William Munny

William Munny is a fictional gunfighter of the Old West from the 1992 western film "Unforgiven". Despite being used in only the one film, the character helped boost that film to become a classic for western genre film fans. He was portrayed in the film by Clint Eastwood, who together with the character of Munny, has given the western film industry three of its most famous fictional charactersFact|date=August 2008, the other two being Josey Wales and the Man with No Name.

History and personality

Munny was, in his youth, a dangerous man, prone to consume alcohol in excess. He often killed people, while intoxicated, and many times either had no memory of the murders, or simply chose not to remember. He possessed an ability to kill without remorse in his youth, but was never one to go into a fight with a strategy, but rather simply acted or reacted based on the circumstances at the time. This made him unpredictable and deadly. While a young man, Munny becomes involved in acts of armed robbery and killer for hire contracts, and on more than one occasion he has killed not only men, but women and children, as well as burned homes and barns. His reputation makes him one of the more feared men in the West. Often during this period of his life he was in the company of his friend and partner Ned Logan.

However, he eventually meets a young woman, Claudia, who changes him. He falls in love with her, and despite her mothers protests, they marry and have two children, a boy and a girl. Together they build a home, and start farming, and he leaves his murderous life behind him. In 1878, however, his wife dies from smallpox. By this time, the family owns a small pig farm, which is decidedly unsuccessful, leaving them in poverty.

When two cowboys badly maim a prostitute in Big Whiskey, Wyoming, the local Sheriff, "Little Bill" Daggett, takes no action short of ordering the cowboys to give horses as payment to the brothel owner. This enrages the other prostitutes, who combine their savings to offer a reward for the contract killing of the two cowboys.

The self proclaimed "Schofield Kid", a gunman only in his own mind, having never been involved in a gunfight or shot anyone, approaches Munny to help him kill the cowboys, offering to split the reward with him. The Kid's Uncle Pete had known Munny in his youth, and the Kid tells Munny "Uncle Pete says you was the meanest goddamn son of a bitch alive. And if I wanted a partner for a killing you were the worst one. Meaning the best. On account as you’re as cold as snow and don’t have no weak nerve nor fear."

Munny tells the Kid he isn't like that anymore, and at first declines the offer. However, after pondering the plight of his family, and watching his two young children toil away at the tasks of the farm, Munny reconsiders. He approaches Ned Logan, an old friend from Munny's criminal days; Logan agrees, against his wife's wishes, to accompany Munny. The two then ride after the Schofield Kid, catching up to him and joining in on the killing of the cowboys. Sheriff Little Bill has gotten word that a reward has been offered, and has already made an example out of one gunman who came to commit the killings for money. Little Bill later comes into contact with Munny, who is sick due to the weather, sitting inside a saloon while the Kid and Logan are upstairs with prostitutes. Little Bill, however, does not know his true identity, believing him to simply be a cowboy who came to collect the reward. Finding Munny armed, Little Bill beats Munny badly while his deputies hold guns on him, and then he forces Munny to crawl out of a saloon.

Eventually, after Munny recovers from the bad beating, Ned Logan and Munny kill one of the cowboys, an event which Munny regrets deeply, feeling guilt over having returned to his former lifestyle. The Schofield Kid kills the other, the latter of which was in the process of going to the toilet in an outhouse. The Kid, having never killed before, regrets the incident and refuses the reward money, turning it instead over to Munny, along with his pistol. Ned Logan by this time had headed home, deciding he was finished with killing for money, but he was captured by posse members serving under Little Bill, and returned to Big Whiskey, where he was beaten to death by the sheriff. During the beating, Ned Logan revealed to the Sheriff that his partner was William Munny, to which the sheriff made reference to a certain incident involving Munny in years past, and if it was the same Munny. Logan replies it was, and that he'd done far worse than that. Logan also tells Sheriff Little Bill that Munny will kill him to, for beating him to death, to which the sheriff simply laughed. His body was placed on display in front of "Greeley's Saloon", as a warning to any who might come to Big Whiskey after to cause trouble or kill.

This enrages Munny, who drinks an entire bottle of whiskey, arms himself with a shotgun, his pistol, and the Kid's pistol, and rides into Big Whiskey for revenge. Inside "Greeley's Saloon", Sheriff Little Bill has gathered several men to take part in a manhunt to find Munny and the Kid. While he is giving a speech about their plans of action, to the applause of his new posse members, William Munny walks into the saloon.

The posse and Sheriff Little Bill are stunned by his entrance, and do not react. Munny asks for the saloon owner, who then steps forward identifying himself. Munny promptly shoots him dead with the shotgun, then turns the gun on Little Bill. Unable to draw due to the shotgun being pointed at him, Little Bill denounces him as a coward for shooting an unarmed man, to which Munny replies "He should've armed himself, if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend."

Little Bill then says "You'd be William Munny, killer of women and children", to which Munny replied, "That's right. I've killed women and children. Killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned."

There was a long pause, during which Little Bill tries to bluff Munny out of pulling the trigger by stating "He's got one barrel left. When he shoots me, draw and cut him down like the mangy dog he is." This is a similar bluff to one he used against an earlier gunslinger. The bluff fails and Munny pulls the trigger but his shotgun misfires. As Bill draws and shouts at his men to shoot Munny, the latter throws the shotgun at Little Bill's face. Munny then draws his handguns, begins firing at the deputies and quickly turns back to Little Bill and shoots him. In the end, Munny kills five deputies, then shoots and kills Little Bill who tries to shoot Munny in the back as he lays injured on the floor. The remaining posse members flee out the back. A writer, W.W. Beauchamp, who is not shot but was present during the shootout, approaches Munny and asks how he knew who to shoot first. Munny replies "I was lucky in the order. But then I've always been lucky when it comes to killin." Beauchamp presses him for an interview, but is then sent running out the doorway when Munny insinuates he'll kill him too.

Several men are waiting outside to catch Munny as he walks out of the saloon. However, having already seen him kill their best, Munny finds it easy to intimidate them so that he might leave unharmed. He yells out to them, "All right, I'm comin' out. And any man I see out there, I'm gonna kill him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, I'm gonna kill his wife. And all his friends. Burn his damn house down."

When he walks out, he calmly walks over to his horse, and mounts. No one dares to fire on him. When Munny departs town, he sits on horseback in the middle of the street, while it's raining, and proclaims "You better bury Ned right! Better not go cuttin' up, nor otherwise harm no whores. Or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons-o-bitches." One deputy has a shotgun pointed at Munny while he speaks, but out of fear he does not shoot. Munny then rides out. The closing sequence states:

"Some years later, Mrs. Ansonia Feathers made the arduous journey to Hodgeman County to visit the last resting place of her only daughter. William Munny had long since disappeared with the children ... some said to San Francisco where it was rumored he prospered in dry goods. And there was nothing on the marker to explain to Mrs. Feathers why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."

External links

* [http://www.moviedeaths.com/unforgiven/little_bill_daggett/ William Munny kills Little Bill]
* [http://www.sizemore.freeuk.com/unforgiven.htm William Munny Character]
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20020721%2FREVIEWS08%2F207210301%2F1023&template=printart William Munny of Unforgiven]