André De Toth – Springfield Rifle (1952)

Quote:
Two years after Jimmy Stewart chased a very special firearm, 1952 brought a flick that followed a similar concept. Springfield Rifle features Gary Cooper in a Western that involves another amazing weapon.

Set during the Civil War, Union Major Lex Kearny (Cooper) gets a dishonorable discharge related to cowardice in battle. This disrupts his life in a mix of ways, especially when his family feels shame.

However, it turns out Lex did all this as a ruse so he could go undercover among Confederate forces to reveal rustlers. When this pretense becomes unveiled, Lex needs to use the experimental and extremely powerful “Springfield rifle” to survive.

Although I implied Rifle followed in the footsteps of Winchester, they don’t really share plot similarities. While both involve special firearms, they diverge in pretty much all other ways.

Ignoring story domains, I think Rifle offers a downgrade from Winchester due to its choice of lead actor. Put bluntly, Cooper simply never approached Stewart in terms of talent.

Although I can see Cooper’s appeal as a screen presence, his acting often seemed stiff and unnatural. Sure, he still could do well at times, but in general, I think he became a negative more than a positive in many of his films.

Cooper’s iffy chops turn into a problem during Rifle, as he simply lacks the range to pull off the role’s demands. Given the ways Lex must balance his real life and his subterfuge, the part needs an actor with layers and nuance.

That’s not Cooper. He plays Lex as The Gary Cooper Character and never produces anything more resonant.

As such, Cooper does fine in the tough guy scenes but he falters when the movie asks for more range from Lex. I can’t call Cooper’s performance a disappointment, but his work nonetheless acts as a liability for this complex character.

It doesn’t help that Rifle comes with a fairly scattered and less than focused plot. The story doesn’t evolve in a particularly coherent manner.

Instead, Rifle tends to feel like a collection of semi-related scenes that exist mainly to reveal the title weapon. Eventually.

Rifle takes its own sweet time to involve the powerful firearm. A lot of this comes across like dawdling and the film doesn’t tend to use that space terribly well.

At 93 minutes, Rifle seems short enough that it doesn’t wear out its welcome, and it brings the occasional effective action scene. The whole package doesn’t connect well, unfortunately, so this lands as a scattershot Western.

Springfield Rifle.1952.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 32 min
Size: 	1.78 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	790x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.372
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 500 kb/s
BPP: 	0.229
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/EE4F84F7F7FE5F2/Springfield_Rifle.1952.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English