Script review - "The Last Gun" by Walter Hill and Roger Spottiswoode (undated draft but I think 1979) (warning: spoilers)

A script I've always wanted to read, as Walter Hill tried to make it after Hard Times and came close - I think he only did The Warriors when this fell over. I'm not sure why he couldn't get finance - maybe the time period of 1915 scared people off. Maybe he couldn't get a star. Westerns weren't terribly fashionable in 1979 - but then Hill did get to make The Long Riders.

Anyway it's written in Hill's staccato haiku style - short sentences, one sentence paragraphs. (I will say "Hill" even though the script is him and Roger Spottiswoode). This makes the script very easy to read - even if page length blows out to 124 pages it fairly skips along. It's a simple story with not that many characters and it is very easy to cast in the mind - you can see why Hill was a successful screenwriter for so long.

The script is divided into parts with each part getting a title page plus a quote from the book of bushido. Classy!

Part One

It is set in 1915 though really could have been set in the old West - characters do often reference things like "we don't hang anymore" and "we don't use bounty hunters any more" and there are some cars and phones.

The lead character is Ronin - and there's a brief explanation at the front of the script as to what ronin were, as presumably they weren't that well known in 1979 Hollywood. The hero here isn't a Japanese (well, presumably isn't as no one comments on it) but he's still called Ronin. This is the star part, easily playable by Clint, or Steve McQ or Charles Bronson... reading this it feels a natural especially for Bronson and I got angry at old Charles for sooking over Hill's trimming of Jill Ireland's scenes in Hard Times because Bronson and Hill should have made more movies together.

Lovely character descriptions of him: "He's been there. Saw it happen. Usually took part. Veteran of undeclared wars. Survivor of unnamed battles. Unspoken code, interior grace. By his walk and manner he's one of the special ones."

That's how you describe a star part!

Ronin arrives in Monroe City in the south west. He meets police chief Harry Walker (dapper man in his early 30s - juicy role) and patrolman Moon Grady. He's in town to collect Gishboy Combs, who raped a girl, got two years in work gang but only served five months. Problem is, Gishboy is the son of wealthy Preston Combs. Ronin is a bounty hunter wanting a thousand dollars reward.

Like Ronin, Preston is a familiar type - the wealthy rancher, worthy of respect as an adversary, sticking up for his useless rape-happy son. Preston actually tells Ronin "now get off my land".

Ronin goes and buys a horse, Preston warns his son about Ronin then sends people to warn off Ronin, and Ronin beats them up. Ronin then goes looking for Gishboy. He crosses with an old boozer called Sloane whose daughter Aggie has run off with Gishboy. Ronin finds Gishboy and his mates, who are with Aggie. After a shoot out he gets the kid and Aggie. Preston steps into action and gets a posse of men to go rescue his son.

Ronin and the others cross through a town of Eloy where they meet Arthur Dempsey, "a big aging man with a lot of weather in his face." Dempsey guesses Ronin's identity by his habit of putting a rope around his prisoner's neck. Ronin recognises Dempsey's name - he almost went after him once. Dempsey is I guess the Warren Oates part - a flashy support role and the most interesting because you're genuinely never sure if he's going to betray Ronin or not.

Meanwhile Preston crosses with Sloane who waves a gun at him to Preston shoots him. It's not exactly a bad ass act on Preston's part. Dempsey offers Ronin to help and Ronin agrees.

Part Two

Our heroes cross with some hired guns and there's a shoot out - involving a truck, which is novel. They arrive back in Monroe, where Walker (the police chief) isn't exactly excited to see them - he knows this will mean a shoot out. Walker is the other good role in this script because like Dempsey you're not sure if he's going to be good or bad. Aggie, the girl, isn't as memorable maybe because she's just feisty and hangs around a little like Deborah Van Valkenberg's part in The Warriors. I did like Ronin's brief no-nonsense fling with the landlady Mrs Applegate.

Preston arrives in town, sees his son who he clearly has little time for, but family is family, so he tells Ronin he's going to come in and get the little turd, with guns. Dempsey has offered Walker to steal the son for Preston but Walker refuses. Dempsey decides to fight it out.

There's a lovely night-before-the-battle sequence where Dempsey goes off to a brothel, Preston reflects on his dead wife, Aggie asks Ronin if he can go to her father's funeral even though she didn't like her dad, and Walker is wistful to Ronin about the upcoming battle.

Part Three

Preston rides into town. Ronin attends the funeral of Aggie's dad. Ronin and Walker take Gishboy out of the cell, have him shaved, Dempsey puts on a deputy's badge, we cross between various parties.

There's a big shoot out with Ronin kicking a lot of arse, helped out by Dempsey and Walker. I was hoping for Aggie to join in a little and thinking one of Aggie, Walker or Dempsey really should have died and/or turned traitor - it would have seemed more fitting, and/or made things a little harder for Ronin who at times is a bit too much of a superman.

 There's a neat finale where Ronin puts up Gishboy on the gallows in a stand off with Preston - making Walker shoot at Ronin because hanging Gishboy is against the law (a neat dilemma for Walker but Dempsey persuades him not to go all the way). Ronin ends up shooting Preston dead then hanging Gishboy - only it's deliberately an extra long rope so Gishboy lives.

In the end Ronin hands over Gishboy to Dempster to collect the reward, suggesting he give some of it to Aggie (who has kind of a burgeoning romance with Moon, the patrolman). There's vague hints that Ronin had some personal stake in this quest to do with the girl that Gishboy raped (Preston asks him the question early on but it's avoided) but the writers keep it a mystery.

Ronin goes off into the sunset via train. No departing scene with Walker or Mrs Applegate but one with Aggie, Dempster and Moon.

An exciting tight script. I wish Aggie had done more and it had been harder for Ronin but you can definitely see the movie. It's better than, say, Last Man Standing.