spoiler ahead!
How did the little Italian boy die? Did one of the women accidentally shoot him? It sounded like he just fell over. I don't understand.
Yes -- he got in front of the women practicing with the guns and was shot.
His mother shot him. When they run up, one of the women kneeling there says "He had just handed her [the mother] the gun..." and then is unable to finish. So, the mother accidentally shot her son. Very sad, surprisingly so for a classic movie.
shareBut how do you know that when they said "her" they meant his mother?
shareKind of a late response to you, but I agree with the poster who says his mother shot him. When the woman says "he just handed the gun to her..." she indicates the woman who is bent over the boy and crying, and that was his mother. I can see why it is confusing, and I guess I could be wrong, but I see it as being the mother who shot him. I thought it was rather shockingly heartbreaking. I love this movie, though, and have watched it over and over.
shareThanks for explaining the point! That makes it all the worse.
I thought he tripped and shot himself accidently.
The scene of him sleeping with his dog was adorable.
Just a point of historic fact- more pioneers were accidentally shot by themselves or members of their party than were killed by Indians. Sad but true fact. Thanks to gun safety courses taught by the NRA and other groups, there are, per capita, far fewer firearms-related accidents today than in decades past.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae
I am not looking to get a dialogue started, and wasn't going to answer this, but can't stand it:
I don't know where you got that "sad fact," but it doesn't even make sense.
One of the first thing young boys were taught of that time was how to handle a gun.
The first Indian battle that comes to mind is The Little Big Horn, where over 250 soldiers were killed. That is ONE battle; I am supposed to believe at least that many men/women/children were killed in gun accidents that year?
In addition, who kept records of such things in out laying areas?
More propoganda by the NRA.
If you look at my post calmly, you will notice I said, "pioneers", meaning emigrants, traveling by wagon train. Not soldiers, not mountain men, both of whom would be trained and experienced with weapons. The journals of pioneers who traveled by wagon along the Oregon Trail, or to California are full of examples of accidental shooting fatalities, due to the unsafe handling of firearms. Leaning a rifle against a wagon, and it sliding off and firing was often the case. Leaving loaded weapons where children could handle them also caused many accidental shootings. As it happens, a lot of people evidently didn't learn how to safely handle a gun in the 19th Century. Where do YOU get the information that they did? From reading Louis L'Amour? Get a grip on yourself.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae
Another common accident was to be run over by a wagon. LOTS of broken legs and deaths of children.
shareIt could only BE his mother. No one else would be forgiven.
share