The Gun and the Pulpit (1974)

It is a performances centric movie

Did you people see the same film I saw?

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Marjoe Gortner is a guy pretty much forgotten today. Back when he was a young boy, his parents toured the country with him...billing him as the world's youngest preacher! He was preaching sermons and marrying folks when he was 4! Years later, he wrote a book in which he admitted that the healings and other charismatic things he did in God's name was all a lot of hogwash--blowing the lid off this industry. Soon after this, Marjoe starred in a documentary about all this ("Marjoe"). And, because of the film's success, he soon went Hollywood and appeared in a variety of TV shows and movies. But this new life was rather short-lived and he has since faded into obscurity. "The Gun and the Pulpit" is one of those projects he worked on for Hollywood during this period.When the film begins, Ernest Parson (Gortner) is about to be hung. Whether or not he deserved this, you never know...but he is able to escape and the posse is in hot pursuit. Later, he finds a dead preacher out in the wilderness. He assumes the man's identity and heads to the super-crappy town in Arizona which called this preacher to preach. Since the folks don't know him, he figures, he can at least hide out there a while. But two problems arise--a nasty guy, Ross (David Huddleston) is running roughshod over the town and Ernie does NOT like this at all and one of the locals recognizes him! What's next....especially after the preacher shoots one of Ross' gunman dead right in the middle of a church service!? What follows is much like films like "High Noon" where you have a do-gooder who stands up for what's right...and a craven town which has to be shamed into even considering standing up for themselves.This is a decent film with a very convoluted Biblical message to say the least! It is entertaining and different--which is nice as most westerns have a certain sameness about them. There are a few clichés (such as the shootout in the town square) but otherwise worth seeing.

About seven years earlier Robert Mitchum essayed the character of a gunfighter/preacher in Five Card Stud. Although that film was far better than The Gun And The Pulpit, this made for television is a cut above average for television film. It also has the unassailable casting of Marjoe Gortner as a false preacher.As we know Marjoe who was only using his first name when being a child preacher did a documentary exposing the racket that huckster evangelism is. So it's fitting and proper that he play a phony preacher in The Gun And The Pulpit, a gunfighter on the run who exchanges clothes with a dead preacher on the road to escape a posse.There's plenty of trouble in the town where he takes up the pulpit, the local Ponderosa owner David Huddleston is leaning on everybody with his gunfighters on the payroll. Marjoe's fast draw wins him a lot of admirers most especially Estelle Parsons and her nubile young daughter Pamela Sue Martin. She's the reason he's staying. And there's also Slim Pickens who knows his secret and his real identity, but knows the town needs a savior. {pun intended}.This western moves real nice with the kind of plot that was standard fare for the front row matinée kids of the 30s and 40s. Marjor is a good western hero, maybe he should have gone into that line of work.

Of the various Westerns included in the 2-Discer I rented in order to view THE JACKALS (1967), this made-for-TV outing seemed to me to be the least promising or, if you will, the most disposable. However, it seemed silly to me to consciously pass on it as long as it was in my hands and, funnily enough, it turned out to be the most satisfactory of the lot! The cast list was decent enough, actually – Slim Pickens, Geoffery Lewis, Jeff Corey and Estelle Parsons – so I had that to look forward to from the outset. However, it was the winsome performances of the youngsters – Marjoe Gortner and Pamela Sue Martin – which was the most pleasant surprise. The latter was familiar to me from THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and her signature role of Fallon Carrington Colby in the TV-series DYNASTY (1981-84) but the former I only had vague knowledge of i.e. that he appeared in the disaster epic EARTHQUAKE (1974) and the notorious Euro-Cult item, STARCRASH (1979; which, incidentally, I recently acquired as a DivX). Gortner’s amiable personality – playing a hounded gunfighter opportunistically taking on the identity of a dead parson in a one-horse town – managed to carry the film throughout its brisk 74-minute running time.Frankly, the above-mentioned character actors don’t have all that much to do in the film – apart from Slim Pickens who appears as Gortner’s cynical observer of a sidekick – but Geoffrey Lewis scores as another famed gunfighter out to take Gortner in a face-to-face shootout which sees both duellists missing each other (out of respect for one another)!

Take "Shane", put him in a collar, make the kid a teenage girl instead of a little boy, and you have "The Gun and the Pulpit." Marjoe Gortner is an interesting actor, but the bad guy could have used more of the menace that Jack Palance brought to "Shane". The cheapness of the typical '70's made for TV movie shines through, so it's hard to give this more than a five out of ten.But I like Marjoe. I hear he's running charitable events involving golf in Hollywood these days. It's too bad his acting career never took off.I also liked the gunfight where both gunfighters miss. That's something I'd never seen before in a Western. There was some thinking going on here.