Review #38 LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL (1959, John Sturges)

 

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The death of his wife at the hands of his old friend’s son puts a lawman on a collision course with the man with whom he once rode.

Starring  Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman, Brad Dexter

Written by  James Poe

Produced by  Hal B Wallis  

Duration  90 minutes

Here we go! John Sturges. One of the great western directors, up there with John Ford, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah and Howard Hawks. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, anyone? GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL? Not to mention that Bank Holiday perennial, all-star WWII epic THE GREAT ESCAPE. Stephen King even named the town in The Dark Tower: Part 5 ‘Calla Bryn Sturgis’ after Sturges, acknowledging his book’s similarities to MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.

Now, I’d never heard of Sturge’s LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL, which is nestled somewhere in the middle of the great man’s career. But I was certainly familiar with its leads.

Kirk Douglas has one of those iconic cinema faces, seemingly carved out of marble. SPARTACUS is, for me, Stanley Kubrick's weakest post-THE KILLING film, but man that's a legendary role for Kirk. (Side note: PATHS OF GLORY, the pair’s other team-up, is one of Kubrick’s best.) My favourite Douglas performance is in Billy Wilder’s black-as-coal media satire ACE IN THE HOLE, and he has no trouble being convincing in locales as diverse as ships on the sea (VIKINGS) and ships in space (SATURN 3). And he lived until 103, the bloody trooper.

Then you’ve got Anthony Quinn. I’ll always think of him as a comedy mobster in LAST ACTION HERO and for portraying a much more menacing villain as the cuckolded husband in Tony Scott’s REVENGE, but he too had a storied and celebrated decades-long career, winning two Oscars and popping up in the likes of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and LA STRADA.

Here, the two titans play former friends who are now on opposite sides of the law. It’s a solid dramatic setup, also used for William Holden and Robert Ryan in Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH, and again with Nick Nolte and Powers Booth in EXTREME PREJUDICE from another westernphile, Walter Hill.

In LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL, Douglas is the good guy US Marshall, first seen joking around with the local kids outside his cop shop. His mood worsens considerably when his own son turns up, distraught, to tearfully lead pop into the woods, where his mother/Douglas’s wife has been raped and murdered by a couple of whisky-swigging cowboys. 

Not only that, but one of the rapist-murderers turns out to be the son of Tony Quinn’s wealthy-but-dodgy cattle baron. So Douglas jumps on a train to Quinn’s ends, Gun Hill, and arrests the boy – but when Tony stands in his way, he has to pivot into a local hotel and wait it out with his hostage until the next train arrives, putting the two old buddies into a tense standoff. Douglas’s only ally in this hostile town is Carolyn Jones's feisty dame, a bitter ex-lover of Quinn and the only Gun Hillian willing to stand up to the man who effectively runs the whole place.

Douglas’s granite determination to see justice done in the face of passive local authorities is well-matched by Quinn, who has the more complex role. He retains a fondness for Kirk from all the years they’ve known each other and actually views his own son with distain – in general, for a lack of character, and specifically for his recent abhorrent actions. And yet family is family, so the crooked rancher is driven by loyalty to protect his offspring from what he knows the boy deserves morally; added to this, Tony can’t lose face in the town that shudders before his name.

The story is elegantly simple and doesn’t mess about, all taking place in less than 24 hours and with Douglas’s determination to get his prisoner onto the final train of the day providing a ticking clock. There’s a thrill in seeing this man commit to his task with laser focus and steely resolve, like the Terminator with a badge. "You, you're breaking the law!" one cowardly citizen splutters at our hero. "I am the law!" the Marshall spits back. (The creators of 2000 AD's ‘Judge Dredd’ strip must have been taking notes.)

All in all, while LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL may not be one of Sturges’s better known efforts, it’s a compelling tale with suspense to spare that can hold its head up high among its more celebrated peers.

Four stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Absolutely: the film literally ends with the train pulling away.

What would a movie called FIRST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL be about?  A lot more on what Douglas got up to on the journey into the town than what he does after arriving there. The newspaper crossword puzzle, maybe? Did they have them back then?

Previously:  I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

Review #37 I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997, Jim Gillespie)

 

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Four young friends are stalked by a hook-wielding maniac a year after killing a man in a road accident (or at least they thought he was dead …)

Starring  Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr, Bridgette Wilson

Written by  Kevin Williamson

Produced by  Neal H Moritz, Erik Feig, Stokely Chaffin

Duration  101 minutes

I have a soft spot for slasher movies. I would call them a guilty pleasure, if I'd ever felt guilty about watching one.

