This is one of Gary Cooper's finest westerns. It was interesting and engaging from start to finish.
I enjoyed the movie especially the inaccurate historical background of the Springfield Allin trapdoor breechloading action rifle and carbine. It made for a more interesting storyline.
The Springfield Allin trapdoor breechloading rifle and carbine did not appear until a few years after the Civil War. The United States Army found itself with hundreds of thousands of obsolete, muzzle-loading, Springfield rifles. The age of the metallic bullet cartridge had firmly been established and there was no going back. But how could the U.S. Army finance a new, breechloading rifle, given the vastly smaller military budget and so many obsolete muzzle loading rifles on hand? The solution was ingenious, thanks to an Ordnance civilian engineer employee, Mr. Allin. To make a long story short, Allin devised a technically ingenious method of converting the muzzle-loading Springfield rifle into a breechloader by altering the back end of the barrel substantially. You can go to the Internet and read all of the engineering details. The result was a reliable, breechloading rifle and the U.S. Army did not have to invest heavily in a new breechloading rifle, although there was an excellent design available, the Remington Rolling Block. The cavalry carbine came later and these were mostly newly manufactured. The breechloading Springfield rifle proved its tactical worth in the series of Indian Wars that arose between the end of the Civil War and into the next two decades. Many a US cavalry trooper lived to fight another day against superior odds of hostile Native Indians because he carried a breechloading carbine that could shoot around 12 shots a minute compared to the 3 shots per minute of the old, muzzle loading Springfield rifle. The Allin trapdoor breech-loading rifle and carbine continued into U.S. Army service into the Spanish American War of 1898, even though by that time it was clearly obsolete and inferior to the German manufactured Mauser bolt-action rifle carried by the Spanish Army in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Even during WW1, the Springfield existed in states militias and reserve units. So many Allin Springfields were manufactured that the rifles were cheap surplus weapons in the 20th century, which probably explains why there were so many shown in the movie. All in all, the movie was a good western with Cooper's fine acting skills behind it and a good storyline of espionage, counterespionage, a shocking whodunit, and the unsung main character of the movie besides Gary Cooper, the breechloading Allin trapdoor Springfield carbine. No Allin trapdoor Springfield rifles were depicted in the movie.

It would be nearly impossible for Gary Cooper to follow up his Oscar-winning performance in High Noon with as great as a Western, but Springfield Rifle is more than rousingly entertaining. It is well-written and although it has some lapses in logic, it does have good plotting.

Cooper plays a disgraced Union major from Virginia who falls in with Confederate raiders who are stealing Union horses and supplying them to the Confederacy. Little do the raiders know that Cooper's disgrace is a counterintelligence plot by the Union to discover the leader of the raiders and to find out who is the Union traitor who is supplying the Rebels information.

Complete with fistfights, shootouts, and double crosses, this film does not hesitate in killing major characters off, but this is a necessity of the plot, otherwise, the movie wouldn't go anywhere. Cooper seems more virile and alive than he did in Springfield Rifle, and had not reached the level of his later Westerns, almost all of which were entertaining and enjoyable, but saw him playing a tired, world-weary man who just wants to find something to believe in. Cooper still seemed young and energetic enough to pull off a believable, engaging hero.

Springfield Rifle deserves a DVD release, if for no other reason that to display one of Gary Cooper's last vigorous Western performances.

If you have ever visited the Alabama hills in Lone Pine Calif. then it is fun to watch this movie. It was filmed mostly at that location.

It brought back memories of good ole' western movies I used to watch. Gary Cooper was great.

purchased as a gift, person receiving it had no problems with it.

good used disc

Classic Western

Not High Noon but close! Mr. Cooper gives his usual top-notch performance. Great supporting cast. Great movie deserving of greater fanfare.