Hour of the Gun

Director John Sturges (The Great Escape) and screenwriter Edward Anhalt (Becket) bring us a reworking of the Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday legend in Hour of the Gun (1967), a sort of sequel to Sturges’ earlier Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Here, the director looks at the post-Gunfight struggle for political control of Tombstone, with a marvelous trio of antagonists: James Garner as Earp, Jason Robards as Holliday, and the sublime Robert Ryan as Ike Clanton. Shot by Lucien Ballard (just a couple of years from The Wild Bunch), and highlighted by a superb score from the inimitable Jerry Goldsmith.