Hour of the Gun

Hour of the Gun shows an eternity of sand, rock, and trees--punctuated from time to time by a mustache on horseback.

The trouble with the mustache is that it usually belongs to James Garner. He looks like a hat model with swollen glands. At least Jason Robards--his tubercular, alcoholic partner--is lean, but I suspect that's because he's been so busy prostituting himself in Hollywood extravaganzas. Robert Ryan, though un-mustached, is as big a blight to the scenery.

These men take Tombstone, Arizona, as their hunting preserve. Garner (Wyatt Earp) and Ryan (Ike Clanton) kill each other's brothers for a start, then proceed to the unrelated near and dear. Since Earp rides a white horse, he's the good guy. Clanton's bad--he sets other men to do his killings and, supposedly under his influence, they take aim when an enemy's back is turned and his pistol is glued to his holster.

The director, John Sturges, uses the same technique Sergio Leone did in Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Sequences, especially those leading up to a shooting match, look like they're filmed in slow motion. They aren't. It's just that the camera--instead of sticking to a man, dogging him step by step--focuses on what's static around him. Expanses of desert or mountain or sun-bleached wall. So the violence that ensues seems less the result of cowboy determination than of fate.