From Miami to Rancho Mirage
Hour of the Gun (1967)
directed by John Sturges
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid can ruin a man for other westerns, and Jason Robards hasn't faired too well since I first saw him digging up gold as Governor Lew Wallace while Pat polishes off the brandy in Santa Fe. Hour of the Gun feels like... times have changed. Whatever historical record Sturges wanted to correct with regards to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the underlying moral question here - "Is a badge all that separates a killer and a just man?" - is simplistic even by the standards of 1967.
As a point of comparison, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was released in 1962. Five years! James Garner always seemed like a TV star to me, which he was (the Josh Holloway of horse operas), but he's lived long enough to be regarded as a great actor. He isn't. He spends too much time alone as Wyatt Earp, riding his horse out of town while Doc Holliday takes a drink in a bar. They get together every so often and worry about Ike Clanton's gang of criminal cattle-rustlers, but I like Ike's ranch the best, where Robert Ryan growls with charisma and passes out six-shooters.
Or maybe I'm being too hard on everyone. Maybe it doesn't matter what kind of movie you make, as long as you can get United Artists to pay for you and Lucien Ballard to go watch the desert together in the state of Durango. When Wyatt isn't speaking, or Doc walks outside, that band of hills in the distance looks just like the Sandia Mountains, and the sunlight out there is something else.
directed by John Sturges
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid can ruin a man for other westerns, and Jason Robards hasn't faired too well since I first saw him digging up gold as Governor Lew Wallace while Pat polishes off the brandy in Santa Fe. Hour of the Gun feels like... times have changed. Whatever historical record Sturges wanted to correct with regards to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the underlying moral question here - "Is a badge all that separates a killer and a just man?" - is simplistic even by the standards of 1967.
As a point of comparison, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was released in 1962. Five years! James Garner always seemed like a TV star to me, which he was (the Josh Holloway of horse operas), but he's lived long enough to be regarded as a great actor. He isn't. He spends too much time alone as Wyatt Earp, riding his horse out of town while Doc Holliday takes a drink in a bar. They get together every so often and worry about Ike Clanton's gang of criminal cattle-rustlers, but I like Ike's ranch the best, where Robert Ryan growls with charisma and passes out six-shooters.
Or maybe I'm being too hard on everyone. Maybe it doesn't matter what kind of movie you make, as long as you can get United Artists to pay for you and Lucien Ballard to go watch the desert together in the state of Durango. When Wyatt isn't speaking, or Doc walks outside, that band of hills in the distance looks just like the Sandia Mountains, and the sunlight out there is something else.
Labels: Picture Credits
posted by NPK at 1:14 PM
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