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PRESS REVIEW
Some movies create their own
legends. Shane was one such film, perhaps
the best of all in the genre of a troubled
gunman trying to become a hero. The
Outlaw Josey Wales, on the other hand,
is the tale of a good man turned bad by
a chain of events set into motion as the
Civil War begins to wind down in 1865.
Josey wales, however, is not a bad man, not
in the classic sense like Clint Eastwood’s
portrayal of retired outlawWilliamMunny
in Unforgiven. Rather, Wales is a man
driven to murder, whose only true recourse
is to pick up a gun, poignantly relealed
as Eastwood digs through the ashes of
his burned-out homestead to uncover a
charred Colt pistol, and pursue the men
who have destroyed his life.
What sets Josey Wales apart is
that the killings in this film are not for
vengeance, but rather retribution. “Hosey
Wales is a hero,” says Eastwood. “You see
how he gets to where he is, rather than
just having a mysterious hero appear on
the plains and become involved in other
people’s plight.” Wales is, in the worst
possible way, the hero of his own like, and
how that life plays out in the 1976 film
directed by Eastwood is dramatic, and at
times strikingly harsh.
Despi te the ease wi th which
Eastwood’s character is willing to gun down
anyone who stands in his way, or wrong
those to whom he has taken a liking, Josey
wales is fundamentally compassionate and
altruistic, a well-armed shepherd who
tends to the weak. This complexity of anger
and betrayal in conflict with a deep sense
of morality makes Josey wales the best
character Eastwood has ever portrayed in
a western, with the exception of William
Munny in Unforgiven.
The emot ional scales t ipping
between rage and righteousness
underscores the gunplay in
every scene where Eastwood is
engaged, and reaches a climax
when he continues to fire empty
guns, almost involuntarily
one after another, first the
Walkers, then the 1860 Army,
and last the pocket pistol, while
advancing on the man who had
killed his family in 1865.
But it is with the saber
of Union Captain “Redlegs”
Terrill, played to malevolent perfection
by Bill McKinney, that Wales exacts his
final retribution. It is with Terrill’s chilling
death, reflected in a look astonishment that
washes over Eastwood’s face, that Josey
Wales regains his humanity. Where fact
and fiction collide in The Outlaw Josey
Wales is in the timeline, a problem often
encountered in westerns set immediately
after the Civil War. Based on the 1973
Forrest Carter novel, The Rebel Outlaw
Josey Wales, the guns used in the film not
only change from time to time but seem
to defy time.
With a story that spans a period of
perhaps two years, beginning at the end of
The War Between the States, Wales makes
his way from Missouri to Texas following
the murder of his wife and son by Union
soldiers, led by “Rdlegs” Terrill. Left for
dead by Terrill, wales survives his wounds,
buries his wife and son, and then, as he sifts
through the charred ruins of his log cabin,
retrieves a gun from the ashes, a miracle
gun; because it is a Richards-Mason 1860
army conversion, a Colt revolver that
would not exist until 1873. This gun
only appears briefly in a couple of scenes
with Eastwood, but Richards Type I and
Richards-Mason Colt conversions from
the 1870s show up in the hands of more
— Guns Of The Old West, Spring 2007 —
by Dennis Adler
The 4 Guns of Josey Wales
A brace of Walkers, an 1860 Army and 1874 Sharps with a scope !
The guns of Josey Wales: A pair of 1847 Walker
Colts in cut down Confederate holsters, a Colt
Pocket Pistol, a cut down 1860 Army in a
shoulder holster, and Sharps rifle.
In one of the few scenes where the Walters are
shown in an action close-up, it is obvious that
the guns have been converted to fire blank
cartridges as the cylinders have neither nipples
nor percussion caps ! In the famous picture of
Clint Eastwood as Josey Wales, the Walkers
clearly are percussion guns.