Hour of the Gun
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.08 You Save: $7.90 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.80 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Hour of the Gun
Movie Review: When the Legend Becomes Fact
Summary: 5 Stars
There's no Hollywood romanticism in director John Sturges' hard-hitting account of the O.K. Corral aftermath. "Hour of the Gun" (1967) remains among the great unheralded Westerns, with superb performances by James Garner, Jason Robards and Robert Ryan. The role of Wyatt Earp is a perfect fit for Garner - it's too bad he didn't appear in more Westerns of this caliber. Far superior to Sturges' overrated "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957).Movie Review: "I know you. You can't live like me," says Doc Holliday to Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp shows that he can.
Summary: 4 Stars
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral is just over. Bodies lie in the dust. Now the killing really begins. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed, but first, a civics lesson. Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan) is determined to buy or shoot his way into power in Arizona. The territory sooner or later will be a state. Clanton knows all those "Easterners" are moving in with their own ideas of law, order and who should be in control. Standing in his way is Wyatt Earp (James Garner). Earp is a no-nonsense lawman who'll take down anyone who breaks the law. He's fast enough with a gun and ready enough to use it that he keeps getting in Clanton's way. If that doesn't frustrate Clanton enough, Earp has his two brothers to back him up, along with his good friend, Doc Holliday (Jason Robards). Clanton makes his play to eliminate the Earps with the shootout at the corral. By now the movie is only ten minutes over. The gunfight itself takes 30 seconds, just as it did in real life.
Hour of the Gun tells us what happened next. Clanton brings charges of murder against Earp and Holliday. They are narrowly acquitted. Clanton follows up with back shootings of Earp's brothers, leaving Virgil crippled and Morgan dead. Earp is not going to back down and now the grudge is personal. Holliday will stick with Earp. Clanton is going to use the law as well as his gang to run Earp out of the Territory or see him dead. Earp is going to legally go after the men he suspects attacked his brothers. Legally, he has warrants for their arrest. Legally, Doc Holliday points out to Earp, "Those aren't warrants you have there...those are hunting licenses." That's exactly how Earp sees things. There may be a legal posse set up by Clanton to run down Earp, but Earp is on a hunt of his own, aided by Holliday and a small group of "deputies."
Hour of the Gun is just as linear as that. It's also one of the grimmest and best directed Westerns most people have never seen. Too bad, because James Garner may have given the best performances of his career. He plays a man of deadly commitment to the law, and doesn't hesitate to use the law to justify his own brand of capital punishment before trial. Robards almost seems to recognize the weight of the role and what Garner is doing with it. There's no competition from Robards, just masterly support. As far as Robert Ryan goes, we don't see much of him, but when he's on he gives a lot of authority to Ike Clanton. Ryan provides the believable ruthlessness that leads to what turns out to be Earp's Vendetta Ride, the hunting down and killing of those who attacked his brothers.
Yet toward the end of the movie when Earp is determined to bring retribution directly to Clanton one way or another, Hour of the Gun slips down a notch on the old gun belt. Earp has given up any pretense of enforcing the law. With Clanton in Mexico, Earp is just going to kill him. It depends on Doc Holliday, of all people, to provide a bit of law-abiding morality. "The whole thing's hypocrisy," Doc tells Earp. "The rules they tack on say unless you're wearing that badge or a soldier's uniform, you can't kill. But they're the only rules there are. They're more important to you than you think. Play it that way, Wyatt, or you'll destroy yourself. I know you. You can't live like me." Wyatt Earp shows that he can.
This is a good movie that just happens to be a western. John Sturges directed it ten years after he turned out the Lancaster/Douglas big hit, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. As a lean, mean piece of movie making, Hour of the Gun puts the earlier film in the shade. Even so, Hour of the Gun was a flop. It is unrelentingly grim. There is no romance and almost no females, just lots of tension, a number of quick gunfights, several great line deliveries from Robards and Garner's performance. I think it's a better movie.
For another version of the famous gunfight, watch My Darling Clementine. It's more of John Ford's western myth-making and it's a great film.
Movie Review: Interesting look at Wyatt Earp post-OK Corral
Summary: 4 Stars
Hour of the Gun is an excellent late 60s western that tries to take a more realistic look at two of the most famous western characters ever, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Following the gunfight at the OK Corral, the three Earp brothers and Holliday are acquitted for the murder of three Clanton gang members. But in the weeks to come, Wyatt's brother Morgan is murdered and Virgil is crippled by Clanton gunmen. Wyatt and Doc form a posse and go after the men. But during the hunt, Wyatt is the one who will stop at nothing for getting revenge for what happened to his brothers, and Doc becomes the voice of reason. Like a lot of late 1960s westerns, this is not your typical angelic good guys vs. evil bad guys. All the characters, especially Wyatt Earp, have a dark side that the movie tries to explore, and explores well. It's more of a character study than an action movie so don't expect a lot of gunfights, but those there are good. Director John Sturges also directed Gunfight at the OK Corral ten years earlier as well as Hour of the Gun. Give both a try if for nothing else than to see how different the two films are.
