"Hour of the Gun" is one of two films John Sturges made about the notorious Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the first being "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" itself from ten years earlier. It is sometimes seen as a kind of sequel to the earlier film, but does not star any of the same actors. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were played by Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in the earlier film and here by James Garner and Jason Robards. Also, there is no direct continuity between the two films. "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" had incorrectly shown Ike Clanton as dying in the Gunfight; here he is correctly shown as surviving it by running away. (Clanton himself claimed to have been unarmed at the time, a claim which has been disputed).
"Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" the Gunfight comes as the final climax of the film; here it is the opening event, with the main part of the film detailing the subsequent feud between Earp, his brothers, Holliday and his other supporters and the Clanton gang. Sturges wanted the film to be more historically accurate than previous cinematic accounts of this subject, including his own previous effort and the notoriously inaccurate "My Darling Clementine". The Gunfight, therefore, is shown as a brief affair, lasting less than a minute with only three men (Billy Clanton and the two McLaurie brothers) killed. Earlier versions had made the shootout last for several minutes with a significantly higher death toll.
After the Gunfight, Ike Clanton swears vengeance for the deaths of his friends and brother, possibly motivated by guilt at his own failure to protect them. He has the Earps and Holliday charged with murder, but they are acquitted by the court. He and his gang then ambush first Virgil Earp, seriously injuring him, and then Morgan, killing him. Now it is Wyatt Earp's turn to seek revenge for the death of a brother. He forms a posse to hunt down and kill the surviving members of the Clanton Gang in what has become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. In the film's one major historical inaccuracy their last victim is Ike himself. (In reality Ike Clanton was killed by another lawman, Jonas Brighton, who had no connection to the Earps).
I was not particularly impressed by Garner as Earp, who seemed to find it difficult to step into the shoes of Lancaster and Henry Fonda who had played the role in "My Darling Clementine". Modern audiences might also find him wanting when compared to Kevin Costner in "Wyatt Earp" from the nineties. I found that Garner was rather too taciturn and unemotional and that he did not really convey in any depth the psychological development which Earp undergoes during the film, from an upright, by- the-book lawman in the early scenes to the later man obsessed with revenge and quite prepared to go outside the law to avenge his dead brother. Robards was not too bad as Holliday if one can overlook the fact that he was too old for the role. (Robards was 45 at the time the film was made; Holliday was only 30 at the time of the Gunfight, and died at 36). Robert Ryan was quite good as Ike, crediting him with a certain intelligence and making him more than a mere thug (which is how he is sometimes portrayed).
As a revenge Western, "Hour of the Gun" is a relatively good one, with some decent action sequences, but compared to the earlier "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" or the later "Wyatt Earp" it lacks the monumentality and the sense of the epic which I find appropriate to a story which is, after all, one of the great legends of the American West. 6/10
"Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" the Gunfight comes as the final climax of the film; here it is the opening event, with the main part of the film detailing the subsequent feud between Earp, his brothers, Holliday and his other supporters and the Clanton gang. Sturges wanted the film to be more historically accurate than previous cinematic accounts of this subject, including his own previous effort and the notoriously inaccurate "My Darling Clementine". The Gunfight, therefore, is shown as a brief affair, lasting less than a minute with only three men (Billy Clanton and the two McLaurie brothers) killed. Earlier versions had made the shootout last for several minutes with a significantly higher death toll.
After the Gunfight, Ike Clanton swears vengeance for the deaths of his friends and brother, possibly motivated by guilt at his own failure to protect them. He has the Earps and Holliday charged with murder, but they are acquitted by the court. He and his gang then ambush first Virgil Earp, seriously injuring him, and then Morgan, killing him. Now it is Wyatt Earp's turn to seek revenge for the death of a brother. He forms a posse to hunt down and kill the surviving members of the Clanton Gang in what has become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. In the film's one major historical inaccuracy their last victim is Ike himself. (In reality Ike Clanton was killed by another lawman, Jonas Brighton, who had no connection to the Earps).
I was not particularly impressed by Garner as Earp, who seemed to find it difficult to step into the shoes of Lancaster and Henry Fonda who had played the role in "My Darling Clementine". Modern audiences might also find him wanting when compared to Kevin Costner in "Wyatt Earp" from the nineties. I found that Garner was rather too taciturn and unemotional and that he did not really convey in any depth the psychological development which Earp undergoes during the film, from an upright, by- the-book lawman in the early scenes to the later man obsessed with revenge and quite prepared to go outside the law to avenge his dead brother. Robards was not too bad as Holliday if one can overlook the fact that he was too old for the role. (Robards was 45 at the time the film was made; Holliday was only 30 at the time of the Gunfight, and died at 36). Robert Ryan was quite good as Ike, crediting him with a certain intelligence and making him more than a mere thug (which is how he is sometimes portrayed).
As a revenge Western, "Hour of the Gun" is a relatively good one, with some decent action sequences, but compared to the earlier "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" or the later "Wyatt Earp" it lacks the monumentality and the sense of the epic which I find appropriate to a story which is, after all, one of the great legends of the American West. 6/10