Lawman (1971)

There was an old TV western, Trackdown, starring Robert Culp. Reportedly, it was intended as a western version of Dragnet, but I couldn't see it. Dragnet was a police procedural and they didn't really have procedures in the old west. 

In Lawman, Burt Lancaster plays a Lawman who pursues some cowboys who got drunk and shot up a town accidentally killing a by-stander. Perhaps a bit Dragnet-like in that he was after guys who weren't complete monsters. It would probably be manslaughter or depraved indifference murder. He assures a former girlfriend that nothing that bad would happen to them if they went to trial. Burt Lancaster even had a Joe Friday-like scene where he lectures disapproving townsfolk about law and they all back down without saying a word.

There's another scene where Burt Lancaster explains that he's a Lawman, and that means he kills people. Which reminded me a Swedish detective show where someone lectures Wallander that shooting people is a requirement of the job, although he didn't shoot people all the time. 

Cowboys getting drunk and firing their guns was a common thing in westerns. This is the first one I've seen where they killed anyone. 

With Ralph Waite one year before The Waltons, Richard Jordan, Robert Ryan as the town marshal, J.D. Cannon, John Hillerman, Robert Duvall and Lee J. Cobb appearing for the first time without a hair piece.

I was in high school before home video had taken over. An English teacher taught a film class before there were that many movies available on video. We watched Battleship Potempkin on 16mm and Lawman on video. It didn't have a place in movie history, but it was pretty good.

The main thing I remember was a kid in class who didn't understand why the Lawman couldn't just shoot the guns out of people's hands rather than killing them. He wasn't hip to the gritty, realistic modern western.  

I didn't look for the disclaimer saying no animals were harmed. They had a couple of dead horses, one being eaten by coyotes and they had a cattle branding scene.

Directed by Englishman Michael Winner who also directed some Charles Bronson movies among other things.