The Shooting

Plot synopsis:
Willet Gashade (Oates), a former bounty hunter, returns to his small mining camp after a lengthy absence and finds his slow-witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins) in a state of fear. Coley explains to Gashade that their partner, Leland Drum (B. J. Merholz), had been shot to death two days before by an unseen assassin. The killing was possibly committed in revenge for the accidental trampling death of "a little person" in town, which may have been caused by Gashade's brother, Coin. Coin had inexplicably rushed away from their camp moments before the shooting death. Gashade and Coley become increasingly paranoid, and Gashade takes his friend's gun away from him.
The following day, a young woman (Perkins) shoots her horse to death immediately outside of the camp. The sound of the gunshot temporarily sends the frightened Coley into hiding. Gashade examines the dead horse and notes that it appeared to be perfectly healthy. The woman offers Gashade a thousand dollars to lead her to a place called Kingsley. Although openly distrustful of her, he grudgingly accepts the offer. Coley, apparently smitten by the woman, accompanies them.
The young woman is rude and insulting to both Gashade and Coley. She refuses to tell them her name. The three stop briefly in Crosstree. Gashade learns that Coin was seen there only a day or two before. As they continue traveling slowly through the hot desert, Gashade observes that they are being followed by a stranger dressed in black, Billy Spear (Nicholson), who continues to keep his distance from them. Gashade sees that the woman appears to be signaling to the man. Coley makes attempts to talk to the woman but she continually taunts and insults him. She also repeatedly refuses to answer any of Gashade's questions regarding the purpose of their journey.
At night, Spear suddenly walks into their camp and joins them. Hired by the woman as a gunslinger for reasons unknown, Spear is suspicious and hostile toward Gashade and contemptuous of Coley. He repeatedly threatens both of their lives. Gashade advises Coley to keep away from Spear.
The woman rides her horse hard. When it dies of exhaustion, Coley gives his horse to the woman and Gashade allows Coley to ride with him. Later, the woman loses the trail and asks Gashade to lead on. Gashade's horse shows signs of fatigue so Gashade tells Coley to join the woman on her horse, but Spear forbids him from doing so. The woman says that the journey would be much easier without Coley. She and Spear demand that he be left behind. Gashade, under threat by Spear, reluctantly agrees and tells Coley he will come back for him soon.
The three see a bearded man (Charles Eastman) sitting in the middle of the desert nursing a broken leg. The man tells the woman that the person she is seeking is only one day's ride away. She leaves him a canteen of water. Meanwhile, the bearded man's lost horse is found by Coley. He mounts the horse, and rides back to the group. He charges Spear. Spear shoots him dead. Gashade buries his friend in the sand.
All of the horses die. The group runs out of water, but they still keep moving. Gashade sees Spear growing weaker and attacks him. After knocking him unconscious, Gashade grabs a large rock and crushes the killer's gun hand. Gashade walks after the woman, who is now closely following a man up the side of a rock formation. The man turns around and Gashade sees that the man is his look-alike brother, Coin. Gashade attempts to tackle the woman as she pulls out a gun and takes aim at Coin, but it is too late: Coin and the woman shoot each other dead. Gashade, lying next to the woman's corpse, whispers, "Coin." Spear stumbles aimlessly under the hot sun.

Tags: murder, allegory, cult, violence, tragedy, revenge

Review:
By 1967 the ripples Leone's movies are about to make in the American film-making business are around the corner, which leaves The Shooting hanging in a peculiar time and place.
As Warren Oates, Jack Nicholson (in an early role here but showing the potential he would fulfill later on in his career) travel through the barren desert, in search of something or someone, The Shooting slowly but gradually peels back the layers of conventional film-making to reveal an off-beat, gritty and fascinating movie.
Some of the editing used by Hellman (day to night and vice versa) only serves to disorient the viewer more.Not only is this a rare, one of a kind western but in all its psychotronic, b-movie glory, it's one of the best of its kind America has to offer.
Their greatest collaborations were the two 1960s westerns 'Ride In The Whirlwind' and 'The Shooting', filmed simultaneously, but released separately.
Both movies are close to being masterpieces, but rarely get mentioned except by other film makers, like Quentin Tarantino, who is a major fan, and enlisted Hellman's help in getting his debut 'Reservoir Dogs' to the big screen.
Not just Nicholson, and the legendary Warren Oates, but also Will Hutchins (of 50s TV western 'Sugarfoot'), and the beautiful Millie Perkins, who also appeared with Nicholson in 'Ride In The Whirlwind', though her role here is much more substantial and impressive.
