Wed 13 Jun 2012
A Western Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: DAY OF THE EVIL GUN (1968).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[20] Comments
DAY OF THE EVIL GUN. MGM, 1968. Glenn Ford, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, John Anderson, Paul Fix, Nico Minardos, Dean Stanton, Pilar Pellicer, Parley Baer, Royal Dano. Screenplay: Charles Marquis Warren and Eric Bercovici, based on a story by the former. Director: Jerry Thorpe.
Day of the Evil Gun is perhaps more enjoyable for the films it remembers than for the film it is, but I found it an agreeably entertaining ninety minutes or so when I saw it at the local grind-houses in my misspent college years and again when I revisited it last month.
Glenn Ford and Arthur Kennedy star in this thing, and their iconic presences add a certain amount of dramatic weight to what would otherwise have been a rather insubstantial effort.
How insubstantial? Well the plot is the well-worn one about a gunfighter (Glenn Ford) forswearing violence and returning home, only to find … well they always find one damn thing or another, and this time it’s that his wife and kids got carried off by Injuns t’other day.
Well hell. So Glenn has to strap on his guns and ride off once again, following what clues he can find to rescue his family.
What follows is rather cheaply done, with only a few sets and extras, simplistic action scenes, and even a dearth of horses. There are a few good ideas here and there, too often let down by uninspired execution.
The Indians who have been marauding the countryside, appearing at will and then vanishing like ninja warriors when they decimate a troop of soldiers, get a bad case of the Stupids once Glenn actually catches up with them, and the rescue the film has been building to seems easy and anticlimactic.
Lame script and fitful direction (by Jerry Thorpe, son of Richard Thorpe, a director who plodded around Metro for a generation) don’t help at all.
But what does help is a cast that seems to remember better days, starting with Dean Jagger as a crazed (or is he?) drifter who gets along with the Apache — a direct reference to Old Mose in The Searchers. Then there’s Paul Fix as yet another weary marshal, John Anderson from Ride the High Country, Royal Dano from Johnny Guitar and James Griffith, who incarnated both Doc Holiday and Pat Garrett in the B movies at various times.
All of whom are outshown by Arthur Kennedy as a neighboring rancher who’s been a-courtin’ Glenn’s wife whilst he was gone. Back in the 50s, Glenn Ford may have been the bigger star, always the savvy westerner, but Kennedy got the juicier parts, invariably as the likeable but weak-willed good/bad guy who gets corrupted in films like Rancho Notorious, The Lusty Men, Bend of the River and Man from Laramie, and it’s good to see him get out the Moral Disintegration bit one more time.
The last face-off between Ford and Kennedy, two dusty veterans stepping out in the street for a last bout of gunplay, is done with authority and even a certain reverence, and it’s a real pleasure to watch, even if the ending is a foregone conclusion.
June 14th, 2012 at 10:12 am
I think Arthur Kennedy may be the Greatest Character Actor (male) of all time. Who else is in the running that I’m not thinking of?
Of course, when I look up his resume on IMDB, I see that by the time the 1970s and 80s came around, like so many others of his age, he had to resort to making some films that from their titles sound really horrendous: The Humanoid, for example, and Emmanuelle on Taboo Island.
He was the co-star of one TV series that I hadn’t thought about for a long time, NAKIA (1974). The other star was Robert Forster, whose work on the screen I’ve also long admired.
The TV series (only 13 or 14 episodes long) is available on c2c DVD, but apparently is in fairly indifferent picture quality.
Here’s the opening theme and credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me1KL0rxSNc
June 14th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Steve, Kennedy was one of my favorite character actors also. My all time favorite may be J. Carrol Naish. He played everything from an Italian solider in Sahara to Phil Sheridan in Rio Grande. He was twice nominated for an Academy Award.
June 14th, 2012 at 11:40 am
What do you mean by character actor? Failed leading man, as in Kennedy, or Laughton, Rains, Mitchell…?
June 14th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
I kind of favor the Wikipedia definition:
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as “an actor who specializes in character parts”, defining character part in turn as “an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or peculiarities”.
Failed leading man? That’s awfully blunt, but that often has a lot to do with it.
Wikipedia goes on to help illustrate:
There are many reasons people might become character actors. Actors may also simply seem better suited to character roles than to leading roles. While any film has a handful of leading roles, it may also require dozens of smaller supporting roles, and there are arguably more opportunities for professional success as a character actor than as a movie star. Although some actors become character actors by choice, others find character work because they are seen as typecast (strongly identified with, or only suitable for certain types of roles), often due to an early success with a particular role or genre. J. T. Walsh and Dennis Hopper made a career of playing villainous characters and Steve Buscemi has made a career of playing scheming deadbeats and offbeat villains. Some actors may become character actors because casting agents believe they lack some of the physical attributes usually associated with movie stars: they may be regarded as too tall, too short, unattractive, overweight, or somehow lacking an ephemeral “star quality”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_actor
If Laughton, Rains and Mitchell were character actors, and maybe they were, then maybe I have found someone who might surpass Arthur Kennedy as the Greatest.
June 14th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Yes, of course. And Donald Crisp, Dean Jagger, Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone, Walter Huston, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman who became big time character stars. The definiton(s) of character are pretty good, but sometimes, often, the character man is also the star. Leading men of modest success also play tertiary parts that require straight looking people with good features. Same with the ladies.
June 14th, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Robert Mitchum ,as in ‘Night of the Hunter’, Robert DeNiro in his better films, Jack Nicholson in his better films….
