September Gun

Borrowing heavily from True Grit and Rooster Cogburn and the Over the Hill gang movies, Robert Preston is old time gunfighter Ben Sunday hired out by a nun to escort some Indian orphans to a town with a soon to be infamous name of Columbine. Sister Patty Duke Astin is going to take over an old church and start a school there.

Bad enough she's defying her own church priest Father Jacques Aubuchon in undertaking the journey. He'd just as soon see the army take care of these children of the recently hostile. But the good sister finds when she gets to Columbine, the abandoned church has been taken over by another gunfighter Christopher Lloyd who now runs a saloon there. That ain't sacramental wine he's serving either.

Of course true to the cowboy code of Hollywood, Preston just can't let this situation stand.

September Gun is pretty dependent on the considerable charms of Robert Preston and they are considerable. Preston has some nice chemistry with young actor David Knell who is his nephew and who he's teaching the gunfighting business with the emphasis on staying alive by whatever means available.

If this had been a bigger budgeted film, I could see Clint Eastwood or a few years before, John Wayne, playing this part in a theatrically released film. Still September Gun will entertain and satisfy fans of the western genre.