A Time for Killing

directed by Emily Biddle
Category: "Western"
Year of Release:1967
Date Added:12/29/2023
Date Watched:07/19/2024
Description:A bunch of Confederate POWs escape from a Union prison camp somewhere in the southwest. They're led by Capt. Bentley (George Hamilton). They are pursued by a force under Maj. Wolcott (Glenn Ford). Shortly after they escape, they come upon a wagon carrying Emily (Inger Stevens), Wolcott's fiancee. The confederates kill her escort and take her with them. They reach a cantina where they kill a Union dispatch rider carrying news that the war is over. Bentley doesn't want the war to be over, so he hides the dispatch and then rapes Emily -- just to make sure that Wolcott keeps following him. Wolcott does -- riding into one ambush after another. He insists that he won't chase the Confederates into Mexico just to get revenge for Emily's rape -- but when he gets to the border, he apparently forgets all about this. He rides into another ambush and all his men are killed (except for two who were only along for some ill-placed comic relief). Perhaps because the Union soldiers were doing such a poor job of killing Confederates, the movie makers had the Confederates kill each other until only Wolcott and Bentley are left. Wolcott kills Bentley, but when he finds the dispatch about the war being over, he gets angry with Emily for manipulating him into continuing to fight (even though it was his choice to ride into Mexico???). Harrison Ford has an early bit in his first billed role. Max Baer, Jr. (who played Jethro in The Beverly Hillbillies plays a lunatic confederate who giggles when he kills people and continually fights with his own men.
My Rating:3

Reviews for A Time for Killing

Review - A Time for Killing

From about three minutes into this movie right until the end, I was struck by how incredibly stupid it was. George Hamilton was supposedly this mean, driven warrior who refuses to admit that he lost the war. But he comes across as a shrill bully who's likely to cry if he doesn't get his way. His character raped Emily because the South was raped and now she would know what his country went through. Glenn Ford was too old for his role and acted like he was asleep. The way he kept leading his men into ambush was moronic. And there's a scene where a guy shoots one bullet at a wagon, and not only the horse but the entire wagon falls over.
Back to the list