bkoganbing Like Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter Glenn Ford in Day Of The Evil Gun is a gunfighter who deserted his wife and two daughters and has now come home. But on arrival discovers that they've been taken by the Apaches and he sets off to find them.Unlike Peck's wife though, Barbara Babcock has grown inpatient for her man and has given up. She's taken up with her neighbor Arthur Kennedy who declares himself in on the hunt. These two form one uneasy alliance.But they have to stay allied because they do come across a whole lot of low lifes on their journey into Apache country. On the way there they come into a charming, but coldblooded Mexican bandit in Nico Minardos, a cholera epidemic in a town with an avaricious store owner in James Griffith and some army deserters who are an outlaw gang with John Anderson in charge.During all this time Kennedy who has lorded his moral superiority over Ford develops into quite a killing machine himself. Makes for an interesting climax.In his recent biography of his father, Peter Ford who played one of the army deserters said that this was one cursed production. Some kind of malady was going around in Durango, Mexico where the film was shot and everyone in the cast came down. The most serious was Dean Jagger who nearly died. Jagger has only one scene in the film, but he plays an itinerant peddler who pretends he's crazy so that the Apaches will deal with him. He looked somewhat ravaged in his appearance. The malady whatever it was also affected the crew on Guns For San Sebastian shooting at the same time.Peter Ford who played one of the army deserters also said his father was pleased to be working with Arthur Kennedy again, they had been together on one of Ford's best films Trial. Day Of The Evil Gun is a competently made western does drag a bit in spots. Still fans of the horse opera and Glenn Ford should like it.

NewEnglandPat 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.

wmjahn I like Glen FORD and consider this western a minor classic. Pretty unknown and still waiting to be recognized even by movie buffs this little gem has definitely not yet the reputation it deserves."Directed with lazy assurance" as the TIME OUT FILM GUIDE correctly writes, by veteran director Jerry Thorpe, and played with laid back gusto by all involved, this western offers a very grim and dark view on the "old west", more influenced by the Italo-western (which was in full bloom in the later 60ies) than the classic US-flick. Gunfighter FORD, aged, bored, tired and with "have-seen-it-all" eyes, comes back home just to find his wife and 2 small daughter carried away by Apaches. Arthur KENNEDY claims his wife was about to marry him and after an incredibly tough fist-fight they team up (unwillingly) to rescue them.What follows is an odyssey through some very bizarre situations, staged with the aforementioned lazy assurance, situations, which one does not happen to see in many other US-western: everything is dark, depressing, cynical and void of any sympathy. Whereas THE SEARCHERS had some hope underneath, this is more than 10 years later and the characters, scripted by veteran scriptwriter Charles Marquis Warren, are driven by the urge to do what has to be done, but equipped with little hope. FORD plays the "lost character" in an old west with dark cynical humor, one of his best later performances. Kennedy is fine, too, and also very worth mentioning is the character played by Nico Minardos, whom you would more expect to find in any Quentin Tarantino movie than in a B-western from the later 60ies. Great rough music by Jeff Alexander! All in all a very watchable outing, made by experts, each of whom must have had a dozen or more western to his credit at the time, when they teamed up to put DAY OF THE EVIL GUN on celluloid.Watch out for this and don't miss it, it's very well worth a viewing !

Scarecrow-88 Not bad little western starring Glenn Ford as Lorne Warfield, a gunfighter who has had his belly-full of killing and just wishes to carve out a new life with his wife and two daughters. When he finds they have been kidnapped by Apaches, Warfield will have quite a few obstacles in his path before he can rescue them. Arthur Kennedy has the best role of the film as Owen Forbes, a man in love with Warfield's wife and resents the man for walking out on his family. Forbes is slowly growing accustomed to killing as many will die by his gun along the way. Warfield is always looking over his shoulder in regards to Forbes but will have to form a partnership with him in order to somehow survive an accompaniment of ordeals along the way such as Army deserters wishing to make a trade with those Apaches who have kidnapped Warfield's family. They'll have to contend with Mexicans, also.The film is excellently photographed by cinematographer W Wallace Kelley, especially many numerous long shots which really open wide the hot desert landscape Warfield must ride(..and walk)along the way. But Kelley's marvelous camera-work during the Apache attack on the small town filled with betrayed Army deserters led by John Anderson's Jefferson Addis, is wonderful to behold. Probably my favorite sequence is when Warfield and Forbes have been tied up to be meat for the buzzards as we watch and wonder in horror how they'll ever escape this ordeal. When you have Glenn Ford and Arthur Kennedy as your leads, a film would be hard to dislike. This one does have a rather routine plot, but as I mention above the cast and photography is first-rate.