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Invitation to a Gunfighter is another of Hollywood's celluloid statements on the condition of mankind, and Yul Brynner manages to carry off the part of a Creole Octaroon gunfighter very well despite the ofttimes mind boggling plot and the poor scripting. Filmed in 1964, it utilized Brynner in yet another of his several Gunfighter roles, where he plays an enigmatic, cultured, good-guy/bad-guy character with a past. George Segal is very badly miscast as a displaced Confederate soldier just returned from the war to find his ancestral home sold out from under him by a corrupt Mayor, played by Pat Hingle. The girl he loved (played by Janice Rule) has married another man to spite him for leaving to fight for the Confederacy. The town hates him for being what he is, and when he tries to reclaim his rightful property and kills the new tenant in self defense, he is branded an outlaw, and the town decides to hire a gunslinger to take him out. Yul Brynner plays Jules Gaspard D'Estaing, a highly skilled, dispassionate New Orleans gunslinger who happens to be in the wrong place at the right time. The gunslinger the town hired arrives on the stage, takes one good look at Brynner, and takes off for the hills, unwilling to risk his life to make a few bucks. The obvious fear of the scrawny gunman at seeing the man in black impresses the town, who then hire Brynner to get rid of their nemesis. In the meantime, Brynner has spotted the attractive and perennially sad wife of the town's storekeeper, for whom she feels a sort of melancholy responsibility (the storekeeper returned from the war without his arm, and can no longer play the harpsichord). As the supposedly fickle lady love who jilted the Reb, Janice Rule is at first shocked, then deeply affected by the gunslinger's intense and obvious interest. Brynner's personal agenda seems to be geared toward pursuing and capturing the beautiful lady more than putting a period to the existence of her ex-lover. Refined and eloquent, with a poetic turn and an elegance that would rest well in an eastern salon instead of a rough western town, Brynner does his level best to remove her neurotic, pathetic husband as competition without actually putting a slug in him (that happens later). He doesn't count on the fact that the lady is still in love with the Reb. The plot twists and turns, and when Brynner actually tells the lovely lady where he got his elegant French name, and why he is a gunslinger, she is shocked, but hardly repulsed. Part of the interest in the film comes from her edgily breathless attraction to the man who has been hired to kill the man she loves, and her steadfast loyalty to a husband she doesn't love, and who doesn't deserve her. He promises that he will not kill her Reb love if she agrees to leave the town with him as his woman. Brynner finally releases her from her vows to the storekeep by plugging him in self defense, then helps the Reb get her back by making the town run to him for help to get rid of the gunslinger. Unrequited love with a triangular twist. An excellent cast with great potential, mostly underused by the poor scripting and the lackluster plot. This film could have gone much father and better utilized the characters, but fell short of that goal. If you are a Yul Brynner fan, you will enjoy the film. It is definitely rare, so if you find one, buy it just for the collector's value.Vollständige Rezension lesen