In a movie made previously, "The Gunfighter" (1950), the point is made that having a reputation as a gunslinger is a curse, because there is always some punk who wants to prove he is faster. This is the premise of "The Fastest Gun Alive." Through most of the movie, we believe that George is trying to give up his gunslinging ways because his wife Dora has insisted on it, and therefore he is pretending to be just an ordinary citizen. When his need for respect leads him to show off his skills with a gun, word gets out, and Vinnie, another gunslinger, comes looking for him. The townsfolk plead with Dora to release George from his promise to her, so he can kill Vinnie, who is terrorizing the town. That is when we find out that she does not care if George kills Vinnie or anyone else with his gun. The problem is that George is a coward who has never been in a gunfight, and she is simply tired of running from town to town whenever George starts showing off and word gets out that he is fast on the draw. This is such a reversal from the usual story of the gunfighter with a guilty past who wants to hang up his guns that most people forget about this twist ending when they think about the movie years later.
Review of The Fastest Gun Alive
