Tres horas para matar

"The Ox-Bow Incident," a tragedy about lynching in the Old West, helped make Dana Andrews a star. "Three Hours to Kill," a little Western mystery he made after his stardom cooled, is not nearly as grim (or as good), but it is fairly gritty and it holds your interest.

Andrews plays a cowboy who's framed for murder and almost lynched. He escapes with only a rope burn on his neck thanks to the help of his true love, played by Donna Reed. A few years later, as a fugitive, he returns to town to solve the crime and clear his name -- and he gets three hours to do it. (The circumstances of this are a bit complicated.)

Things become really tricky when the former sweethearts cross paths again. It turns out they've got serious issues, the kind that were not often addressed in "B" Westerns in the 1950s.

"Three Hours" is pleasingly fast-paced, wrapping up in well under half the time in the title. It keeps you guessing, which is the most important job of a whodunit, and it even has a couple of surprises after the mystery is solved. Not great, but good if you have a little time of your own to kill.

Three Hours to Kill is directed by Alfred Werker and written by Richard Alan Simmons, Roy Huggins and Maxwell Shane. It stars Dana Andrews, Donna Reed, Stephen Elliott, Richard Coogan and Dianne Foster. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr.

As solid as a boulder in Death Valley, Three Hours to Kill is a most satisfying Oater for genre fans not expecting boundary pushing. Plot has Andrews as Jim Guthrie, who is wrongly accused by the town folk of murder and promptly condemned to death by lynch mob. Escaping the rope by the skin of his neck, Guthrie bides his time for three years before heading back to the town to clear his name and nail the real murderer. His friend, the Sheriff, gives him three hours to complete his task before the law intervenes.

What unfolds is a whodunit led by Andrews as he interrogates and puts the squeeze on a number of the town's denizens. There's a deliberately downbeat tone that serves the story well, with lost loves, unfulfilled lives and haunted memories of past doings permeating the narrative. The psychological undertones and risque aspects of the story are tantalisingly -frustratingly so - left to just simmer, but mood befits question marks in the plotting to keep one engaged.

Action scenes are in the main no more than competently handled, but a couple are quite striking to raise the pulses. When the pic moves out of the confines of the town, the locales (Lake Sherwood, Sherwood Forest, Hidden Valley in Calif) are most striking and leave you hankering for a more airy picture as a whole. Cast are fine, Andrews toughs up for good perf, but as lovely as Reed and Foster are (in fact Foster is socko gorgeous), they are undone by standard writing and Reed comes off as looking bored.

The ending carries a nice surprise, two fold in fact, to close the deal on what is an above average Oater to be enjoyed as easy sampling by genre fans. 6.5/10

A superior B-picture dealing with a gunfighter accused of murdering his fiancee's brother . Jim Guthrie (Dana Andrews) is a fugitive who has been run out of town after being nearly lynched for the murder of a man he did not kill. As Guthrie is the Man With The Rope Scar on his neck . All but pulled to pieces by a small town lynch mob including many of his so-called friends . Framed for murder, he escaped for three years but returns to find the real killer. But Jim is back , and he feels himself betrayed . As Jim arrives in town and he meets his old flame Laurie Mastin (Donna Reed) who is married to another ex-friend .Then the would-be-lynchers , fearing that Guthrie will exact some kind of vendetta for their anti-social treatment to him , set out to get him before he gets them.

An interesting and moving Western with a suspenseful premise , as an accused gunslinger back in town and he wants to track down the real murderer , then to find him out ; who is the true killer ? .The picture neatly slots together the dual time frames , containing emotion , thrills , shootouts , fights and an intriguing whodunit . Enjoyable and thrilling screen play from Roy Huggins , Maxwell Shane, Richard Alan and based upon a story by Alex Gottlieb. Main and support cast are frankly good . Dana Andrews gives an acceptable and sober acting as Jim Guthrie who barely escapes lynching by the town mob, becoming a wanted fugitive , bearing the physical and mental scars of his experience, and subsequently determined to clear his name. This one results to be the best character , generating a strong sense of bitterness and pain at the speed with Dana Andrews feels himself double-crossed . Other players are pretty well , such as Donna Reed playing the pregnant girl he left behind who marries another man, and Diane Foster as the girl Andrews takes with him after the real killer has been identified and harshly dealt with . Adding other notorious secondaries as Carolyn Jones , Whit Bissell , Stephen Elliott , Richard Coogan , Francis McDonald , James Westerfield , Richard Webb , Charlotte Fletcher , among others .

It displays an atmospheric and evocative cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr who photographed several Westerns . As well as evocative and adequate musical score by Paul Sawtell . The motion picture was well directed by Alfred L. Welker . This film was made from his last years , as Alfred L. Welker was working from the 30 in the business . He realized a catalogue of routine assignments broken by highlights including : The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 1935 and He walked by night 1949 the prototype serial-killer film noir , and a string of Western oaters . As Alfred Werker directed all kinds of genres : Drama , Film Noir , Adventures , sagebrush Westerns , such as : The Last Posse , Devil's canyon , Repeat Performance , Pirates of Monterrey , Whispering Ghosts , The Mad Martindales , Moon Over Her Shoulder , My Pal Wolf , Rebel in city , At Gunpoint , The Young Don't Cry , Canyon Crossroads and Sealed Cargo , a WWII Thriller that also starred Dana Andrews . Rating . 6.5/10 . Better than average Western . Worthwhile seeing .

Dana Andrews gives a convincing performance as Jim Guthrie who nearly got lynched and returns to town three years later to find out killed the brother of the woman he was going out with.

The victim did not want Guthrie marrying his sister, Laurie who is now married to someone else, her husband might be one of the killers.

A sympathetic Sheriff gives Guthrie three hours to find the killer. A saloon girl who had a thing for Guthrie helps him out.

Guthrie goes after four friends of his who shouted the loudest for him being lynched.

It is a routine western with a countdown, a straightforward story with a child born out of wedlock. There is no hint as to why Guthrie returned to town to clear his name and what he has been up to for the past few years.

Three Hours To Kill casts Dana Andrews as a man on the run for the murder of Richard Webb which he did not do, but for which he was nearly lynched. Andrews has the rope burn scar to prove it.

Four old friends of his who also knew the victim were the ones yelling loudest for the lynching. Andrews zeroes in on them for the answers. There's also saloon girl Dianne Foster who has a thing for Dana and the sister of Richard Webb who was violently opposed to her marrying Andrews who is played by Donna Reed fresh from her Oscar win for From Here To Eternity.

This western plays like a noir mystery even though it's set in the wide open spaces. Andrews is one grim western hero and hardly the role model for a cowboy hero. Still in the end he solves the mystery and he does it when all four of those he seeks are brought into the saloon and compare notes. All could not have been more neatly revealed by Hercule Poirot himself.

One of Dana's best films.