Which film did Johnny Cash star in alongside Kirk Douglas?

Johnny Cash starred alongside Kirk Douglas in the 1971 Western film A Gunfight. Cash played Abe Cross, an aging gunfighter whose reputation draws him into a planned duel with Douglas’s character, Will Tenneray.

The film takes an unusual approach to the Western genre. Cross and Tenneray do not begin as bitter enemies; instead, they develop a mutual respect and friendship. Tenneray, desperate for money, proposes staging a public gunfight whose ticket proceeds will go to the winner. The story then examines the cost of turning violence and legend into entertainment.

A Gunfight was directed by Lamont Johnson and filmed in New Mexico. Jane Alexander played Nora Tenneray, and the cast also included Karen Black and a young Keith Carradine. The film’s low-key final duel deliberately avoids the triumphant style common in many Hollywood Westerns.

Cash had acted before and after the movie, but his role as Abe Cross stands out because it placed him opposite a major Hollywood star. The other options do not fit this pairing: Stagecoach is a different Western, while The Pride of Jesse Hallam was a later television film starring Cash without Douglas.