Lawman is a 1971 American Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan,
Lee J. Cobb, and Robert Duvall.
The film is about the quest of a lone peace officer,
Marshal Jared Maddox (played by Lancaster), to bring several men to justice.
It was written by Gerry Wilson and directed by Michael Winner.
Its hero and the motives of the other characters are not as defined
or clear-cut as in some Westerns.
Cobb's character, Vincent Bronson, is not a typically evil cattle baron
but is portrayed with a sense of humanity.
The marshal and the guilty men nevertheless come to a series of deadly confrontations.
Maddox can be seen as an anti-hero dedicated to upholding the law
regardless of any extraneous code of honor, or personal feelings.
The plot generates questions regarding honor and under
what circumstances murder becomes legal.
User Review
When You Uphold the Law
19 December 2005 | by bkoganbing (Buffalo, New York)
Display MoreTowards the end of Lawman, Burt Lancaster says that the towns
are getting fewer and fewer who need his kind of services.
I guess that's a comment on civilization's leavening influence.
You're a town marshal in the old west.
You're doing the job alone, maybe you have a deputy or two.
Burt says you got to stick to the rules, but as we see in Lawman he wings it quite a bit.
Lee J. Cobb and some of his employees and retainers from his town of Sabbath
shoot up Burt Lancaster's town of Bannock and one of Bannock's citizens is killed.
Lancaster trails them to Sabbath and arrives with one of them slung over a pack horse.
He gives the names to Sabbath's Sheriff Robert Ryan and the story begins.
Lancaster finds that the men he's trailing are all kinds, some professional gunmen,
some family men caught up in the moment.
Makes no matter to him, he's bringing them in.
One of them is the common law husband of a former girl friend,
Sheree North, who's settled in Sabbath.
Lawman is a pretty grim western tale.
It's kind of a cross between Edward Dmytryk's Warlock
and Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven.
Themes from both of those films can be found here.
Lancaster gets good support from the cast.
I particularly liked J.D. Cannon as Sheree North's husband and Richard Jordan
as the young cowhand from Lee J. Cobb's spread.
I think more than western fans will appreciate this film.