The character of Shane is so selflessly noble in this movie that only a truly gifted actor could play the role and still be believable. Shane is such a good man that, at one point, he pretends to be a coward in order to avoid fighting a man he could easily kill in a gunfight. In the end, after killing the irredeemably wicked Jack Wilson, Shane does not exult in triumph. His face takes on a look of deep sorrow. Then he praises the dead Wilson to the boy Joey, and tells the boy that, "there's no going back from a killing." Wonderful, and Alan Ladd does it all with a quiet, gentle dignity that is truly heroic.

Jack Palance plays evil gunfighter Jack Wilson. Wilson is the most hateful, frightening villain ever to appear in a movie. Wilson taunts the valiant fool Ernie Torrey into drawing his gun, and then gleefully shoots him down. Then he laughs about it.

I think that Shane is about the necessity for remorse. Shane, who bears a burden of remorse for a past life as a gunfighter, does his best to renounce violence, only to be forced against his best intentions to kill again. Because he is a good man, and wise enough now to know that killing is terrible, his heroism is extreme, because he must bear not only the danger of fighting but also the pain of remorse even if he survives the fight. Wilson, on the other hand, is perfectly evil because he feels no remorse for killing. He enjoys it and is proud of his capacity to do it. Wilson has no soul.

I am the only one I know who thinks this, but I think that Shane has been mortally wounded at the end of the movie, and is going off to die alone, rather than let the boy Joey witness his death. Nobody else gets this out of the movie, so maybe it's just me.