Taglines: Together they fought for survival… now their guns must turn against each other!
Showdown movie storyline. After a train robbery committed in New Mexico, a small gang sets-out to divide the loot. However, a disagreement over the shares causes one gang member, Billy Massey, to take the whole loot and run toward the Mexican border. The sheriff of Cumbres, Chuck Jarvis, learns of the train holdup and organizes a posse. Unfortunately, gang member Billy Massey is a very close childhood friend of the sheriff.
No matter how disappointed the sheriff is, he’s determined to do his duty and apprehend Billy. Local district attorney P. J. Wilson is a law-and-order hardliner with higher political aspirations. He demands the sheriff recover the railroad property immediately or else there will be consequences. Sheriff Chuck Jarvis hires a few Indian trackers and sets-out to find Billy. However, Billy’s former gang members are also looking for him to recover the loot.
Billy doubles-back to Cumbres and goes to the sheriff’s house. While the sheriff’s wife, Kate, serves Billy supper, the sheriff arrives and, after a short tense moment, persuades Billy to surrender and face a fair trial. With Billy in custody, sheriff Chuck Jarvis sends for the district judge and hires a lawyer for Billy. But strict district attorney P. J. Wilson is determined to hang Billy, no matter what. Now the sheriff has the double problem of protecting Billy’s life from the lynching mob instigated by Wilson and from Billy’s old gang members who are heading to town to kill Billy.
Showdown is a 1973 American Western film produced and directed by George Seaton and starring Rock Hudson, Dean Martin and Susan Clark. 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.
Showdown (1973)
Directed by: George Seaton
Starring: Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Susan Clark, Donald Moffat, John McLiam, Charles Baca, Jackson Kane, Ben Zeller, John Richard, Philip L. Mead, Rita Rogers, Vic Mohica, Raleigh Gardenhire
Screenplay by: Theodore Taylor
Production Design by: Donald Roberts
Cinematography by: Ernest Laszlo
Film Editing by: John W. Holmes
Costume Design by: Edith Head
Set Decoration by: George Milo
Art Direction by: Henry Bumstead, Alexander Golitzen
Music by: David Shire
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: June 20, 1973
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