Winchester '73 | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster by Reynold Brown | |
Directed by | Anthony Mann |
Screenplay by | |
Story by | Stuart N. Lake |
Produced by | Aaron Rosenberg |
Starring | |
Cinematography | William H. Daniels |
Edited by | Edward Curtiss |
Music by | Joseph Gershenson (musical director) |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | Universal Pictures |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 92 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2,250,000 (US rentals)[1] |
Winchester '73 is a 1950 American Western film noir 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 that they made together, and was filmed in black and white. It is also the first film from which an actor received a percentage of the receipts, a practice 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 minor 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".[2]