The Last Challenge

The Last Challenge is a 1967 American Western in Panavision, produced and directed by Richard Thorpe (marking his final film). The film starred Glenn Ford and Angie Dickinson and centered around a town sheriff contending with his reputation as the "fastest gun in the West". It is also known under the titles of Pistolero and The Pistolero of Red River. The Last Challenge was adapted from Pistolero's Progress, a novel by John Sherry (John Olden Sherry) and published by Pocket Books in 1966. It is widely and falsely reported that the screenplay for The Last Challenge was written by Albert Maltz, the blacklisted writer. The confusion is due to Maltz' use of the pseudonym John B. Sherry. Peter Ford in his biography of his father Glenn Ford: A Life noted, "Oddly the picture Dad made after The Last Challenge, called Day of the Evil Gun, was directed by Jerry Thorpe, Richard's son. This must be the only case in film history where the same star made back-to-back movies directed first by a father and then by his son."