A Time for Dying

Due to financial constraints this movie was shorter than planned. Thank goodness. A sad finale for both producer and director.

I'm an Audie Murphy and have been steadily working my way through his movies. I'd heard of this, his last film, and not favorably - low production values, bad acting, Audie looking fat and old.

Well I have to agree with the first two criticisms. I can't understand how this film has been given 7 stars, but the part about Audie is wrong, wrong, wrong. When he comes onto the scene,he simply towers over the other actors, the whole movie. He's so good, and it's a real shame that he didn't live longer.

It would have been interesting if he had taken some of the other roles he was offered, such as the villain in DIRTY HARRY. It would have been a whole new direction for him, but then contemporary movies were never his thing. His whole style may have been best suited for Westerns.

I of course speak of both Budd Boetticher the director and Audie Murphy, the most decorated World War 2 soldier and a famous western player in the fifties and sixties. Both offer us here their very last film; however I think Boetticher will make ARRUZA after this one. That said, this is a purely late sixties western, downbeat, gloomy, very badly done for a veteran and talented film maker such as Budd Boetticher. And that's also the second time in his career that Audie Murphy played Jesse James, the first one being KANSAS RAIDERS, directed by Ray Enright. When you have admired both actor and director, you can feel some diziness watching this one. But I feel tenderness for this lame film. I don't know why.

I saw this movie while living at Cumberland MD, at a Drive in Theatre. I went to see it because Audie Murphy was in it as well as one of my old favorite "voices" Victory Jory. It was reported earlier that this movie would not be shown in the United States, but it was in 1972-or 73. I ought to know because that's when I lived in Cumberland. As a child listening to the radio in the 1930s and '40's, I could recognize the voice instantly of Victory Jory, Howard Duff (Sam Spade)and Curly Bradley as Tom Mix. There also was a time when I recognized the voice of Gordon Nance (Wild Bill Elliott)on certain mystery shows. By the time I was going to the movies, I knew all those voices and was so happy to see their faces for the first time.

What a strange little picture. Audie Murphy, like Randolph Scott, has a place in second tier western heroes that is unassailable. By second tier, that's not to denigrate either actor, just that they never attained the heights of movie stardom like James Stewart, John Wayne or later Clint Eastwood did in westerns. Sadly, this marked the final screen appearance of Audie Murphy, and only five minutes of the picture. The leading actor is Richard Lapp. Who? You might wonder why Audie Murphy decided as a producer to invest in this nobody. It's a mystery to everyone who's seen it. He came and went unnoticed. There's one really great performance in the movie with Victor Jory as Judge Roy Bean though, so all is not lost. Not as subtle and menacing as Walter Brennan's portrayal in an earlier film but over the top sort of great, announcing hangings with great glee and his dentures falling out. The director, Budd Boetticher, who made seven fine, even great minor westerns starring Randolph Scott, must have been drunk when he made this. There's no real explanation as to how this film went so badly wrong but I've given it 3 stars, one each for the beautifully clear cinematography, Audie Murphy as Jesse James (all too briefly) and best of all, Victor Jory.