Hour of the Gun
Encyclopedia
Hour of the Gun is 1967
1967 in film
The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered as one of the most ground-breaking years in film.-Events:* December 26 - The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour airs on British television....

 Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 starring James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

 and depicting Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...

 and Doc Holliday
Doc Holliday
John Henry "Doc" Holliday was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral...

 during their 1881 battles against Ike Clanton
Ike Clanton
Joseph Isaac Clanton was born in Callaway County, Missouri. He is best known for being a member of group of outlaw Cowboys that had ongoing conflicts with lawmen Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan Earp and Wyatt's friend Doc Holliday. The Clantons repeatedly threatened the Earps because they interfered with...

 and his brothers in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a roughly 30-second gunfight that took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona Territory, of the United States. Outlaw Cowboys Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne ran from the fight, unharmed, but Ike's brother...

, and the gunfight's aftermath in and around Tombstone, Arizona
Tombstone, Arizona
Tombstone is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States, founded in 1879 by Ed Schieffelin in what was then Pima County, Arizona Territory. It was one of the last wide-open frontier boomtowns in the American Old West. From about 1877 to 1890, the town's mines produced USD $40 to $85 million...

.

The film is based on the non fiction book Tombstone's Epitaph by Douglas D. Martin, with a screenplay by Edward Anhalt
Edward Anhalt
Edward Anhalt was a noted screenwriter, producer, and documentary film-maker. After working as a journalist and documentary filmmaker for Pathé and CBS-TV he teamed with his wife Edna Anhalt, née Richards, during World War II to write pulp fiction...

, and directed by John Sturges
John Sturges
John Eliot Sturges was an American film director. His movies include Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the O.K. Corral , The Magnificent Seven , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra .-Career:He started his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932...

. This film attempts more historical accuracy than most motion picture accounts of the events, and explores what happened after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

The film stars, James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

 as Wyatt Earp, Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...

 as Doc Holliday, and Robert Ryan
Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...

 as Ike Clanton.

Production

The movie can be seen as a sequel to John Sturges
John Sturges
John Eliot Sturges was an American film director. His movies include Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the O.K. Corral , The Magnificent Seven , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra .-Career:He started his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932...

's fictionalized film from ten years earlier, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957 film)
The film was based on a real event which took place on October 26, 1881. It was directed by John Sturges and featuring a screenplay written by novelist Leon Uris, and the movie's supporting cast included Rhonda Fleming, John Ireland, Jo Van Fleet, Martin Milner, Dennis Hopper, Jack Elam, Lee Van...

, which had featured Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...

 as Earp and Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...

 as Holliday. Where Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is more about the main gun battle, this film begins with the gunfight and moves forward from there. Because Hal B. Wallis
Hal B. Wallis
Hal B. Wallis was an American film producer.-Career:Harold Brent Wallis was born in Chicago in 1898. His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros...

 had scripted everything in the earlier Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Sturges was disappointed with that film. Hour of the Gun is more of a psychological "melancholy character study".

Garner also played the lead as Wyatt Earp in a different movie filmed twenty-one years later, Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...

's Sunset
Sunset (film)
Sunset is a 1988 film released by TriStar Pictures. Written and directed by Blake Edwards, the movie stars Bruce Willis as legendary western actor Tom Mix and James Garner as legendary lawman Wyatt Earp....

(1988), a comedy thriller based on the 1920s period during which Earp was a technical adviser for silent films. The film's music is composed by Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....

.

Hour of the Gun was filmed in the state of Durango
Durango
Durango officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. With a population of 1,632,934, it has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja...

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

; at Estudios Churubusco Azteca (studio) in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, México D.F., Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

; San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de Allende is a city and municipality located in the far eastern part of the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico. It is 274 km from Mexico City and 97 km from the state capital of Guanajuato...

, Guanajuato
Guanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....

