Before World War II, Jimmy Stewart embodied the idyllic American in classics like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Philadelphia Story. After the war, when the legendary actor served as a combat pilot, Stewart’s films began to reflect the authentic, downbeat portrait of America following the global conflict. While It’s a Wonderful Life was the first film to subvert his wholehearted screen persona in a brooding morality fable, it wasn’t until Stewart went to the Old West that audiences realized how mean and unscrupulous Stewart could be.
When director Anthony Mann first got his hands on Stewart, not only did they develop a prolific partnership through the 1950s, but he also tapped into the earnest everyman’s lingering post-war trauma. Winchester ’73, the first collaboration between Stewart and Mann, and a foundational modern Western, blended film noir with a Western backdrop while examining the nation’s aimless drift toward violence.
WWII Had a Big Impact on Jimmy Stewart’s Career

Image via Universal Pictures

While American culture, culminating in the boom in suburban, white picket fence residency in the ’50s, presented itself as a utopia following the war, the trauma of combat and bloodshed simmered beneath the surface. Even though America and the Allied nations were declared “victorious” in the conflict, war atrocities against civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unshakable. The dark, seedy underbelly of American life served as the basis for film noir, which saw a surge in popularity following the war. The shadowy imagery, inscrutable plots and character motivations, and unlawful behavior by everyday people evoked a nation reeling from the malaise of war.

Related

Jimmy Stewart’s ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ Remains Urgent and Necessary, 85 Years Later

Frank Capra’s classic hasn’t aged a day.

The horrors of war were such a psychological burden to Jimmy Stewart that his aptitude for playing the wholesome, plucky do-gooders in Frank Capra movies was in jeopardy upon returning to the home front. According to Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies, Winchester ’73 saved Stewart’s career after a string of flops since his return to acting. More than his star credibility, the Anthony Mann film was an essential turning point in his career, as it satisfied his urge to pursue darker material. “If I hadn’t starred in and done Westerns, I don’t think I would’ve made it,” Stewart once stated. The film follows a cowboy, Lin McAdam (Stewart), who wins the coveted titular rifle in a shooting contest. Upon being stolen by a group of bandits, Lin embarks on an obsessive quest to retrieve the gun, which lands in the hands of various groups of people in the Old West.
‘Winchester ’73’ Examines the West Through a Film Noir Lens

Winchester ’73 established a decade-long collaboration between Stewart and Mann, the latter being the first director to expand Stewart’s oeuvre and performance range. Stewart’s dark side, further explored by Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford, is set against a picaresque journey familiar to the Western genre. Lin’s unyielding desire to obtain the Winchester ’73 evokes the war-centric ideology permeating the nation at the time, even though all parties had surrendered in WWII. Before Clint Eastwood forever deconstructed the nobility of Western outlaws in Unforgiven, Mann underscored the violent disposition of the West.
More potent than the utility of the gun itself, for Lin, the rifle represents power — and most sobering of all, meaning — to his aimless life as a drifting cowboy. The blend of classical Western tropes with confrontational commentary on the genre and general American life gives Winchester ’73 an incredibly modern feel. While the titular firearm is deemed “the gun that won the West,” Mann demonstrates that its power and influence only underscores the violence and distrust that the nation was founded upon.

The 1950 film is a triumph of hybrid filmmaking, as it crosses classic Westerns with the most viable genre at the time, film noir. Director Anthony Mann, who previously directed Raw Deal and He Walked by Night, began as a noir filmmaker, and he brought the mysterious and downbeat sensibilities to Winchester ’73. Like the archetypal hard-boiled detective, Lin McAdam is unknowable, but his psychological burden and obsessive streak is conveyed through subtle characterization. The search and constant changing of hands of the Winchester ’73 evokes the ominous chase for the titular bird statue in The Maltese Falcon. The best noirs show its unflinching protagonists succumbing to their own personal demons, and in Winchester ’73, Lin is not defending the open land or interested in serving justice, but rather, grappling with his violent urges and thirst for revenge against his father’s killer.
Film noir helped popularize the anti-hero archetype, and Jimmy Stewart’s Lin McAdam is the quintessential morally gray protagonist. Because his screen persona is rooted in being the friendly everyman, you are naturally drawn to rooting for the character. When, toward the end of the film, Lin pins down a patron in a bar and twists his arm in rage, the audience is completely shell-shocked. In Winchester ’73, the West provides few good guys — only ones who are less morally reprehensible.
Winchester ’73 is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
Rent on Prime Video

Winchester ’73

Release Date

July 12, 1950

Runtime

92 Minutes

Director

Anthony Mann

Stream