Gun for a Coward (1956)

Gun for a Coward is a 1956 Universal-International western. Which means it was shot in colour and in Cinemascope.

The three Keogh brothers run a ranch left to them by their late father. The oldest brother, Will (Fred MacMurray) is in charge and he’s a father figure to the other two. The youngest brother, Hade (Dean Stockwell), is a bit wild but he’s OK. The other brother, Bless (Jeffrey Hunter), is not OK. He’s a coward.

It doesn’t take long for us to realise why he’s a coward. He’s a grown man but his mother treats him like a baby.

And we soon learn that there’s more to it than that. Mrs Keogh despised her late husband. She hates the ranch. She despises ranchers. She hates the West. She always thought she was too good to be a rancher’s wife. She doesn’t want Bless to be a rancher. She wants him to move to the city and become something respectable. A doctor or a lawyer.

And she doesn’t want him to be a man. The masculine world of ranching horrifies her. She despises her other two sons.

Every time Bless tries to be a man his mother undermines him. She humiliates him. She’s controlling and manipulative.

There’s potential for other kinds of trouble as well. It’s understood that Will is going to marry Aud Niven (Janice Rule), the pretty young daughter of a neighbour. They would make a fine couple. The problem is that young Bless is rather sweet on Aud as well. Even worse, she’s rather sweet on him. They really need to tell Will that Aud isn’t going to marry him, but they keep putting it off.

Without fully realising it Will and Hade have become somewhat over-protective of Bless. There’s a confrontation with another rancher. It’s a situation in which Bless desperately needs to fight his own battle for once, but Will and Hade just automatically step in and fight it for him. The sad truth is that even his own brothers don’t think Bless is man enough to fight his own battles.

Naturally Bless keeps getting into situations in which his behaviour looks like cowardice. He’s pretty good at rationalising it away. He thinks he’s being sensible and smart. But then two men are killed in separate incidents and his cowardice seems to have been a contributing factor. The interesting thing is that sometimes his behaviour really is sensible. The trouble is that backing down from a fight is not always the right thing to do.

Fred MacMurray was a very reliable actor and he’s excellent here. Will is a good man but he has a lot to deal with. He makes mistakes but he does his best. He’s an imperfect hero. Jeffrey Hunter does the tortured thing quite well. Dean Stockwell is very good as Hade. Hade is wild, undisciplined, hot-headed and impulsive. He will be OK, if he learns to exercise some judgment.

Janice Rule is OK although I found Aud to be a very unsympathetic heroine. She’s interesting. You expect a female character in a western to be a good girl or a bad girl. Aud is a misguided good girl. She thinks she’s helping Bless but she’s harming him. She thinks she’s trying to avoid hurting Will by not telling him she’s in love with Bless but in fact she’s going to hurt him a whole lot more by keeping it a secret. And she’s unable to recognise that at times her behaviour is simply selfish. She’s a seriously flawed good girl.

The three brothers represent different kinds of masculinity. Will is mature masculinity. He never goes looking for a fight. But if he has to fight he will fight, and he does possess considerable courage. Hade is immature masculinity. He hasn’t learnt that sometimes not backing down is just dumb. A man has to learn to recognise the times when he should fight and the times when he should just walk away. Hade is going to be in trouble unless he starts growing up soon.

Bless is masculinity gone wrong. He can’t accept that if you keep running away then people will keep provoking you because they know you won’t fight back. So rather than avoiding confrontation you’ll end up in more confrontations, and increasingly dangerous confrontations.

This is a movie that some modern viewers will have problems with since they’re not used to seeing subjects like masculinity and courage treated seriously and sympathetically. They might be inclined to sympathise with Aud who lets Bless know that she loves him even though he is a coward. I think Aud is dead wrong. That’s the sort of thing that will make a man hate himself for the rest of his life. She fails to realise that he can never have self-respect unless he overcomes his cowardice. He already has too many people protecting him and coddling him.

On the surface Gun for a Coward is a very routine western but if you dig a bit deeper you find that it has some subtlety and some intelligence. Highly recommended.

Umbrella released this movie on DVD in their excellent Six Shooter Classics series. It’s a very acceptable transfer.