Red Dead Redemption is a 1932
Revisionist Western film directed by
Lambert Hillyer, and starring
Buck Jones as
John Marston, a former outlaw who is blackmailed by two law enforcement agents into hunting down the last living members of his former gang.
The movie is an adaptation of the 1923 bestseller
"Red Dead Redemption: The Epilogue of Outlaw John Marston", by
Jack Marston. Himself the son of the eponymous protagonist, having grown up in the infamous "
Dutch Van der Linde Gang", until its collapse in 1899, he wrote the book as a testimony of his father's last days. The book and it's 1921 predecessor "
The true story of the Van der Linde Gang", had been massive bestsellers, propelling Marston to the top of the american literary world. Studios had spent years fighting for the rights until the author relented, in the condition that he write the screenplay.
Originally planned as a two-parter, the first book was deemed far too grand and ambitious to be made into a movie without major script changes. Production of "Red Dead Redemption" was shot on location in
New Austin,
West Elizabeth and the Mexican state of
Nuevo Paraiso. At the time the most expensive movie ever made, it was riddled with tension and conflict between writer, director, actors and studio.
A massive box-office success, the movie soon became a staple of the Western Genre. Though its violent nature and the portrayal of a outlaw as a morally good figure, and law enforcement as villains generated criticism from many groups. One noted critic was
Archer Fordham Jr. whose father,
Archer Fordham Sr. is portrayed as a corrupt
FIB Agent.
The movie was dedicated to
John Marston, Abigail Marston, Arthur Morgan (deceased former member of the gang), and
Charles Smith (former member of the gang, presumed deceased). Noted among the figures in the first screening of the movie were the two last living members of the gang: legendady (retired) female bounty hunter
Sadie Adler, and popular novelist
Mary-Beth Gaskill.
Many other movies were produced ever since focused on the "Van der Linde Gang" and John Marston. Among them 1956's "
The Searcher" (in which
John Wayne portrays the heroic
US Agent Edgar Ross hunting the last members of the gang), 1968' "
The Good, the Bad and the Dead", and 1992's "
The Forgiven".