Lawman

A group of drunken cattlemen ride through the town of Bannock and fire off shots while celebrating; a stray bullet kills an old man. The cowboys move on to their home town of Sabbath, unaware of what happened. Bannock's marshal, Jared Maddox, follows them there to arrest those responsible for murder. Sabbath is dominated by the rancher Vincent Bronson, who employs the men and learns of the death. Bronson would rather compensate the victim's family than hand anyone over, while the town's own marshal, Cotton Ryan, has little appetite for a confrontation. Maddox refuses to bend, and his insistence on carrying out his duty sets him against both the townspeople and Bronson's men.

Michael Winner directed and produced from a screenplay by Gerald Wilson. The film was the first of the thirteen features Winner directed in chronological order, ahead of Chato's Land the following year. Burt Lancaster plays Maddox, Robert Ryan plays Cotton Ryan, Lee J. Cobb plays Bronson, and Robert Duvall appears as Vernon Adams, with Sheree North and Albert Salmi among a credited cast of thirty-one.

Made by United Artists and Scimitar Films on a budget of about three million dollars and released in March 1971, the western runs ninety-nine minutes. It holds a 7 out of 10 rating on IMDb from around seven thousand votes and a 6.5 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly a hundred and forty, while a critics' rating stands at 6.8 out of 10 from eleven reviews.