A Time for Killing

A Time for Killing (1967)

Two violent men... and a violated woman!

During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers escape from a Union prison and head for the Mexican border. Along the way, they kill a Union courier bearing the news that the war is over. Keeping the message a secret, the captain has his men go on and they soon find themselves in a battle with the Union search party who also is unaware of the war's end.

Date of release
1967-08-01
TMDB
4.8 / 10 (37)
Runtime
1h 28m
Genres
Western, War
Director
Phil Karlson, Roger Corman

Casting

Interesting facts

A Time for Killing is a 1967 adventure war and Western film directed originally by Roger Corman but finished by Phil Karlson. Filmed in Panavision and Pathécolor, it stars Glenn Ford, George Hamilton, Inger Stevens, and Paul Petersen. Todd Armstrong and Max Baer Jr., have feature roles, and Harrison Ford made his credited screen debut.

Production

The film was based on a 1961 novel The Southern Blade. The Los Angeles Times called it "fast moving" The New York Times said it was full of "military stereotypes" but that it was written with "professional skill."

In October 1964 the screen rights to the novel were purchased by producer Harry Joe Brown. He set up the project at Columbia Studios, where he joined forces with Roger Corman.

By the end of 1964, Roger Corman was one of the most successful low-budget filmmakers in Hollywood, mostly working for American International Pictures. "Everything had been interesting, artistically satisfying, economically satisfying", Corman said eighteen months later. "But I decided I was going nowhere and wanted to move directly into the business." So he accepted a contract with Columbia.

Corman had a deal to make three films with Columbia. "But every idea I submitted was too strange, too weird", he later said. "Every idea they had seemed too ordinary to me. Ordinary pictures don't make money today [in 1966] because audiences today are too intelligent... It's a young people's audience... They can see the average for free on TV. You've got to give them something a little more complex artistically and intellectually.

Corman says the ideas he submitted to Columbia were a biopic of Baron von Richthofen, a story of the St Valentine's Day Massacre and an adaptation of Only Lovers Left Alive. (He would end up making the first two films for other studios).

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