A Time for Killing (1967)

Great Film overall

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

As Good As It Gets

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

"A Time for Killing" is a very bad film--mostly because although it is supposed to be about the Civil War, the attitudes and actions you see are really revisionist and represent the angst of the 1960s...not the 1860s. In addition, at times, the film is just plain nasty and has no reason to be. As a retired history teacher, I really hated this movie.When the film begins, a Confederate prisoner is being executed and everyone is behaving angst-filled and disgusted by the commanding officer's order. This makes no sense, as the prisoner killed a guard while trying to escape...but such is the 1960s stamp on the film. Hating authority and officers was much more a vestige of the Vietnam War and not the Civil War.Soon a group of Confederates escape and the second in command balks at chasing the escapees down and returning them...saying the war is all but over. Again, this is a Vietnam era attitude...you didn't argue with your superior like this. But chase them down he must-- especially when it turns out that they are more depraved than the guys from "Deliverance" and start raping and murdering for no reason. Again, more a 1960s attitude as is the overall nihilistic attitude of the film. Seeing Jethro Bodine running amok and killing and George "the Tan- Man" Hamilton getting all rapey was just too much, too nasty and too pointless.

Toward the end of the Civil War, Union officer Maj. Tom Wolcott (Glenn Ford) is hot on the heals of a band of escaped Confederate prisoners headed for the Mexican border. The mission is especially important to Maj. Wolcott as the Confederates have kidnapped his fiancé, Emily Biddle (Inger Stevens).Overall, A Time for Killiing is a real mixed bag with the bad generally outweighing the good. One of my chief problems is inexplicable character motivation. Characters are liable to do just about anything from scene to scene. There's no consistency, with Maj. Wolcott being one of the worst offenders. The direction and plot are also weaknesses. The direction is often flat and the script does little to provide surprises. And there are moments where scenes go from location to indoor sets that's often jarring. Add to that overly bombastic and repetitive music, inappropriate comic relief, and Max Baer, Jr., and the problems are obvious. Despite its problems, there are positives. Some of the acting is quite good. Ford gives his excepted quality performance. Stevens is both good and beautiful. And I was also impressed with Harry Dean Stanton (always good) and Todd Armstrong in supporting roles. Another plus is the scenery. When the production is on location, the scenery is breathtaking. I'm giving A Time for Killing a 4/10.

A Time For Killing takes place in the southwestern territory of Arizona just days before the Civil War is to end. Several southern prisoners are held captive in an army stockade commanded by Emile Meyer. The prisoners could probably just sit things out and go home. But George Hamilton the commanding officer among the prisoners has an agenda all his own. The time and setting are similar to the 1953 William Holden film Escape from Fort Bravo and the Sam Peckinpaugh flawed classic Major Dundee which had come out a couple years earlier.Hamilton's from the Deep South, the part that General Sherman has just ravaged. So Hamilton figures he's got some payback coming and after escaping he kidnaps Indian missionary Inger Stevens who is the betrothed of second in command Glenn Ford and does a little ravaging of his own. To give Ford a little personal incentive to come after him so he can kill some more Yankees. This mind you is after the escaping Confederates kill a dispatch rider bringing news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.With the Civil War so close to an end it would have taken one charismatic leader to have kept those Confederates in line for this crazy mission. And George Hamilton is too nice to really be convincing in the part of a revenge seeking southerner. It's the main flaw of A Time For Killing.These are not John Ford type cavalrymen. You've got some real lowlife specimens on both sides Timothy Carey on the Union side and Max Baer, Jr. on the Confederate. Both are really into combat and killing, Baer who one remembers as the amiable dunce Jethro Bodine in The Beverly Hillbillies really surprises you with his role. In a small part as a Union lieutenant is Harrison Ford years ahead of his first big break in American Graffiti.Dick Miller and Kay E. Kuter play a pair of Union soldiers who aren't exactly the greatest of patriots. Their characters are for comic relief, but in the grim proceedings of A Time For Killing, their comedy while not bad is definitely out of place.A Time For Killing had some potential, but in the end I think the plot situation is really ridiculous and wastes a lot of talented people.

Others have nailed it. It's the casting that makes this movie interesting. Makes it worth watching too. Many names here. Ironically, Harrison Ford, probably the biggest name of all when one takes the long view, was an absolute total no-named nobody in 1967. Glenn Ford was the only true Hollywood movie star in the cast, although probably a little past his prime at this point. Meanwhile, Paul Peterson, Inger Stevens, and even Max Baer, Jr, who were household names in 1967, might well have younger folks these days scratching their heads, saying "Who?" But they were names then, mainly TV names of the day, but names nevertheless.Based on the inspired casting, clearly somebody had some higher aspirations for this movie. Somebody was trying hard to inject superior production values into this project. Somebody wanted this to be a box office success, maybe even a noteworthy film. But, alas, whatever it was, something was lost along the way. We could speculate about it 41 years later, try to pin it on somebody, but why? No point to that. Suffice it to say that somehow somewhere before all was said and done it lost its edge. Another consideration is the year, 1967. How could this offering ever hope to compete? As I've written elsewhere, 1967 was the very best year ever for movies. The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, In The Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Bonnie and Clyde, The Dirty Dozen. Remarkable films all. There might be one such notable movie of the caliber of those in any one year. Two would be better than average. But six in one year? Extraordinary indeed.The point is that 1967 was a remarkably good year for movies. Of course it's hard to flatly state that it was the very best movie year ever, because how could one possibly measure that? It is based on pure opinion. But try this: name another year that was any better than 1967. No can do. So this is the stuff A Time For Killing was up against as competition for the box office dollar back in 1967. It never really had much of a chance. In another year it might have fared a little better. But in 1967 it got lost.