, Mexico; and in Torreón
Torreón
Torreón is a city and seat of the surrounding municipality of the same name in the Mexican state of Coahuila. As of 2010, the city's population was 608,836 with 639,629 in the municipality. The metropolitan population, including Matamoros, Coahuila, and Gómez Palacio and Lerdo in adjacent Durango,...

, Coahuíla
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico...

, Mexico.

Cast

  • James Garner
    James Garner
    James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

     as Wyatt Earp
    Wyatt Earp
    Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...

  • Jason Robards
    Jason Robards
    Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...

     as Doc Holliday
    Doc Holliday
    John Henry "Doc" Holliday was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral...

  • Robert Ryan
    Robert Ryan
    Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...

     as Ike Clanton
    Ike Clanton
    Joseph Isaac Clanton was born in Callaway County, Missouri. He is best known for being a member of group of outlaw Cowboys that had ongoing conflicts with lawmen Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan Earp and Wyatt's friend Doc Holliday. The Clantons repeatedly threatened the Earps because they interfered with...

  • Albert Salmi
    Albert Salmi
    Albert Salmi was an American actor.-Biography:Albert Salmi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Finnish immigrant parents, and following a stint in the Army, took up acting as a career, studying Method acting with Lee Strasberg. In 1955, Salmi starred in Bus Stop on Broadway...

     as Octavius Roy (prosecuting attorney)
  • Charles Aidman
    Charles Aidman
    Charles Aidman was an American film scenarist and television actor.-Career:Among his many television credits include appearances on NBC's western series The Road West in the 1966 episode "The Lean Years"...

     as Horace Sullivan (defense attorney)
  • Steve Ihnat
    Steve Ihnat
    Steve Ihnat was a Czechoslovakian-born actor and director. He immigrated to Canada when he was five years old, and later became a United States citizen.-Early life:...

     as Andy Warshaw (Clanton man)
  • Michael Tolan
    Michael Tolan
    -Life and career:Tolan was born Seymour Tuchow in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit and studied under Stella Adler and at Stanford University. He appeared primarily in stage roles in his early career, with only minor parts in films of the early 1950s...

     as Pete Spence
    Pete Spence
    Pete Spence , suspected of robbery in 1878 in Goliad County, Texas, changed his name from Elliot Larkin Ferguson. He was later a suspect in a stagecoach robbery outside Bisbee, Arizona and was known for his association with outlaw Cowboys Frank and Tom McLaury and Ike and Billy Clanton of...

     (new Tombstone city marshal)
  • William Windom
    William Windom
    This page is about the former United States politician. William Windom was an American politician from Minnesota. He served as U.S. Representative from 1859 to 1869, and as U.S. Senator from 1870 to January 1871, from March 1871 to March 1881, and from November 1881 to 1883...

     as Texas Jack Vermillion
    Texas Jack Vermillion
    John Wilson Vermillion , alias "Texas Jack" and later as "Shoot-Your-Eye-Out" Vermillion, was a gunfighter of the Old West known for his participation in the Earp vendetta ride and his later association with Soapy Smith.- Early life :...

  • Lonny Chapman
    Lonny Chapman
    Lonny Chapman was an American television actor best known for his numerous guest star appearances on detective dramas, including Quincy, M.E., The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, Matlock, and NYPD Blue...

     as Turkey Creek Johnson
  • Larry Gates
    Larry Gates
    Larry Gates was an American actor probably best known for his role as H.B. Lewis on daytime's Guiding Light and as Doc Baugh in the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...

     as John P. Clum
    John Clum
    John Philip Clum was an Indian agent for the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in the Arizona Territory. He implemented a limited form of self-government on the reservation that was so successful that other reservations were closed and their residents moved to San Carlos. Clum later became the...

  • William Schallert
    William Schallert
    William Joseph Schallert is an American actor who has appeared in many films and in such television series as The Smurfs, The Rat Patrol, Gunsmoke, The Patty Duke Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Waltons, Bonanza, Leave It to Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Love, American Style, Get...

     as Herman Spicer (judge)
  • Bill Fletcher as Jimmy Bryan (Cochise County Sheriff)
    Johnny Behan
    John Harris Behan was from April, 1881 to November, 1882 sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona Territory. Behan was appointed the first sheriff of the newly-created county in February, 1881. The mining boomtown of Tombstone was the new county seat and Behan's headquarters...

