24 heures de terreur

I know this much about Director Harmon Jones: I really liked his debut comic opus, entitled AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL (US 1951) but have seen nothing else from him.

Turning to A DAY OF FURY, I liked it too, albeit less than the aforementioned debut, which was not a Western. A DAY is a curious movie, a real Western oddity: With the intriguing name of Jagade (any Indian extraction?), Dale Robertson is the male lead but not the good fellow in the story. That role goes to the comparatively silent, seemingly meek, Allan Burnett (played by Jock Mahoney) who happens to be the town marshall to boot.

Beautiful Mara Corday portrays Sharman Fulton, a woman of pleasure intent on putting an end to that life... except Jagade and she have common baggage and he wants her back servicing the public and returning the town to the old ways instead of seeking the ever encroaching mordernity dealing the coup de grâce to the Old West.

I wonder if the current US incumbent ever had the time and lacked the boredom to watch and learn from this flick, because Jagade is just as intent on returning the town to the hillbillies as the incumbent to make America great again. Jagade, too, lusts after power and money (especially at cards) above all other considerations.

Of couse, back in 1956 Edmiston and Brodey could not have written their screenplay with the 2025 incumbent in mind, but there are almost prophetic connecting points.

To add to the disconcerting nature of a town whose values and loyalties are coming under threat, the inexplicable role of town schoolmarm Dee Carroll as Miss Timmons, whose loyalties keep shifting.

Succint, effective cinematography and editing by Ellis Carter and Sherman Todd.

Definitely worth watching 7/10.

My problem with "A Day of Fury" was that as a child I watched Dale Robertson in "Wells Fargo" and I can't recall many films in which he hasn't played a honest hero. So I didn't find him convincing as the bad guy, especially with his expressionless acting, and was waiting for him to redeem himself. Randolph Scott (occasionally) and Glenn Ford were better at playing against type.

Talking of which, John Dehner (so often the villain or rascal) did this very successfully as the Parson.

I never did grasp what was Jagade's motivation for his behaviour, and perhaps the motives of Miss Timmons (the school-teacher) could have been made a little clearer.

Two of television's best known cowboy heroes, Dale Robertson from Tales Of Wells Fargo and the Range Rider Jock Mahoney star in this unusual western about a town full of hypocrites. Imagine High Noon had we probed a bit deeper into the town of Hadleyville and its citizens who would not back up Gary Cooper and you have A Day Of Fury.

Notorious gunslinger Robertson arrives in the town and the townspeople are righteously aroused. They want Marshal Mahoney to just run this guy out of town. But Mahoney's life was once saved by him and with no wants or warrants out on him, Robertson is a free man until he actually commits a crime.

Which works out fine as Robertson bit by bit turns things around completely and it's the marshal these fine citizens turn on. You have to see how he does it, more I will not say. There's also the complicating factor that Mahoney's fiancé Mara Corday has history with Robertson.

A trio of standout supporting performances come from Jan Merlin as a local tough, John Dehner as the town minister, and most of all Dee Carroll as the spinster school teacher who is a repressed and tragic figure.

Mahoney and Robertson have some good chemistry in their scenes. A nice mixture of antagonism and respect goes into their dialog.

A Day Of Fury is a real sleeper of a western. Caught it by accident almost, glad I did.

A well-turned screenplay, efficient editing, good small-scale production values, and tense directing make A Day of Fury much better than most Westerns.

Dale Robertson is a better actor than his reputation, but all 3 leads are limited in range. The best role and performance are the Preacher by John Dehner, who helps any film in which he appears. Most Westerns present ministers either as comic-cowardly milquetoasts or as unrealistic studs who give up their guns for the good book. When changes unsettle the town, Day of Fury's Preacher is the first to lose his temper and threaten violence, but then he's embarrassed by his own failing and horrified that his parishioners turn into a lynch mob.

The plot plays an interesting variation on the classic Western formula of the Old Wild West struggling to survive in or against the Cleaned-Up Bourgeois Town. The taciturnity of Robertson's Jigade fairly inverts the man-of-few-words Sheriff typically played by Joel McCrea or Randolph Scott into a Mephistophelean villain who quietly but steadily chips and shatters the thin veneer of civilization until the townsfolk break down into drunken irresponsibility, foolish greed, and vengeful terror. Jagade's opportunistic power compromises the town's Sheriff, played by the physically imposing Jock Mahoney, whose taciturnity can only dwindle to mute puzzlement until the wild card in Jagade's deck--the punk gunman Billy Brant--changes the game and creates a clear path of action for the law.

The sets are few, but the director keeps moving the characters across each other in well-defined space. The film's most impressive quality is to open with an atmosphere of uncertainty that steadily escalates into tension or dread. But its most interesting feature is that the anti-hero Jagade seems to have orchestrated the story as a suicide note.

I really like these Universal-International colour westerns made in the 1950s. This one was very probably the movie that got Dale Robertson the starring role in "Tales Of Wells Fargo" on TV (which I loved when it first appeared).

The chief extra reason why I like this movie though is the other main star was Jock Mahoney, in his usual understated style. He, of course, had previously starred in that superbly action-packed series "The Range Rider" and later "Yancy Derringer".