In the town of Lincoln, John Chisum (John Wayne) battles rustlers stealing his horses. He is concerned that greedy baron Lawrence Murphy is taking over as he buys up everything and pushing out the smaller operations. Murphy has even chosen the lawmen. Chisum and his men with honest rancher Tunstall, Pat Garrett, William Bonney aka Billy the Kid and others are forced to battle Murphy in his crocked schemes. Chisum opens his own bank and store to compete.

It's a simplistic old fashion western. Chisum is the best of the good. It's not all necessary. For example, it's not really necessary for Chisum to stand up for the Indians. It becomes a bit clunky. Billy the Kid needs to be played by a more charismatic actor than Geoffrey Deuel. McSween is too idealistic bordering on idiocy. This is a movie of sharp black and white. The cattle stampede is quite impressive and there is plenty of good action. The sensibility is old fashion even in its times.

This excellent film concerns the real-life land baron living in New Mexico and dealing with the Lincoln County Wars of 1878 . Wayne as the mighty cattle baron Chisum is magnificent . It's one of very few John Wayne Westerns based on historical deeds . The movie is plenty of action , thrills , shootouts , adventures and being pretty entertaining . Casting is frankly awesome with usual Andrew McLagen , John Ford's actors (Wayne , Ben Johnson , John Agar and Hank Worden) . Furthermore , habitual Ford cameraman William H. Clothier (Cheyenne Autumm , Man who shot Liberty Valance , Horse soldiers) giving a colorful cinematography , as well as evocative musical score by Dominic Frontiere , including enjoyable leitmotif . The motion picture was well directed by Andrew W. McLagen , John Ford's known disciple , and he called the film one of his favorites .

The real events were the following ones : This powerful cattle king of New Mexico , John Simpson Chisum (1824-84) living in New Mexico governed by governor Lew Wallace (Ben Hur's author) , he started with a few head of stray longhorns and became one of the biggest individual cattle owners in North America, with between 60.000 and 100.000 head . In 1854 he entered the cattle business , selling beef to Indian reservations, making friendship with Chief White Buffalo (Abraham Sofaer's last film) . In 1867 he moved to New Mexico and established a large spread at South Spring in Old Lincoln County where he prospered greatly . He became involved in the Lincoln County war of 1878-79 in which he opposed the Murphy (Forrest Tucker) and Dolan (Edward Faulkner) faction and backed cattleman Tunstall (Patrick Knowles) , whose gunfighters-cowboys included the handsome Billy the Kid (Geoffrey Deuel's film debut). It is said that Chisum was instrumental in making Billy the Kid an outlaw killer , he used his considerable influence in getting Pat Garret (Glenn Corbett) elected Sheriff of Lincoln County in 1880 and it was Garrett who hunted down and killed the young outlaw . Chisum's cattle brand was the Long Rail , a long , straight mark extending from shoulder to flank . Chisum , who never married, died at Eureka Springs , Arkansas , leaving an state of some 500.000 dollars .

Few of the movies made late in John Wayne's were particularly outstanding (except for THE SHOOTIST). Instead, the stories often were interchangeable with many of his prior films and the supporting cast seem unable to keep up with Wayne. Well, this one isn't any better, though he has a little bit better support (such as Forrest Tucker and Ben Johnson). The plot and dialog is just too familiar and I HATE movies that feature real-life bandits (in this case Billy the Kid) because the way they are portrayed is so fictionalized and stupid. Billy (just like films that portray the James brothers and other real-life low-lifes),is noble and decent down deep and you see how he goes wrong,....yeah right! What a lot of hooey. I want to see a film where one of these guys comes along and shoots people in the back, commits a rape and then shoots all the witnesses. The real-life bad guys of the old west OFTEN did this, but I guess it doesn't make for a good movie. Instead, we get another clichéd portrayal that just bogs this movie down--without it, it would have gotten a score of at least 8.