  • Karl Swenson
    Karl Swenson
    Karl Swenson was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor.-Biography:Born in Brooklyn, New York of Swedish parentage, Swenson made several appearances with Pierre-Luc Michaud on Broadway in the 1930s and 40s, including the title role in Arthur Miller's first production, The Man Who...

     as Dr. Charles Goodfellow
  • Austin Willis
    Austin Willis
    Austin Willis, CM was a Canadian actor and television host.He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2002, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. He is best known internationally for his appearance as Simmons, the man whom Auric Goldfinger beats at cards in the opening scenes of the James Bond...

     as Anson Safford
  • Monte Markham
    Monte Markham
    Monte Markham is an American actor. During his career, Markham has appeared in film, in television, and on Broadway.Markham was born in Manatee County, Florida, the son of Millie Content and Jesse Edward Markham, Sr., who was a merchant.Of his television roles, Markham is perhaps most famous for...

     as Sherman McMasters
    Sherman McMasters
    Sherman McMaster was an outlaw turned lawman, who was one of the six men involved in the Earp vendetta ride.-Early life:Sherman W. McMaster was born in 1853 in Rock Island, Illinois, the son of Sylvester W. McMaster. Not much is known of his life before heading out west, but he was believed to...

     (Tucson Sheriff)
  • Richard Bull
    Richard Bull (actor)
    Richard Bull is an American film actor, stage actor and television actor.He is best known for his performance as Nels Oleson, the kindly proprietor of Oleson's Mercantile and the long suffering husband of his wife Harriet on the NBC TV series Little House on the Prairie which aired from 1974 to...

     as Thomas Fitch (attorney)
  • Sam Melville
    Sam Melville
    Samuel Joseph Melville , was the principal conspirator and bomb setter in the 1969 bombings of eight government and commercial office buildings in New York City. Melville cited his opposition to the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism as the motivation for the bombings...

     as Morgan Earp
    Morgan Earp
    Morgan Seth Earp was the younger brother of Deputy U.S. Marshals Virgil and Wyatt Earp. Morgan was a deputy of Virgil's and all three men were the target of repeated death threats made by outlaw Cowboys who were upset by the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. This conflict eventually...

  • Frank Converse
    Frank Converse
    Frank Converse is an American actor. In 1962, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...

     as Virgil Earp
    Virgil Earp
    Virgil Walter Earp fought in the Civil War. He was U.S. Deputy Marshal for south-eastern Arizona and Tombstone City Marshal at the time of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the Arizona Territory. Two months after the shootout in Tombstone, outlaw Cowboys ambushed Virgil on the streets of...

  • Jon Voight
    Jon Voight
    Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....

     as Curly Bill Brocius (Clanton man)
  • Robert Phillips as Frank Stilwell
    Frank Stilwell
    Frank C. Stilwell was an outlaw Cowboy who murdered at least two men in Cochise County during 1877-1882. For four months he was a deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona Territory for Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan...


Reception

Bruce Elder, at Allmovie, calls Garner's portrayal of Earp as "taciturn, emotionally repressed, deeply troubled and torn", but criticizes Edward Anhalt
Edward Anhalt
Edward Anhalt was a noted screenwriter, producer, and documentary film-maker. After working as a journalist and documentary filmmaker for Pathé and CBS-TV he teamed with his wife Edna Anhalt, née Richards, during World War II to write pulp fiction...

's script as being too strict to historical facts and confining the actors, especially Garner. Eleanor Quin at Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...

 (TCM) calls it "Sturges' finest film"; and says that it is a "conflict between moral righteousness and the temptation of personal revenge". Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, says: "Garner turns in one of his best performances."
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