Although the first genuine slasher was BLACK CHRISTMAS four years prior, the genre’s golden period began in 1978 when HALLOWEEN became the highest-grossing independent movie of all time. The imitators came thick and fast; some holiday-season-based, some not. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET birthed a worthwhile franchise; FRIDAY THE 13TH’S results were more mixed. Various standalones clambered above the pack: let me direct you towards HELL NIGHT, THE BURNING, BLOOD RAGE, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, MY BLOODY VALENTINE and THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE.

Now, here's the thing. These are the years those six films I just listed were released: 1981, 1981, 1987, 1983, 1981 (again!) and 1982.

Notice a pattern? Sheer unabashed '80-ness is big factor in slasher success. More than a couple of years back into the previous decade, you get '70s grittiness – good in its own way, but a different proposition. And stepping forward lands you slap bang in the mire of '90s blandness, where something that would have been a delicious cheesefest 10 years before ends up being completely tasteless (but not in the good way). 

Yes, by the mid ’90s, the slasher was well and truly on its last mutilated legs, clogged up with inferior HALLOWEEN and HELLRAISER sequels and dire straight-to-video efforts. Then along came SCREAM in 1996 and a brief second-coming for the genre, with 1997’s I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER one of the next out the traps.

LAST SUMMER has a screenplay by SCREAM’S Kevin Williamson, this time with the irony left out – unless you think it's ironic to be killed by someone who you thought you yourself had killed. (More like poetic justice – it’s a thin line.)

The movie does not inspire optimism by opening with a bombastic cliffside wave-crashing panorama set to a nu-metal cover of Seals & Crofts ‘Summer Breeze’. And things don’t improve any upon meeting the four leads. As soon as they open their mouths, out comes the tedious self-awareness and unrealistic verbosity Williamson’s teenagers were known for, an overwritten cadence that integrated itself into America’s film and TV landscape and can still be found today synthetically lengthening any number of Netflix original series. The ‘Williamson-ese’ here doesn't reach the painfully twee nadir of his show Dawson's Creek, but without something clever and substantial like SCREAM surrounding them, the characters sound empty and narcissistic. It's not uncommon to be hoping that the people you’re supposed to be rooting for in a slasher will be swiftly offed, but usually the viewer doesn't start praying for their deaths minutes into their introductory scene.

The worst offender is Ryan Phillippe, who spends the whole film either shouting or pouting. Does he feel left out as the only one of the central foursome who doesn't use their middle name? Or was he bitter from jealously watching FPJ chatting up SMG between takes while JLH was proving immune to his own charms? (Not to worry: he was about to meet Reese Witherspoon.)

To be fair, there are a couple of satisfying deaths, including Johnny Galecki taking a hook to the face in a scene that will elicit cheers from anyone who's ever accidently turned over to his perma-repeated TV hit The Big Bang Theory and been involuntarily exposed to that annoying squeaky voice. And Love Hewitt is a decent ‘final girl’, with her notorious ‘What are you waiting for?!’ scene giving us at least one pleasingly bonkers moment – but that just serves to emphasise how bang-average everything is around it.

The slasher renaissance briefly promised by LAST SUMMER barely lasted out the decade, and as the 20th Century lurched towards its close like Jason Voorhees with an arrow in his leg, horror veered instead towards found footage, thanks to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT channelling (the infinitely superior) CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, before the grim likes of SAW and HOSTEL briefly popularised so-called ‘torture porn’.

So, in the end, the late ‘90s didn’t usher in a new wave of slasher classics after all. People only really remember this film because of how well it’s parodied in SCARY MOVIE.

It was probably for the best; some things are so much a product of their time that to attempt them again in a different era just leads to disaster. Or worse, a dullness that feels worse than death – by meat hook or otherwise.

But I will leave you on a more positive note: Christopher Landon's nu-slashers HAPPY DEATH DAY (2017), HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U (2019) and FREAKY (2020) are well worth your time.

Two stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  There were two sequels (coming soon, to a blog near you!), so clearly not.

What would a movie called I KNOW WHAT YOU DID FIRST SUMMER be about?  Most people’s first summers were spent lolling about in nappies and it’s hard to imagine what could possibly be worth knowing about that.

Previously:  THE LAST HORROR MOVIE 

Next time:  LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL  

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com