Two reasons to comment on this ultra-cheapo made at the height of TV's Western craze. The film's biggest star is the wind machine that blows for almost the entire 70 minutes, even gusting away the ghostly-looking credits as they crawl by! I guess the latter was an insider joke. But actually the constant wind serves a couple of "higher" purposes-- to lend supposed atmosphere, and to mask the SoCal scrublands so close to LA, you can almost hear the traffic noise. The other reason, is to scope out the absolutely worst imitation of a Mexican outlaw in Hollywood's long and dishonorable history of "ethnic types". The dishonor here goes to Larry Storch-- yeah, that Larry Storch of the buffoonish F Troop TV series. After seeing him here grinding teeth and mangling accents, you can understand why he went into burlesque comedy. There's also an "Indian chief" so obviously Anglo, it's like putting a feathered headdress on Ozzie Nelson, while the main bad guy is played by a professional wrestler, whose cartoonish sneer suggests he's still doing his ring act. In fact, the most convincing thing about this movie is John Lupton's cough. I expected a lung to come up any moment on a cascade of blood.
Of course, it's easy to mock a cheap misfire like Gun Fever that likely played in 1 or 2 remote drive-in's where necking teenagers hardly cared what was on screen. In fairness to the record, actor-director Mark Stevens had a strong hand in two above-average cheapos-- Timetable and Cry Vengeance-- showing that with the right material (especially cast), he could turn out a decent product. Nonetheless, this campy flop is only for those of us addicted to The Western Channel.