Willet and Coley are approached by a woman(we had seen her shoot her horse for no obvious reason) who offers $1000 to be escorted to Kingsley but refuses to reveal her name.They travel toward Crosstree where Leland learns Coin bought a horse 2 days ago.
His relation to the woman is unclear.They encounter day-old horse tracks as Billy and Coley threaten each other.
The elements continue to take its toll on people and animals.The woman rides while the men follow on foot.Willet charges at Billy, tosses his gun away,beats him and crushes his hand with a rock.
This especial Western with allegoric qualities deals with a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins who wore a hairpiece) bent on vengeance , she forms a group (Will Hutchins and Warren Oates who in his biography he said that he had a crush on co-star Millie) to escort her across a warming desert .
Later on , the posse is joined to a cocky gunfighter (Jack Nicholson) until a surprising finale.Outlandish and difficult western is packed with thrills , exciting pursuits , noisy gun-play and strong performances .
His movies are full of similarly independent-minded stars as Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates (his habitual actor) and result to be appreciated by the critics but virtually suffer lukewarm reception by the public .
Later on , Hellman has not got his balance right , film-making flops as the Western ¨China 9, Liberty 37 (1979)¨, adventures ¨Iguana (88) and commercial terror as ¨Silent night, deadly night 3 (1989)¨.
In Monte Hellman's subversive western The Shooting, just released for the first time on DVD, Warren Oates is Willett Gashade, a bounty hunter turned mine owner who returns to find his brother Coin missing, his partner dead, and a fellow worker in a state of panic.
Hellman shot the film on a limited budget in eighteen days in the desert country near Kanab, Utah with B-movie producer Roger Corman and a young actor named Jack Nicholson.
Slow-witted but good humored Coley (Will Hutchins) is fearful as he tells Gashade that he was asleep when he heard an argument between Willett's partner Leland Drum and Coin.
He says that Colin fled, and Leland was shot dead by an unseen gunman and tells Gashade something about Coin having ridden down "a man and a little person, maybe a child," but Coley's not sure about that.
Soon, a woman (Millie Perkins) who is not named arrives and offers to pay Gashade to guide her to Kingsley, a town that lies some hours away, beyond a dangerous desert.
Along the way, Coley, Willett and the woman meet up with Billy Spears (Nicholson), a nattily dressed gunman with a sadistic smirk, and it becomes apparent that the purpose of the journey may be to track down the person or persons responsible for shooting Leland.
Whatever its ultimate meaning, The Shooting is an involving ride full of twists and turns and Jack Nicholson's mighty performance as Billy is worth the price of admission.
Actually the meaning may be revealed when Gashade says to Millie, "If I heard your name I wouldn't know it, would I?" She says, "No." Then he says, "then I don't see no point to it." She says, "there isn't any." Perhaps like life, The Shooting doesn't mean anything.
Most casual film viewers will find Monte Hellman's "The Shooting" to be slow, boring, and pretentious.
Weird desert-survival 60's Western with Jack Nicholson & Warren Oates.
The story involves two men (Warren Oates and Will Hutchins) who are hired by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) to accompany her to a town located many miles across the Utah desert.
The movie is also a must for anyone who likes lost-in-the-desert flicks.While the ending seems nonsensical, the answers are there, if you look closely and chew on the details...
Since this is so, why didn't the woman assume Willett (Oates) was the person who killed her child since he looks exactly like the one who did, Coin?
It was shot on a more-or-less-comparable shoestring budget alongside Ride in the Whirlwind by Monte Hellman, and both feature actors like Harry Dean Stanton, Millie Perkins, Warren Oates, and of course Jack Nicholson.
Oates plays a cowboy who along with a slightly dim but alert younger cowboy are hired by a woman (just called Woman, played by Perkins with a bit of a b***h streak in a so-so turn almost in spite of a great presence to her character) who wants them to take her across a ways to a small town.
Why they're hired they can't figure, and it bugs Oates all the more when another fellow starts to follow them: Billy (Nicholson), a bounty hunter with few words, black gloves and a streak of tough-guy talk whenever he speaks, follows along with them also getting a cut of the stake at hand from the Woman.
And the climax, while at the very end needlessly ambiguous to what may or may not be a twin or revenge or whatever (not that it detracts from the mood much), has also a spirit that goes aways to make this just a tinge more than what we're expecting, from the performances and the script.It takes a little while to start, but once the halfway mark comes and Nicholson comes on the scene- in possibly his first significant bad-ass role- it improves into something like a precursor to the recent Seraphim Falls.
