Trois heures pour tuer

Dour little Western (just count the smiles) that still manages a few surprises. So, who killed Carter. Not Jim Guthrie (Andrews), even though an over-eager lynch mob thinks so, leaving him with a permanent neck burn and a smoldering desire for revenge. It looks like a lot of folks hated Carter, so now, three years later, Guthrie's sleuthing work is cut out for him. A grudgingly sympathetic sheriff gives the innocent man three hours to nail the real culprit. So, it's a suspenseful countdown to sundown. Can he do it.

Can't help noticing this tale of a driven man's revenge was produced by Harry Joe Brown who later produced the thematically similar Randolph Scott cycle of Westerns (The Tall T {1957}; Comanche Station {1960} et al.). There's a strong similarity in the character and temperament of the leads, which suggests producer Brown had both a definite point of view and at least some influence on the screenplays.

Director Werker gets a lot out of LA area locations and a mixed cast of veterans like Andrews and newcomers like Foster. The unstable relationship between Andrews and Reed is more interesting and complex than in most Westerns. But I did have some difficulty keeping track of the four prominent ladies, a more crowded field than in most oaters. Anyway, the movie is a neat combination of whodunit and sagebrush that'll keep you guessing, without the usual clichés.

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

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.

Westerns are always my favorite movies... Westerns, are something I go to see, and, if my memory serves me correctly, there are many I have watched in the theaters, with my father, when I was a little boy...

'Three Hours to Kill' is a decent little Western, though certainly not among the best... For a little-known film from Alfred L. Welker (that I saw lately on the Western Channel) I was surprised by the quality of the video transfer... What struck me most were the colors; they were accurate, well defined, and rich...

Welker's work on the film is satisfactory, although not impressive... The movie relies totally on Dana Andrews, the very definition of character and honesty, and on his determination to catch the real killer... At one point, he allows himself to be severely hurt by a rope tied around his neck, to give the scene a realistic look...

This is going to happen quickly, so don't blink because 'Three Hours to Kill' is a movie that can be quickly and easily summarized, when an innocent man escapes a lynching, he breaks all the rules to clear his name, disbelieving that no one of his hypocritical friends, will stand by him... Everybody want him to leave town... His enemies simply want him dead...

The supporting cast do well—particularly Donna Reed with her sensitive portrayal of a woman in love, shocked to see her brother getting shot in the back by her lover...

Welker makes great use of the limited locations and uses a wide variety of interesting angles and cuts to add some tension and excitement to the film...

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.