The Master Gunfighter

Infobox Film
name = The Master Gunfighter


image_size =
caption = 1975 movie poster
director = Tom Laughlin (under the pseudonym 'Frank Laughlin')
producer = Philip L. Parslow
writer = Tom Laughlin
starring = Tom Laughlin
Ron O'Neal
Barbara Carrera
music = Lalo Schifrin
cinematography = Jack A. Marta
editing =
distributor = Taylor-Laughlin Productions
released = October 3, 1975
runtime = 121 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget = $3,500,000 (estimated)
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:101852
imdb_id = 0073357

The Master Gunfighter is a film released in 1975, written, directed, and produced by Tom Laughlin, who also played the lead as Finley.

This film is set in southern California near Santa Barbara in the period shortly after California became part of the United States. American settlers and the US government discriminated against the Mexican landowners and frequently took their land by force or legal skullduggery. This film focuses on wealthy Latino ranchers whose land and wealth are at risk. They decide to misdirect a US government ship carrying gold so that it will be wrecked and they can take the gold. To prevent themselves from being caught, they plan to massacre the local Chumash Indians. The hero is the now estranged adoptive son (Finley), a master swordsman and gunfighter, who tries to prevent this while still saving his family. The plot is said to have been based on that of the Japanese film "Goyokin".

Reviews of the film were not all positive though the female lead, Barbara Carrera, was nominated for a Golden Globe award for her performance. Some reviewers considered it to be anti-establishment schlock, but it is unusual in its depiction both of the oppression of the Indians by the Spanish colonists and of the Spanish colonists by the newly arrived Americans.

External links

*imdb title| id=0073357 | title=The Master Gunfighter