With her little girl face, she is totally not convincing as a hardened female gunslinger."The Shooting" is a slow moving, low-key Western with some great visuals and a fine performance by Will Hutchins.
Monte Hellman directed this strikingly unique, original, yet experimental western that stars Millie Perkins as a mysterious woman with no revealed name who hires two cowboys named Willit & Coley(played by Warren Oates & Will Hutchins) to track down a man for mysterious reasons, though it appears to be Willit's brother who may have been involved in an accidental death with another cowboy who is later shot dead.
Jack Nicholson costars as a cold-blooded gunfighter assisting the woman in the hunt, which leads them to the barren hot desert and a surprise ending, which will no doubt either intrigue or infuriate the viewer, but fine acting and direction keep it on track, especially by Perkins..
How exactly do you make a film with Jack Nicholson in it this bad?Millie Perkins plays a woman of mystery who shoots her perfectly healthy horse because she said it had a broken leg, then she offers the guy who comes running at the sound of the gunshot - Gashade (Warren Oates) - big money to lead her across the desert to a place named Kingsley.
The girl is rude, makes stupid decisions, and refuses to explain herself, the gunslinger keeps threatening to kill everybody for no particular reason, they are following somebody but the girl won't tell them who it is, and for some reason - maybe curiosity, maybe Darwin at work - Gashade won't turn back and just say, in the words of Han Solo, "No reward is worth this!"The dialogue is non-existent, the acting is bad, and the girl has some kind of aversion to being touched even when it is to render her aid when she faints.
Willett Gashade (the late, great Warren Oates) and Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins) are two cowboy associates, hired by a mysterious young woman (Millie Perkins) who refuses to give her name.
The stakes get raised when a newcomer joins them on the journey: a hired gun named Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson), who similarly chooses to be rather cagey.Under appreciated filmmaker Monte Hellman is just one of many who began his career working for the legendary Roger Corman.
With Corman as the (uncredited) executive producer, and Nicholson and Hellman as producers, this was filmed simultaneously with another indie Western, "Ride in the Whirlwind", but released separately.
The woman who hires Oates to find the person who accidentally killed what is probably her son or brother, leaves no doubt as to her madness in the desert.
Warren Oates and his skittish cohort Will Hutchins are hired by Millie Perkins (the star of "The Diary of Anne Frank") to help her navigate the desert to the next urban centre, or so she says.
Willet Gashade (Warren Oates), a former bounty hunter, returns to his small mining camp after a lengthy absence and finds his slow-witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins) in a state of fear.
I just sat threw this drek of a film at my buddies place for movie night.Yeah it's true the dialogue is either horrendous or just plain unintelligible...yeah that coke that ends up on the desert..i think Nicholson and Hellmen sniffed it while making this film.
For people who always like to watch the next "best" "cult-movie" this western may be a work of art.
Bounty hunter turned miner Warren Oates returns from a trip to find one of his partners dead and his brother on the run, after a drunken incident in town that apparently killed a man and a child.Offered a large sum of money to escort prissy mystery woman Millie Perkins across the desert, it soon becomes clear that Oates and his dim-witted partner Will Hutchins are being manipulated into tracking his fugitive brother.Co-produced and co-starring a young Jack Nicholson, this is an intelligent western picture that's equally at home in the drive-in or the art house, with great performances and a simple yet compelling script.If you haven't seen this, be prepared for the abrupt finale which on the first viewing prompts many to scramble for the rewind button.Shot at the same time as the Nicholson scripted Ride In The Whirlwind, this is pretty much acknowledged as the superior of the two films, though Whirlwind (the more traditional of the two) is also definitely worth watching..
I have absolutely no idea what this extremely slow Western saga is about.Who are these people?Why does Jack Nicholson have a perpetual sneer on his face?Who's idea was it to make this movie,anyway?Although,this film is certainly not for everyone,in my opinion this is the weakest of Jack's early performances.When you see him play Poet in "Hells Angels on Wheels" or even his role with Karloff in "The Raven",you knew you were watching something special and the beginning of a great career,but this one is just incredibly slow and practically unwatchable..
It was a Low-Budget ($75,000) Movie with the help of an Uncredited Roger Corman.All four Actors give believable, Edgy Performances with Warren Oates, Jack Nicholson, Will Hutchins, and Millie Perkins delivering Dialog that smacks of Western Slang along with Gritty Insight and Existential Exuberance.Nothing on the surface is Clear and the Dusty Terrain adds to the Obscurity.
Mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) hires two men, former bounty hunter Willet Gashade (Warren Oates) and his slow witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins) to accompany her to a town located on the other side of the desert.
There isn't much backstory of the characters and not much dialogue, but actors (especially Warren Oates and Jack Nicholson) fill the parts enough substance to make them interesting.
Monte Hellman and Nicholson tried make something different in this dry western where has a always fine Warren Oates on an outstanding performance,in other hand Millie Perkins as a mysterious girl who came from nowhere and no name and later appear a gunfighter and all them in pursit the unknown killer.....the final scene has a enigmatic ending,missundertood maybe....but a unique certanly!!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.
A mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) finds herself at the camp after shooting her lame horse.
Willet (Warren Oates) returns to his claim only to find that his partner is dead, his brother gone and a simple-minded young man minding the place.
If he doesn't go with them under that pretense, they will be out to kill him before he gets to Coin.That much is clear.Now,as for another poster's question: why the woman wouldn't shoot Will Gashade on sight when he looks exactly like Coin, I couldn't say.
Maybe it's because I've seen El Topo, the bar-none king of incomprehensible Westerns, but The Shooting is lucid, well-plotted, and perfectly understandable if you're willing to just think a leeeeetle bit as the movie unrolls.Warren Oates is his classic surly self, grumping his way through a taciturn Western with an idiotic associate he feels slightly responsible for, a cranky woman who is dragging him through the desert as her guide on a quest for vengeance against the man who killed her husband and son (Coin, Oates' brother, as set up in the first three minutes of the movie), and a psychotic hired gun played by Nicholson, who was obviously enjoying the hell out of the whole thing.The beauty of The Shooting is in its spartan simplicity -- it's a story stripped down to the minimum, a Western bleached to the bone by the relentless desert sun.
and who shoots who in the end.The performance of "the woman" is a very difficult role and done quite well by Millie Perkins.
Everyone lives and dies having known only part of the story they've lived through.Some clues in the movie that I think have been missed by many are as follows: The woman is more disturbed than would seem to be appropriate for being simply distraught over the death of husband and child.
The woman (Millie Perkins) must have let the mule go free, but what happened to Coley's horse in the desert?
Now, in the movie, we're confronted with characters whose identities remain puzzling, especially the woman, Billie and the bearded man.
Instead, we're simply confronted with their raw existence, in much the same way as Coley and Willett are confronted by the raw existence of the woman, Billie, and the bearded man.
If this sounds pretty bleak, so is a movie that I can't imagine playing in a downtown theatre of the time.Naturally, viewers don't have to take such claims as true of the real world in order to take the film as reflecting these philosophical points of view.
This movie is the best western I've seen in a long time despite its obviously low budget.
Westerns are wonderful films, completely native to American film making and Hellmans aim was to make something different, The Shooting is a product of originality and I urge people to give it another viewing!!!
THE SHOOTING is a very low budget American western directed by cult favourite Monte Hellman, a former Roger Corman man.
This features Will Hutchins and Warren Oates in the lead roles, playing a couple of cowboys who are employed by the pretty Millie Perkins to guide her across an arid desert landscape in pursuit of a fugitive.This entire film consists of a handful of characters, their horses, and the harsh Utah landscapes.
A reluctant bounty hunter (Warren Oates) and his naive hireling (Will Hutchins) are hired by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) to help her track down an unknown man.
But in this one it just feels like Hellman's odd fascination with Perkins (who starred in quite a few of his more serious films) is undermining things.Right up to the rather rushed existential ending, which anybody with half a brain can see coming a mile away, and the whole scene with Perkins rushing up the hill after this man (reminiscent of Jennifer Jones in "Duel in the Sun"), the film kept me glued to the set.
Like the bearded man - what was his role in the story?I would have given this movie a 1 or a 2 rating if not for the cinematography, which is very good considering the budget and quality of equipment they had to work with..
I have to take my hat off to Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates for everything that they achieved prior to this movie and later on but this is something that is not worth watching.
After reading many reviews of this western, I want to go on record as saying I thought it was one of the biggest wastes of my time I've ever spent viewing a movie.I like the kind of show where you spend the early part of the film wondering how this and that will tie together, and why so-and-so did what they did.
Shrewd bounty hunter Willett Gashade (the incomparable Warren Oates, who's splendid in his first meaty lead role) and his dimwitted partner Coley (amiable Will Hutchins) are hired by an angry and mysterious woman (well played with fierce intensity by Millie Perkins) to track down a man who has run off into the desert.