In a solid performance, James Garner stars as Wyatt Earp. Garner is cool and calm when he needs to be, but he's also capable of exploding with rage/anger as he tracks down his brother's assassins. Jason Robards is excellent as Doc Holliday, the dentist turned gunfighter dying of tuberculosis. But even as he becomes sicker, Holliday sticks by his friend Wyatt Earp. Garner and Robards work very well together and carry much of the movie. Robert Ryan plays Ike Clanton differently than you've probably seen in other movies, but Ryan was one of the best and doesn't disappoint here. His Ike Clanton is equally smooth as he is evil. Hour of the Gun has a very strong supporting cast overall. William Windom, Lonny Chapman, and Monte Markham play Texas Jack Vermillion, Turkey Creek Johnson and Sherm McMasters, the other members of Wyatt's posse. Some other notable names include Albert Salmi, Steve Ihnat, Michael Tolan, Bill Fletcher, Jon Voight, and Robert Phillips. All in all, an excellent cast led by Garner, Robards and Ryan.
The Hour of the Gun DVD is not a great one, but it's worth a purchase for fans of the story or the movie. It offers widescreen and fullscreen presentations and a theatrical trailer. Not a ton offered here, but it's a strong movie on its own. Give it a try if you haven't seen it. Hour of the Gun tries to take a deeper look at a western story that everyone seems to know something about. Great cast, very good score by Jerry Goldsmith, and beautiful photography from Lucien Ballard. Check out Hour of the Gun!
Movie Review: Earp after the gunfight
Summary: 4 Stars
HOUR OF THE GUN (1967) takes off where director John Sturges' earlier "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957) left off. The movie opens with Wyatt Earp (James Garner) and Doc Holliday (Jason Robards) trading hot lead with the Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan) gang in the Tombstone corral, follows with an extended courtroom scenes in which Earp has to defend himself against charges of wrongful homicide, and concludes with the meat of the movie - the death and serious wounding of Earp's brothers by members of the Clanton gang, and Earp's extended chase of everyone involved.
Revenge almost always works in westerns, and HOUR OF THE GUN is a revenge western. Garner, whose greatest assets are warm charm and an embracing smile, has to play it frosty and focused. The main pull in this movie is constantly brought up by Earp's unlikely friend, the ever loyal Doc Holliday - is Earp an upholder of the law, or someone who uses the law as a means by which he can cold-bloodedly track down and kill the men who murdered and maimed his brothers? I don't normally judge a movie by its historical accuracy (at least as far as I understand the history,) but HOUR OF THE GUN begs it when it inserts a title card after the opening credits proclaiming `this is how it really happened,' or words to that effect. The movie gets Earp's post-O.K. Corral vendetta right and his complex relationship with Holliday is believable. On the other hand, the movie paints Earp as a do-gooder who's driven to the Dark Side by Clanton and his evil machinations - the corral gunfight, even, seems a set-up job by the crafty `Cowboy' (old slang for livestock rustler.) The biggest historical inaccuracy has to do with Clanton's death - I won't throw a spoiler in here, but the movie's penultimate showdown between its protagonist and antagonist works better as a symbolic, rather than factual, capstone.
All in all this is a pleasant enough depiction of Earp's vendetta ride against the Clanton gang. As far as I'm concerned Garner is one of the great under-rated actors of his time, and if he puts a dimmer on his magnetic smile he's makes a convincing Earp - his scenes with Robards, always good, are worth the rental or purchase price. Robards' Doc Holliday is a plum of a part - dissolute gambler, chronic alcoholic, suffering from late-stage tuberculosis. Ryan may play a Clanton a little more smooth and calculating than his real-life model, but he's so good in these kind of roles it doesn't matter. Strong recommendation.
Movie Review: Going Beyond The O.K. Corral
Summary: 4 Stars
Many films have been made about legendary lawman Wyatt Earp, many of them focusing on his time in Tombstone, Arizona, and the infamous gunfight at that town's O.K. Corral between him, his brothers, and Doc Holliday on one side and the Clanton and McLowery clans on the other. In fact, despite plenty of historical inaccuracies, director John Sturges came up with one of the best-known films of that incident, 1957's GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL. Ten years later, in 1967, he showed us the aftermath of that gunfight in HOUR OF THE GUN.
Whereas the gunfight was the climax of GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, and was placed in the middle later in 1993's TOMBSTONE, HOUR OF THE GUN begins with the gunfight itself, and then goes into the various legal entanglements that followed, as well as the revenge that Wyatt (James Garner) seeks against Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan) and his hired help. Jason Robards, though he was already too old to accurately do the role, does a good turn as Doc Holliday, who becomes Wyatt's moral conscience when it appears that Wyatt has become a vengeance seeker and stopped being a lawman.
As has been pointed out by other reviewers here, HOUR OF THE GUN still doesn't quite stick to all the facts of the gunfight (for one thing, in reality the Cochise County sheriff's name was Behan, not Bryan, as mentioned in the film) or what happened to Ike Clanton (he wasn't killed in Mexico, nor at Wyatt's hand, but in an attempted robbery a few years after the O.K Corral incident). To add to all that, whereas GUNFIGHT was filmed in Arizona, where the events depicted took place, HOUR OF THE GUN was filmed entirely in Mexico; and even a cursory glance by a viewer can tell it's Mexico, and not the real Arizona.
Still, as advertised, Garner and Robards deliver extremely effective performances, and Robards does deliver some sardonic one-liners courtesy of screenwriter Edward Anhalt. Although Ike Clanton's role is enlarged in this film beyond accuracy, the benefit is a solid performance of that role by Ryan, whose low-key villainy is matchless. Jon Voight also appears here (in his first major film) as Curly Bill Brocius. The flavorful score by Jerry Goldsmith, emphasizing minor keys and some Mexican rhythms, enhances the stature of this rather underrated western. It makes a perfect companion piece to other Wyatt Earp films in spite of its historical fudgings, and with this great acting on hand it is well worth viewing.