in the back.

Despite having sH๏τ characters from behind in films like Brannigan, Wayne refused to film The Shootist’s finale this way. After Siegel quipped that Eastwood would shoot the guy in the back, Wayne yelled, “I don’t care what that kid woulda done, I don’t shoot ’em in the back!“

Of course, the Books of the novel would have done so with zero guilt, as that’s the kind of character he is. The star liked his characters to live by certain codes and actions, so outside of rare occasions like The Searchers, Wayne rarely played morally questionable roles.

The Shootist was Wayne’s chance to play a more dubious character, but he didn’t want to experiment with his screen image that much. That’s why his Books is a more heroic figure and manages to achieve a little redemption before the end.

A Key Scene In Unforgiven Was Inspired By John Wayne’s Shootist Performance

One of Unforgiven’s most moving scenes was taken from The Shootist

While The Shootist isn’t as harsh as the novel, it still features a more stripped-back performance from Wayne. The film was also an inspiration on Unforgiven screenwriter David Webb Peoples, who wrote the original script in 1976. Peoples was touched by a scene where Books confesses his fear about dying, and wanted a similar moment in Unforgiven (via Yahoo!).

… when I started writing the film, the crux of it for me was the scene where Munny is lying there thinking that he’s dying. I just thought that no one had ever seen a tough guy like this be scared of dying unless it’s some kind of last minute thing. So that scene was important for me to write, and was very much influenced by The Shootist.

In Unforgiven, Eastwood’s “reformed” killer Munny receives a brutal beating from Gene Hackman’s sheriff. In the aftermath, he believes he’s going to die and opens up to his friend Ned (Morgan Freeman) about his fears about what comes next.

In both The Shootist and Unforgiven, it’s touching to see Wayne and Eastwood – two actors famous for their tough screen personas – play such vulnerable moments. It’s unclear if Eastwood himself was aware of this homage though, since People may not have mentioned his inspiration.

The Shootist Is Still A Great Final Performance From John Wayne

John Wayne’s last Western is a fitting sendoff

Wayne was offered roles in other movies like Steven Spielberg’s 1941 after he finished on The Shootist, but the veteran star struggled with his health in his final years. Having previously battled cancer in this life – and later pᴀssing away from the disease in 1979 – Wayne brings a real poignancy to his work as Books.

The Shootist would still be a solid Western without him starring, but Wayne’s performance elevates it to another level. With the film, he closed the book on a half-century career with grace and style – though it’s hard to escape the feeling it could have been even better had it stuck to the book.

Source: Inside the Actor’s Studio, Yahoo!