"I'll be the same man when this is over," claims Owen (Arthur Kennedy), Lorne's side-kick in "Day of the Evil Gun". Uh, not quite. Owen is learning to kill, quite efficiently, and maybe Lorne (Glenn Ford) ought not to turn his back on him. It's a marriage of convenience between the two men. Both are on a quest to rescue Lorne's wife and daughters from a band of Apaches and Owen, due to ex-gunfighter Lorne's long absence from the homestead, figures he has dibs on the wife. Along the way they get into several adventures involving a grungy town without pity, Apaches (a highway robbery chase sequence is a hoot), Mexican riff-raff and a group of self-described blue-coat "renegades" (has a more heroic ring than "deserters").
"Day of the Evil Gun" is a laconic western that aims just high enough and succeeds entirely. Technically it does much with little and uses the landscape and backdrops to maximum effect, employing imaginative camera angles to describe the action. One reviewer has described the direction (by Jerry Thorpe) as "laid-back" - that doesn't mean "lazy", however. I would use the word "measured". Good widescreen photography and an evocative, but sparse, musical score make the movie seem more expensive than it likely is. Then, too, the movie is buoyed by the presence of Glenn Ford, late in his career, adding conviction to the story, while not too sluggish in the action scenes; also, the ever-welcome, somewhat bedevilled Arthur Kennedy; and Dean Jagger in a delightful cameo as a crazy trinket salesman (crazy like a fox).
I doubt that B-western writer Charles Marquis William pays much attention to historical reality. "Day of the Evil Gun" isn't Peckinpah or Leone, and It isn't bristling with "meaning", but all things being equal, it deserves to be seen and enjoyed. And referencing its title the movie is book-ended by two scenes that are practically the same, but different in a suitably ironic way. One question. To what extent does the 31 buck shopkeep debt trigger the outcome?
"Day of the Evil Gun" is a laconic western that aims just high enough and succeeds entirely. Technically it does much with little and uses the landscape and backdrops to maximum effect, employing imaginative camera angles to describe the action. One reviewer has described the direction (by Jerry Thorpe) as "laid-back" - that doesn't mean "lazy", however. I would use the word "measured". Good widescreen photography and an evocative, but sparse, musical score make the movie seem more expensive than it likely is. Then, too, the movie is buoyed by the presence of Glenn Ford, late in his career, adding conviction to the story, while not too sluggish in the action scenes; also, the ever-welcome, somewhat bedevilled Arthur Kennedy; and Dean Jagger in a delightful cameo as a crazy trinket salesman (crazy like a fox).
I doubt that B-western writer Charles Marquis William pays much attention to historical reality. "Day of the Evil Gun" isn't Peckinpah or Leone, and It isn't bristling with "meaning", but all things being equal, it deserves to be seen and enjoyed. And referencing its title the movie is book-ended by two scenes that are practically the same, but different in a suitably ironic way. One question. To what extent does the 31 buck shopkeep debt trigger the outcome?