The Doc
June 14th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Doc
Here’s where definitions start to go fuzzy on you, no matter how well you try to phrase them. I think of those three as leading men, not character actors. On the other hand, it is true, some (but not all) of the roles they played were character parts.
June 14th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
So a character actor is a sort of serious sidekick, as opposed to the ‘comical relief’ .
The Doc
A Kemosabe with more lines .
June 14th, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Steve:
Fuzzy is right, but these guys are stars. I believe when we say character actor almost always but not quite, we mean supporting people. On the other hand…
June 14th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Character actors are young heroes gone to seed ?
Young lovers no longer loved?
Second rate actors making a serious face ?
A euphemism for ‘could have beens’ ?
The Doc
June 14th, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Doc:
I don’t think so. Claude Rains in Casablanca and Notorious is a character actor, but not a failed could have been. In Casablanca he was the highest paid piece of talent in front of the camera. That didn’t last, but it is something to think about.
June 15th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Someone (was it William K. Everson?) talking about Hollywood films of the 30s and 40s once said that the classic films wre built around the stars, but then filled in with the character actors, often with better results.
One of my favorite films of all time is THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS, where they simply forgot to put in a leading man and the character actors took over.
I notice, though, that no one feels like actually discussing DAY OF THE EVIL GUN– and perhaps it’s just as well.
June 15th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Dan:
They did something right on Day of The Evil Gun. With Limited resources they went for good people. Always the right move. When Arthur Kennedy was cast, I think he was able to provide those “pieces of time” James Stewart identified with such sensitivity. Others in that cast as well.
June 15th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Dan:
They did something right on Day of The Evil Gun. With Limited resources they went for good people. Always the right move. When Arthur Kennedy was cast, I think he was able to provide those “pieces of time” James Stewart identified with such sensitivity. Others in that cast as well.
June 20th, 2012 at 7:25 am
I enjoyed your post! I agree with you that Arthur Kennedy was always good value (he’s especially good in BEND OF THE RIVER and THE MAN FROM LARAMIE. I think he’s unsurpassed at playing charming but untrustworthy types.
You don’t seem too impressed with this one (which I haven’t yet seen), but that cast is pretty dang good. I’ll check this out at the nearest opportunity…thanks for the review!
June 20th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Thanks for the comment, Jeff. I’ve made sure that Dan has seen it.
I’ve also checked out your blog at http://www.thestalkingmoon.weebly.com. Anyone reading this who likes movies of all vintages, especially older ones, ought to take a look too. It’s worth a visit!
— Steve
June 20th, 2012 at 4:53 pm
Thanks, Steve – I appreciate it! I checked your terrific HARRY-O piece out. A lot of meat to chew on there, will sift through my thoughts and comment later!
June 21st, 2012 at 6:24 am
Jeff,
I myself enjoyed DAY/GUN quite a lot, but I suspect that may have something to do with seeing on the big screen a reflection of classic westerns I had only watched on TV (And in those days “TV” was in black&white, cut forcoimmercials!) At any rate, thoiugh I like the film, I didn’t want to gull anyonbe into raised expectations.
October 21st, 2014 at 3:24 pm
Here’s another instance where I have to respectfully and humbly–but also firmly–divert from the OP’s opinion in the original review. ‘Day of the Evil Gun’ is certainly a fave western of mine. I will defend it eagerly. Although the OP affirms that it is a pastiche of ‘fond homages’, and that this appeals to him–sure–but it is far from just that which makes this flick a hit with me. We agree on the wonderful array of small-roles in the movie; but none of the other criticisms above seem (to me) to be apt. There are many reasons to dig this film.
First: complaints about the cheap locations, sets, horses–none of that struck me as careless movie-making. I love this western for precisely those reasons. It is minimal, stark, barren, lonely-feeling film; the story seems to be taking place in a surreal netherworld rather than the west we usually see from Hollywood. Very similar to ‘The Shooting’ or ‘Ride the Whirlwind’ of the same era. Low-budget doesn’t mean sloppy in this case; it produces an ‘eerie’ result.
Next: OP makes much of the presence of two great 1950s stars in the lead roles; but isn’t it just a dandy plot-element in itself that the two characters can barely stand each other throughout the flick? They despise each other! And that scorn results in one of the all-time best dust-ups: Ford leaps on Kennedy, drags him off his horse, and pounds him into jelly.
By the way: Glenn Ford. I’ll watch him in anything. One of my very favorite actors. I think his career shows a fascinating diversity of characters. He could handle any assignment. Here, its wonderful to see him in his signature hat and jacket, taking-names-and-kicking-butt. Kennedy: I agree is always fun. I particularly like his flat, snarky, ‘snarling’ accent. Is that from the NE USA?
It is such a strange and memorable movie. Spooky. The way one half-of-the-duo “goes bad” and can’t see it happening. Harry Dean Stanton’s beautiful bit of Gospel singing. The way that every situation has a ‘turn-the-tables’ element; the ruse by John Anderson’s character; the way that hardly anyone in the film seems to have a trace of mercy or humanity. Almost a Sergio Leone feel to the whole thing. Also: was there any music at all to accompany most of the scenes? I remember a lot of ‘silences’; adding to the atmosphere.
Stake me down in the desert with my eyelids removed; but I will always have a yen to see this film whenever its aired.
October 21st, 2014 at 5:47 pm
A great complementary review, CH. Thanks for posting it!