THREE HOURS TO KILL

US, 1954, 77 minutes, Colour.
Dana Andrews, Donna Reed, Diane Foster, Stephen Elliott, Carolyn Jones.
Directed by Alfred L. Werker.

Three Hours to Kill is an enjoyable film – a kind of film noir but set in the 19th century west. Dana Andrews plays a cowboy who was almost lynched because of accusations of a murder he did not commit. When he returns to the town, the sheriff gives him three hours to find the real killer.

The film is told in flashbacks, echoes the style of the crime thriller of the period but creates an atmosphere of the west, a variety of townspeople, familiar from westerns – but the point is to find the killer. Dana Andrews was at home in this kind of film and Donna Reed is a strong heroine.

1. How enjoyable a film? The satisfactory combination of western and whodunnit?

2. The film's impact: brevity, colour, locations?

3. The importance of the structure, introduction of the hero, the revenge theme, the establishing of the mystery, the flashbacks, the quest for the murderer, the revelation of the murderer? How involved did the audience become?

4. Jim as the hero? The atmosphere of revenge and audience sharing in this? Audience response to his first appearance, the explanation in the flashbacks, his real character? The importance of his suspicions, frightening the suspects? The memory of his hanging (the detail of the hanging, stopping it,
the horses dragging him through the town?

5. What happened to him as he sought out the murderer? The revelation of his attitudes and people's attitudes towards him? His shock at the final truth?

6. The four suspects in the town? Audience response to them? The nature of their work, in the bar, the hotel, the gambling? How well drawn was each character? How suspicious?

7. The importance of the lynching for the focus of the film? Why did the town want to lynch him? The mob atmosphere? Aggression and vindictiveness? The repetition of the scene at the end? The film*s comment of lynching and human nature?

8. Laurie and her love for him? The importance of her role in saving him from hanging? Her pregnancy, the marriage? Her confusion when he returned? Her love for him and for Niles? Her staying with Niles and her son at the end?

9. Marty and the girls at the saloon? The devotion to Jim? The possibility of a happy ending for one of them?

10. Audience suspicion of Niles? His marrying Laurie, his fight with Jim? Surprise or not that he was not the murderer?

11. comment on the aspects of the typical western in gunfighting, shootouts, hard riding?

12. How successful was the revelation of the murderer? The unexpected? The western showdown?

13. What values about right and wrong, justice and law, do westerns explore? How successfully did this one explore theme themes?