Hour of the Gun: John Sturges

John Sturges' Hour of the Gun is a boring, staid, static, tepid, deflated affair. I do love the premise: focusing on the Wyatt Earp gang in the immediate aftermath of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. And, to be fair, I found Jason Robards to be a surprisingly compelling Doc Holliday, particular during the early courthouse scenes where he's grilled about his involvement in the aforementioned shootout. I love his matter-of-fact answers to brutal questions about how many people he's killed and whatnot. But the rest of the film simply isn't compelling. It's a series of bland confrontations where Wyatt Earp & co. confront the members of the Ike Clanton gang one-by-one and kill them. There's a lot of stillness and silence, but very little of it carries weight or dramatic purpose.

5/10

Wrote a bit more about this film over here: http://theretroset.com/hour-of-the-gun-files-the-legend-prints-the-fact/

The Walking Hills: John Sturges

If there is one thing to be learned from John Sturges’ The Walking Hills, it’s that filmmakers—and by extension all storytellers—must be judicious with their use of flashbacks. The set-up is simple: a loss confederation of ne’er-do-wells and cowboys set out into the desert to find a wagon of buried gold. As the environment becomes more and more inhospitable tempers flare, emotions explode, and egos surrender to ids. It brings to mind similar desert-mission movies where the protagonists are placed under extreme psychological duress: John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (1934), Zoltán Korda’s Sahara (1943), John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). But here’s where The Walking Hills plummets from being a decent film to merely sub-par: about halfway through the film there is an obtrusive flashback concerning a love triangle between three characters. Instead of communicating the flashback via dialogue thereby maintaining the claustrophobic atmosphere of the desert, the film cuts to stock footage of the characters back in civilization. I can’t properly express how jarring this is. It shatters the illusion of watching a handful of people being literally and metaphorically sandblasted by the savage wilderness.

6/10

Mystery Street: John Sturges

Don't let anybody trick you into thinking that the star of John Sturges' Mystery Street is Ricardo Montalban or Marshall Thompson. No, the true star here is Elsa Lanchester as Mrs. Smerrling, the prying, nosy, and ruthlessly opportunistic landlady who makes the film's biggest impression despite being a supporting character. Not since her turn as the Bride of Frankenstein has Lanchester been so fascinatingly devious onscreen. On its own, the plot of Mystery Street is very compelling: a standard story of a decent man who gets stuck with a murder rap for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. There are some fascinating scenes at the Harvard Medical School where we are introduced to forensic science and how it can be used to identify victims, time of death, and cause of death. These scenes predate other forensic procedurals like Michael Mann's Manhunter (1988) and the various CSI television shows in their nearly fetishistic approach to this branch of science. Massachusetts gumshoe cop Peter Morales (played by the always fantastic Montalban) then steals the narrative's focus for most of the rest of the film as he puts all of the case's pieces together. But every single time Lanchester shows up the audience squirms in their seats because they know that she is about to do something manipulative, ballsy, and stupid. My favorite examples? Where she tries to blackmail a murderous criminal twice while hamming it up as a poor, tired old lady who could really use a trip to Paris and maybe Venice, New York, and London while you're at it. Mystery Street is a wonderful film that could have easily survived without Mrs. Smerrling. But she is the delectable cherry on the top of a great noir sundae. Delicious!

7/10

Marooned: John Sturges

Released less than 4 months after the Apollo 11 moon landing, John Sturges' Marooned attempted to cash-in on the space exploration craze that was sweeping America. It boasted a star-studded cast including the likes of Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, and Gene Hackman. It even went on the win the Academy Award for Visual Effects. The film follows three astronauts who find themselves trapped in a tiny spacecraft that is unable to dock at a space station or re-enter earth's atmosphere. As Mission Control scrambles to try and coordinate a rescue mission, the astronauts have to find ways to conserve oxygen and stave off fears of their imminent death. Despite the plot and an admittedly great performance by Hackman as one of the astronauts who can't take the stress, Marooned falls flat. The pacing is tedious and laborious. Part of this has to do with the fact that long sections of the film are devoted to depicting standard operating procedures of space travel. Back in the late 60s, audiences were so enamored with the space program that they could tolerate such spectacles. But they don't hold up by today's standards. Considering how well earlier sci-fi films about space travel like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Forbidden Planet (1956) still hold up against the test of time, Marooned is little more than an historical oddity with a great cast.

5/10

The Great Escape: John Sturges

The story has become legendary: a group of American/British/European POWs in World War Two mount a daring escape from an "unescapable" prison.  67 escape.  Only 3 make it.  The actors have become titans in American cinematic history: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson.  When combined with the talents of director John Sturges, they created one of the great action/adventure films that has stood the test of time.  Despite its nearly three hour run-time, The Great Escape moves so swiftly and expertly that we barely notice the passing of time, much like that other great 3-hour action/adventure epic, The Seven Samurai.  Everything is streamlined for maximum efficiency in this film.  Nary a shot is wasted.  The major characters all have nicknames that designate their mechanical purpose in the escape: "The Tunnel King," "The Forger," "The Manufacturer."  There is little character development that is not intrinsically tied to their role in the escape.  Of course, only the first half can be considered historically accurate.  Once Steve McQueen starts to ride his motorcycle over the German countryside, we can rightfully assume that creative and artistic license has been fully taken.  But the film is an engrossing, entertaining ride that is a relic of an era long past: when action/adventure films focused more on plot and characters than action and gore and you didn't have to censor or remove anything when you aired it on television.

8/10