THREE HOURS TO KILL (1954)

In the middle of a long run of Randolph Scott Westerns (six with Budd Boetticher directing yet to come*), producer Harry Joe Brown cast fading A-listers Dana Andrews, Donna Reed and journeyman Alfred L. Werker to meg this tight chamber Western.  Pretty good, too (though the climax disappoints), but even more interesting as a test run for those Boetticher gems.  With cinematographer Charles Lawton Jr. & composer Paul Sawtell already in place, it looks & sounds like the later films, if only Werker tied landscape to character, and staged with a bit more formal discipline.  (Some action stuff mighty casual: punches missing by a mile and obvious stunt-doubling for Andrews behind shrubbery.)  But the anti-lynching theme would have worked for Scott as it does for Andrews, returning to the town where he barely escaped a ‘neck party’ (and with the scar to prove it).  Determined to end a life-on-the-run, he’s come back to find the true guilty party, the man who shot Reed’s husband in the back while Andrews took the blame.  And what a load of likely suspects still in town.  Town barber Whit Bissell particularly odious . . . and lousy with the straight-razor.  You’ll guess the real killer, but not three neatly turned twists right at the end.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Watch for a fluff Werker kept when Reed’s little boy couldn't get some candy out of a bag.  Adorable.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Closest match-up with a Boetticher/Scott Western is probably BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE/’58, which keeps to town more than the other six though can’t quite pull off some appealing comic elements.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/buchanan-rides-alone-1958.html