Hour of Death (1964) User Reviews

Good Chorizo Western well realized by the best Paella Western director , Joaquin Romero Marchent

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 13 September 2011]

Farmer Clifford (Jesus Puente) aware his wife (Gloria Milland) has a cerebral tumor and is necessary her intervention at a hospital of Laredo . Clifford sells his properties and organizes a caravan to city of Laredo throughout Indian territory . Along the way , Clifford is helped by various men as Bob Carey (Paul Piaget) , wife's ex-boyfriend , the gunfighter Ringo (Robert Hundar) who wishes to kill Carey and others ( Fernando Sancho , Francisco Sanz , Wu ) .

This interesting western contains a story full of humanity , good dramatic pace and slick direction . Enjoyable Chorizo-Spaghetti Western mostly produced by Spain and Italian secondary participation ; it doesn't follow the Sergio Leone wake and being proceeded in American style . The film packs action , shootouts , drama , good feeling , high body-count and it's fast moving and quite entertaining . It's a thrilling western with spectacular outdoors and breathtaking confrontation among protagonists , Robert Hundar and Paul Piaget ; and both of them against the heartless Ralf Baldasarre and his underlings . Acceptable action sequences with rousing Indian attacks against the Northern fort and spectacularly realistic shootouts . Charismatic performance for whole casting . The notorious Spaghetti actor , Robert Hundar is good in his usual tough role . Fantastic performance by the always great Fernando Sancho in a likable role , subsequently he would play similar characters , furthermore the slimy, menacing outlaw played by Ralf Baldassarre, here in his ordinary role as bandit and in a cruelly baddie character . There appears as secondaries the habitual in Spanish/Italian Western such as Francisco Sanz , Lorenzo Robledo , Beni Deus , Luis Induni , Gaspar Indio Gonzalez , Alfonso Rojas and of course Alvaro De Luna who still continues playing . The musician Riz Ortalani composes a nice soundtrack , well conducted , this turns out to be one of the most memorable parts of the movie; as it's full of enjoyable sounds and haunting musical background and with agreeable leitmotif . Very nice cinematography filmed by Rafael Pacheco on locations in Tabernas and desert of Almeria , as usual ; including good sets by Cubero and Galicia who carried out the most Production Design on Western shot in Spain.

The motion picture is finely directed and in personal style by Joaquin Luis Romero Marchent at his best . He's is an expert writer and director of good Western . His first film was ¨El Coyote¨ and the sequel titled ¨Revenge of Coyote¨ shot in Mexico . After that , he filmed ¨The shadow of Zorro¨ and ¨Revenge of Zorro¨. He went go directing Western as ¨ Riding to death ¨ , ¨Adventures in the West¨ , ¨Three good men¨, ¨Sabor Venganza ¨ and the most popular and violent ¨Condenados a Vivir¨ . Plus , he wrote for his brother Rafael Romero Marchent the followings Western : ¨Manos Torpes¨, ¨Ocaso un Pistolero¨ and ¨Garringo¨ . Rating : Better than average . Worthwhile watching .

The masterpiece of Spanish western

[diazcdm · 7/10 · 26 June 2000]

Based on a real story about director's grandmother, a very sad western with great fatalism. Very good directing, good performances -specially Jesús Puente, sometimes Spanish voice for James Stewart-, superb cinematography, this is a little big movie that must be seen.

classical western before Leone's style

[entomol71 · 5/10 · 1 August 2010]

This film directed by Joaquin Romero Marchent is a typical example of American western tough it is partly Italian and partly Spanish. Normally Italian films contain more violent scenes, shootings, deaths. In this one we have pure sentimentalism, assault by indians, irony and so on. We are far from Leone's style who launched a new western style that inspired many other directors, Americans too. Most of the actors are Spanish, even if there are some Italians like Raf Baldassarre in the role of Jeff, a violent cowboys, and Robert Hundar pseudonym of Claudio Undari a Sicilian actor specialized in western films. The original dialogues seem to be in Spanish then dubbed into Italian in the version I have. Shot in Almeria and in the Elios studios near Rome.

