hour of the gun

It's not surprising that the story of the shootout at the OK coral has been told so many times in movies spanning almost every decade. What is surprising is that it's usually told so well. The feud between the Earps and Clantons is a cinematic goldmine of raw mythmaking material that bends to the will of each particular filmmaker, from John Ford's elegiac My Darling Clementine to George P. Cosmatos' action opus Tombstone. Each adaptation adds a few more details, real or imagined, that build upon one of the most oft-repeated tales in western history. But John Sturges' Hour of the Gun (1967) does them all one better, using the shootout as background noise for the opening credits then starting the story proper with the event's aftermath.

It's a risky move, relegating the most famous gunfight in history to a cursory preamble. But Sturges had already done a straight version of the story 10 years earlier with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, Gunfight at the OK Corral, a solid film that only reestablished what most audiences' already knew and expected. Hour of the Gun begins with a title card announcing, "This picture is based on fact. This is the way it happened." And while Sturges' film is certainly no documentary, it does unearth some dramatic legal (and illegal) plotting on both sides that prove that quick and dirty shootout certainly wasn't the end of the story.

Picking up with a court proceeding in which the Earps (led by James Garner as Wyatt) and Doc Holliday (Jason Robards) are cleared of all charges for the murder of several Clantons (Robert Ryan plays their patriarch, Ike), the film quickly hints that feud is only going to get uglier. And it does, fast, when both Virgil and Morgan Earp are backshot before they can take the elected post of Tombstone City Sheriff. Wyatt leads his remaining family west, while plotting some sort of legal recourse with the help of a few loyal citizens.

Securing federal warrants for the arrest of the suspected Clanton killers-for-hire, Wyatt and Doc recruit a posse of their own - along with a $20,000 reward for their arrest and conviction - in hopes of finally getting justice. But it soon becomes clear that Wyatt isn't interested in the reward money...and his idea of justice has nothing to do with a fair trail.

Getting a two-year head start on the questionable morality of movies like The Wild Bunch, Hour of the Gun doesn't quite take Wyatt Earp completely over to the dark side, but Edward Anhalt's script paints the story with refreshing shades of grey. As Wyatt gets closer to his final revenge, you can almost see Garner's eyes glaze over with a single-minded, shark-like cruelty.

But as interesting as the character and performance are, it always seems like Doc Holliday steals the show in almost every adaptation; and that's still the case here as Jason Robards injects his drunken gunslinger with a dry, sarcastic wit that seems marvelously eloquent yet completely unscripted. He's so casual in his approach that the less effort he exerts the more the camera loves him. Honestly, who wouldn't watch an entire movie dedicated just to Doc recruiting a posse of half-assed outlaws (somebody get started on that ASAP)?!

Sturges' and cinematographer Lucien Ballard's camerawork is a bit workman-like, certainly not in the same league as the showy Italian westerns invading Hollywood's territory at the time, although a dialogue-free intro set to a twangy score by Jerry Goldsmith foreshadows Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West in eerie fashion. And one can't help but feel a bit removed from the characters, as if we're seeing a sequel to a movie that was never made. But it's delivered with such class and charisma that those flaws go down like a smooth shot of whiskey, sending Wyatt and Doc off into the annals of western history with pleasant burn.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray is a bit more weathered than their usual transfers, with a few speckles and print damage as reminders that this isn't a true restoration. But it's still a detailed and colorful hi-def image that significantly improves upon the old SD version. An isolated score track, trailer and liner notes are included as extras.