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.
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.