Sadly Over-hyped

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Critics have compared Jerry Thorpe's "Day of the Evil Gun" unfairly with John Ford's classic John Wayne western "The Searchers." These two westerns concern the long, arduous, often dangerous quest to find and rescue wives and daughters who have been kidnapped by murderous Apaches. Glenn Ford is cast as Lorn Warfield, a gunfighter who vanished for three years after he killed a man in a duel, but who has returned now to search for his wife and children. At the same time, a neighbor, Owen Forbes (Arthur Kennedy of "Lawrence of Arabia"), who had watched from afar, has fallen in love with Warfield's wife, Angie (Barbara Babcock), and he is determined to find her for himself since he doesn't believe that Lorn deserves her after all she has endured without him by her side. Initially, Lorn wants nothing to do with Forbes, but the two men eventually form an uneasy alliance as they enter Apache infested territory and encounter their share of trouble. "Gunsmoke" and "Rawhide" creator Charles Marquis Warren wrote the story and the screenplay with assistance from "Hell in the Pacific" scenarist Eric Bercovici who went on to write and produce the television mini-series "Shogun." The toilsome journey proves to be the revelation in this dusty, moralistic oater with neighborly rancher Forbes changing into a cold-bloodied killer while cold-bloodied killer Warfield changes into a pacifist. You can see the change that has overtaken Warfield when the film unfolds. He faces a younger man in the middle of the street who tosses him a six-gun and challenges him to shoot it out. Warfield kicks the revolver into a mud puddle and passes up the opportunity to add another notch to his reputation. Meantime, Warren and Bercovici chronicle the change in Forbes through his wardrobe. Forbes starts out wearing a white hat. By the time that he challenges Warfield in the street, Forbes is wearing a black hat. The finale when they return to the same town that they left finds Forbes prepared to kill Warfield after the latter has traded his revolver to buy clothes for his wife and daughters. About two-thirds of the way through this horse opera, our heroes are taken by the Apaches and left to die at the hands of treacherous Mexicans, specifically DeLeon (Nico Minardos of "Cannon for Cordoba"), and predictably it is Forbes who shoots him. Jerry Thorpe confines the action to a trim 94 minute running time. Neither Glenn Ford at age 52 nor Arthur Kennedy at age 54 looked like they were in shape to be trudging all over Mexico in pursuit of their abducted loved ones. Indeed, their fist-fighting scenes are knock about affairs, but they look like the over the hill. Nevertheless, the screenplay is solid, but the dialogue is largely forgettable. Veteran western character actor John Anderson and up-and-coming character actor Harry Dean Stanton show up briefly as cavalry deserters. They are in an abandoned town with two wagons loaded with bullets and our heroes ride into this stacked deck believing that the soldiers are straight-up and trustworthy. Anderson proves to be quite a shot with a single-barreled shotgun. The protagonists in "Day of the Evil Gun" have more in common to some extent with the killers in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." They move in a straight enough line when they confront their problem, but they run into one problem after another. Dean Jagger of "Twelve O'Clock High" has a minor role as a lunatic who trades with the Apaches. He knows something about the whereabouts of Warfield's women, but he is reluctant to divulge his knowledge until Warfield presses him about the issue. Typically, Apaches as well as Native Americans in general rarely harmed people who were lunatics, and Jimmy Noble (Dean Jagger) has been posing like a lunatic for so long that he almost lets Warfield burn his wagon loaded with trade goods. Altogether, "Day of the Evil Gun" is no "Searchers." The showdown in the abandoned town between the Apaches and the Army deserters reminded me more of John Sturges' "The Law and Jake Wade." Lenser W. Wallace Kelley, no stranger to westerns since he had photographed five oaters previous to "Day of the Evil Gun," makes this tale look better than it has any right to look. The film was shot on location in Durango, Mexico, in locales that you have seen before in "Major Dundee." The shot of Glenn Ford and Arthur Kennedy riding double on a horse at dusk looks spectacular. Art direction and set decoration is comparably as good.

Released in 1968, "Day of the Evil Gun" stars Glenn Ford and Arthur Kennedy as two older men pursuing the Apaches who kidnapped the wife and daughters of the former. The two are at odds because the latter wants to be the man of the family after the former skipped out and was thought dead. Unfortunately, the trail is two months cold and they run into numerous problems, like being staked out in the desert and being hindered by a curious group of remote soldiers."Day of the Evil Gun" has a quality late 60's Western vibe, so if you favor Westerns from this period, like 1966' "Duel at Diablo" and 1970's "Two Mules for Sister Sara," it's worthwhile, but it's mortally hampered by several unbelievable scenes, particularly the "yeah right" climatic rescue sequence. Another problem is the way a certain character curiously morphs into a brutal, conniving and cowardly murderer at the end, which he was not previously during all the various stressful trials. It's unfortunate because with just a little tweaking this would've been an effective Western.The film runs 95 minutes and was shot in Durango, Mexico. GRADE: C

A retired gunslinger faces long odds as he rides the trail to an Apache encampment to rescue his wife and two daughters who were kidnapped by the red raiders. Glenn Ford stars in this gritty western and beautiful Mexican scenery helps when the action flags. Arthur Kennedy, who lays claim to Ford's wife, tags along and the two men form an uneasy alliance as they search for the hidden camp. The pair encounter renegade Indians, Mexican bandits, the scourge of cholera and a Confederate outfit looking for a Union payroll. Ford's tough character displays a steely resolve to find his family and Kennedy plays his heavy with relish but sounds more like a Boston police captain than a rancher in the old west. The moral is that guns accomplish very little, as later events bear out. This film was released when the western was in its final decline in Hollywood as movie entertainment.

Ford's performance as Warfield anticipated by nearly a decade the western anti-heroes of Sam Peckinpah. It is a gripping and surprisingly well-produced oater (considering its modest budget). It really succeeds in evoking the terror of man alone against the wilderness. The villains - of which there are a number - appear two-dimensional and even sympathetic; e.g., Captain Addis and his men, reduced by massacre and desertion, perform almost heroically in their desperation (watch for Harry Dean Stanton's understated role as a cavalry sergeant). The Apaches are seen as brutal, but no more so than their white enemies or the surrounding deserts and moutains, which are haughtingly evoked in this first-rate western. Highly recommended.