The grave at the beginning seems too big for a man. It yawns unfilled even after the man Brad Ellison came to town to kill dies. The grave is bigger than just another revenge shooting.
After the gunfight, Ellison is invited to meet John Forbes, the town magnate, a man crippled, dying and desperate to find his missing brother and intended beneficiary of his will, in order to keep his legacy out of the hands of an unscrupulous business partner, so that this wealth may do good in the world. One wonders if this criminal partner was responsible for John Forbes's being in a wheelchair, and in failing health, although such is never stated. The man's predicament does stir a flicker of humanity in the gun-for-hire, and Forbes then offers him a way to escape his life of killing by effectively resurrecting the lost brother, offering him the price of the proverbial 'Ranch in Oregon' that all gunfighters yearn to retire to.
Later we realise that the ominous grave, that greeted Brad on his road to this fateful town, will come to hold all those who attempt to resurrect Edward Forbes from the oblivion into which he has chosen to cast his own identity. So many, in fact, that Edward Forbes, eventually resurrected from his assumed identity, and buried - as it were - in the (magically filmed) Mexican countryside, observes that there is no more room in that quiet grave for him, and thereupon decides to end all the killing by surrendering his anonymity and going home to his dying brother.
It turns out that his brother's business partner has been hiring guns to dispose of this threat to being able to grab the valuable inheritance from it's rightful beneficiary. Possibly the gun Brad kills at the outset of the drama was one of these? Certainly, the friend he makes of Miles Lang, and whose life he saves during his quest, is only the longest-surviving emissary of Death to seek such unholy riches.
Once our gunfighter relinquishes his arms in a growing realisation of just who he is dealing with - actually an unexpected and Christ-like figure who is an inspiration to his adopted People - and becomes a true moral hero, this false friend Miles is disposed of.
Thereafter, in a poignant final scene, the reformed gunslinger sees a path to that 'Ranch in Oregon' opening before him - - - 'Or in Mexico' says the departing Priest, inviting Ellison to stay and do some good in this land, himself.
And so the career of a fast gun is reformed, and a good and decent man appears in his place. 'Oh Death where is thy sting?' as the vanished Padre might intone over that now closing grave, that so troubled the killer's conscience. A sublime Western.
After the gunfight, Ellison is invited to meet John Forbes, the town magnate, a man crippled, dying and desperate to find his missing brother and intended beneficiary of his will, in order to keep his legacy out of the hands of an unscrupulous business partner, so that this wealth may do good in the world. One wonders if this criminal partner was responsible for John Forbes's being in a wheelchair, and in failing health, although such is never stated. The man's predicament does stir a flicker of humanity in the gun-for-hire, and Forbes then offers him a way to escape his life of killing by effectively resurrecting the lost brother, offering him the price of the proverbial 'Ranch in Oregon' that all gunfighters yearn to retire to.
Later we realise that the ominous grave, that greeted Brad on his road to this fateful town, will come to hold all those who attempt to resurrect Edward Forbes from the oblivion into which he has chosen to cast his own identity. So many, in fact, that Edward Forbes, eventually resurrected from his assumed identity, and buried - as it were - in the (magically filmed) Mexican countryside, observes that there is no more room in that quiet grave for him, and thereupon decides to end all the killing by surrendering his anonymity and going home to his dying brother.
It turns out that his brother's business partner has been hiring guns to dispose of this threat to being able to grab the valuable inheritance from it's rightful beneficiary. Possibly the gun Brad kills at the outset of the drama was one of these? Certainly, the friend he makes of Miles Lang, and whose life he saves during his quest, is only the longest-surviving emissary of Death to seek such unholy riches.
Once our gunfighter relinquishes his arms in a growing realisation of just who he is dealing with - actually an unexpected and Christ-like figure who is an inspiration to his adopted People - and becomes a true moral hero, this false friend Miles is disposed of.
Thereafter, in a poignant final scene, the reformed gunslinger sees a path to that 'Ranch in Oregon' opening before him - - - 'Or in Mexico' says the departing Priest, inviting Ellison to stay and do some good in this land, himself.
And so the career of a fast gun is reformed, and a good and decent man appears in his place. 'Oh Death where is thy sting?' as the vanished Padre might intone over that now closing grave, that so troubled the killer's conscience. A sublime Western.