An Unusually Serious Spaghetti Western

[zardoz-13 · 7/10 · 15 May 2018]

Anybody who knows anything about Continental westerns knows Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent was an important pioneer in the evolution of the genre. He started out making movies about the masked avenger "Zorro" and later followed in Sergio Leone's footsteps. Moreover, anybody who knows anything about Spaghetti westerns knows that the genre bristled with lots of unusual sagebrushers, too. Marchent's "Hour of Death" is also known as "Seven Guns from Texas," clearly an effort to lure in audiences that had seen "The Magnificent Seven." Ultimately, "Hour of Death" shares little in common with most westerns either foreign or domestic, and this makes it refreshingly different. Several things set this oater aside from others. The primary hero, Bob Carey (Paul Piaget of "Charge of the Seventh Calvary"), does a stretch in prison for killing another man in a gunfight. Carey drew a five-year prison sentence, but the dead man's brothers take little comfort in the court's intervention. One of those brothers, Ringo (Robert Hundar of "The Relentless Four"), vows to kill him, but Carey is fast enough on the draw to thwart him. Indeed, Carey pulls a Lone Ranger and shoots Ringo in both hands, so the unruly villain must wait impatiently for his hands to recover. Consequently, Ringo's revenge-minded brothers decide to finish the job. They wound Carey, but he survives the ambush.

Meantime, we learn Carey left a woman behind, María (Gloria Milland of "Fury of Achilles"), who he had planned to marry. María winds up wedding a well-heeled gentleman, Clifford (Jesús Puente of "Adiós gringo"), but he learns from a local doctor that she is suffering from a brain tumor. When was the last time that you heard of anybody in any western stricken with a brain tumor? Anyway, Clifford is told he must take his wife to Laredo for the operation. The valiant husband sells all his belongings and heads off to Laredo with several others, including Bob Carey, Ringo, and a half-breed troubleshooter named Scometti (genre stalwart Fernando Sancho) as his hired guns. One of the men that Scometti convinces Clifford to hire is named Jess (Raf Baldassarre of "Blindman") who schemes to kill Clifford, steal his money, and take his wife. Happily, Carey leaves him on foot without a horse. The major obstacle in Clifford's way is an outbreak of Apache violence, and this slows them down. They are confined to a cavalry fort with other families. They manage to repulse the Apaches before they embark on the second half of their journey of hardship across a searing desert with few water holes. Jess comes back to plague them. First, he blasts their water barrels full of holes, so they exhaust their supply of water. Second, he rides ahead of them and ambushes them at the next water hole. While all this is going on, Ringo starts to behave differently about his vow to kill Carey. Eventually, María discovers the truth of her predicament. Carey dies trying to kill Jess. Whoa! That's right, the ostensible hero dies! Clifford survives all these travails, too. Unfortunately, by the time he arrives in Laredo, María has succumbed to her brain tumor.

Typically, in westerns, the hero doesn't often die, and the woman in peril survives, too. Marchent stands the formula on its head, and this strategy makes "Seven Guns from Texas" a western of far greater realism. Production values are strong. The attack on the fort is handled with aplomb. You can tell this was an early Spaghetti effort because Fernando Sancho had yet to evolve into a swinish Mexican outlaw with a Genghis Khan laugh. Reportedly, Marchent waxed a bit autobiographical in the content of his screenplay. It seems that a loved one of his died from lung disease and everything that his family and he tried to intervene with proved ultimately futile. According to Pedro Gutiérrez Recacha, Marchent is quoted as saying, "It happens that my mother, a few years earlier, while still relatively young, was diagnosed with lung cancer. The entire family tried to find a solution, a possibility to extend her life in spite of the fact that the doctors had given up hope. We literally tried everything, even went to some kind of African healer. But nothing could be done, she was beyond help. So while making the movie I kept thinking, consciously or unconsciously, of this desperate struggle to save the life of a loved one. This misfortune had happened in Madrid in 1960, but was moved to Texas 1878."

Incredibly, Riz Ortolani's score is nothing like his "Day of Anger" score and blends in unobtrusively with everything else. Altogether, the realism of "Hour of Death" elevates it.

Old-fashioned Spanish western

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 21 March 2018]

THE SEVEN FROM TEXAS is one of those early spaghetti westerns made before Sergio Leone popularised the style and gave the genre its own gritty, violent and stylish look. This old-fashioned outing is more in line with the American westerns of the 1950s and it feels a little dull and dated by comparison. The thrust of the plot is the passage of a caravan through Indian territory, where the heroic leads must battle vicious native fighters, bandits, and various forms of corruption. This Spanish-made production has a nice colour palette but is spoilt by some lacklustre action scenes and a generally low budget feel.