Childhood friends Billy Massey and Chuck Jarvis go in opposite directions after Chuck ends up married to Billy's former sweetheart. Billy becomes a bank robber, Chuck a lawman. But they end up joining forces against common enemies in a final showdown. A series of life circumstances put two close childhood friends pitted against each other. The seemingly inevitable ending takes a twist that allows the friendship to continue after Billy commits an act of bravery that he knows is suicidal but saves Chuck's life.

• Rock Hudson as Chuck Jarvis
• Dean Martin as Billy Massey
• Susan Clark as Kate Jarvis
• Donald Moffat as Art Williams
• John McLiam as F.J. Wilson
• Charles Baca as Martinez
• Jackson Kane as Clem
• Ben Zeller as Perry Williams
• John Richard Gill as Earl Cole
• Philip L. Mead as Jack Bonney
• Rita Rogers as Girl
• Vic Mohica as Big Eye
• Raleigh Gardenhire as Joe Williams
• Ed Begley Jr. as Pook
• Dan Boydston as Rawls

It was the final film for Seaton, who three years earlier had directed Martin and an all-star cast in the blockbuster hit Airport. It was also Dean Martin's last western.

In a November 1972 episode of the TV series McMillan & Wife called “Cop of the Year,” McMillan (played by Hudson) visits the set of a Western film titled "Showdown" that is in production (directed by Seaton, who plays himself) to ask the special-effects supervisor about how to make a gunshot wound appear on the chest of a gunman—who, in the shot being filmed, is the victim in a showdown.

Quentin Tarantino later wrote that "the slightness of the whole project is surprising. But along with the pairing of Hudson & Martin, who share the screen for the first time, it’s the films low-key modesty that ends up being one of its most charming features."^[1] Leonard Maltin awarded this film two-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "agreeable but unexceptional."^[2]

• List of American films of 1973

• Showdown at IMDb  
• Showdown at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Showdown at the TCM Movie Database
• Showdown at Letterboxd  
• Showdown at Rotten Tomatoes