Forty Guns

Starring:Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry, Robert Dix, Jidge Carroll, Paul Dubov, Gerald Milton, Ziva Rodann, Hank Worden, Neyle Morrow, Chuck Roberson, Chuck Hayward, Sandra Wirth, Eve Brent, Eddie Parks
Director: Samuel Fuller
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Forty Guns is the most rampantly sexualized Western ever made, and the most outrageous of Samuel Fuller's late-'50s B movies. Fuller's original title was "Woman with a Whip," referring to the hard-riding range baroness--Barbara Stanwyck, sporting silver hair and (most of the time) black, skintight man togs--who's "the boss of Cochise County" and a law unto herself. The forty guns are an army of pistoleros who accompany her just about everywhere, and Fuller misses no opportunity to exaggerate their macho assertiveness in black-and-white CinemaScope, whether thundering along the horizon or formed up on either side of a preposterously long dinner table with Stanwyck at its head. Barry Sullivan costars as a Wyatt Earp-like gunfighter who both threatens Stanwyck's empire and awakens her lust for something besides power. As one of his brothers, Gene Barry (soon to star in Fuller's mind-blowing Vietnam movie China Gate) enjoys a passionate liaison with a gunsmith's busty blond daughter (Eve Brent) whom he romances down the bore of a rifle--an image Jean-Luc Godard would memorialize in Breathless. In the relentlessly double-entendre dialogue and the blocking of scenes, everything takes on sexual overtones: power and impotence, political advantage and exclusion. Fuller and cameraman Joseph Biroc capture many sequences in single, minutes-long takes that often end in a death--and in one perverse instance, the revelation of a death that has occurred midway through without our knowing it. (It's a T.S. Eliot moment, though we won't insist on it.) Style is all in this movie, which will leave you either astonished or aghast. More likely, both. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

great classic.......2006-12-19

with a woman in charge!

nice twist to the classic western.... very professionally done, without too much typical Hollywood influence oozing out.

psycho sexual rumblings in a b&w cinemascope western=vintageFuller .......2006-11-10

This is deffinitely a different Western. The plot is convulted to say the least and the film is wraught with double entendra's and people getting shot at the end of nearly every scene. Not to mention it was an early cinemascope picture, which Fuller makes great use of in his compositions. Fuller was always so underated. If you love classic 50's westerns and you're open minded it's worth your time.

Forty Guns Is A Trip .......2006-09-16

Forty Guns by Sam Fuller is about the strangest, most unusual, and bizarre "B" western made in the 1950's. I have watched it many times and I'm still not completely sure what the total plot of the film is and at various points during the film the plot switches to such strange directions that you as the viewer are wondering where the film is going and what's going on. Each time I watch it the more bizarre it looks. It is a western so unusual and strange that it is extremely entertaining and enjoyable. Most of the characters in this film are simply "Off the Hook" to use the slang of the kids today. I really like this film but I'm not completely sure exactly why. The characters that I enjoy the most are of course Barbara Stanwyck as the master of this giant ranch who rules with an iron hand, Barry Sullivan as the hired killer turned marshall who is a man who feels his time is over in the old west, and John Ericson who is Barbara Stanwyck's younger brother who is basically just crazy and shoots the original older town sheriff for fun and then kills Gene Barry on his wedding day - a very healthy individual. Dean Jagger's performance is also very strange and he hangs himself after trying to shoot Barry Sullivan and then being rejected by Barbara Stanwyck who he has secretly been in love with for years. All and all, one of the strangest westerns and movies for that matter that I have ever seen. I like it.

The B&W transfer for a film of this vintage is excellent which is a real plus.

Intriguing Western With Barbara Stanwyck Ruling The Wild West In Another Strong Female Role.......2005-12-07

It's not often that you get to see a western made in the 1950's where a strong female character is to the forefront of the action but that is what we most definately get in Samuel Fuller's classic western "Forty Guns". While as a film it will probably never to revered as much as some of the John Ford westerns produced in the '40's and '50's it is significant in that it provided the legendary Barbara Stanwyck with one last gutsy female character to play on screen before sadly the movie roles dried up for her like they did for most veteran actresses in this period. Having to continue her career in television productions in order to keep working Barbara Stanwyck sadly had a five year break from the big screen after "Forty Guns", only reappearing for "Walk on the Wild Side", in 1962. "Forty Guns", is a most unusual western with a highly interesting set of lead characters but it is for Stanwyck's performance as the hard as nails "woman with a whip", that the film stays in the memory among the glut of "shoot 'em up",style westerns saturating the screen around this time.

Set in Cochise County, Arizona "Forty Guns", quickly introduces us to the unofficial ruler of the whole area in tough, non nonsense landowner Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck),who controls the running of the area with the help of her gang of "forty guns" who are paid to do whatever it takes to make sure Jessica remains in control. Local sheriff Ned Logan (Dean Jagger), is a spineless law provider in the town who secretly loves Jessica but doesn't have the power to control her or her hired thugs who pillage and murder as they please. When U.S Marshall Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan), a former gunslinger rides into town with his two brothers Wes (Gene Barry), and Chico (Robert Dix), to resore order a head on clash of wills and fight for power rises between Jessica and himself. Surrounded by weak willed men that do her bidding Jessica however begins to develop a passion for Griff especially when he wont buckle under her strong will like most of the men she knows do. While riding together out on the barren plains Jessica almost loses her life when she is thrown from her horse and dragged when the pair find themselves having to escape a tornado that suddenly blew. Forced together when they seek shelter in Jessica's old cabin nearby she and Griff begin to find out a bit more about what made both of them the people they are today further cementing an emotional bond between them. Meanwhile Jessica has a hard time controlling her younger brother Brockie (John Ericson), a hot head who is always getting into scrapes with the law usually over a girl and when Wes is shot dead on his wedding day to local gun maker louvenia(Eve Brent),Griff must bring in Brockie for trial which will undoubtedly see him hang. On the day of his trial however Brockie has other ideas and taking Jessica as hostage he attempts to shoot his way out of town however Griff temporarily abandons his newly acquired peace seeking ways, and using his expert shooting skills manages to shoot Brockie while only injuring Jessica. Now wanting to get away and move on to California Griff prepares to then leave town however Jessica has plans of her own realising that he is the man she truly loves who did what was best concerning her reckless brother. She pursues his wagon as he leaves and jumps aboard in order to join him in a new life together in California.

Written, produced and directed by Samuel Fuller, "Forty Guns", is unique in that it displays a strong central female character which gives it a unique and most welcome change from your traditional western lead character. Barbara Stanwyck is just the actress to do this strong female lead role total justice and she doesn't disappoint. From the opening scene where we see her galloping down the hillside full speed at the head of her band of "40 Guns", we just know we are in for something totally different. Barbara Stanwyck was superb at playing these tough as nails characters who are made that way by circumstances and for a western story a lot of time is actually spent on showing the development of her character. Stanwyck brings her usual non nonsense professionalism to the role of Jessica Drummond and for a woman already in her fifties at the time of filming she is amazing in her energy and in her ability to handle a horse. She even did her own stunts in the famous tornado scene where she is dragged by a horse over rough terrain believing that it would be more effective and believable on screen that way. Barry Sullivan up against the Stanwyck powerhouse does as well as expected as the new law enforcer in town who comes up against the female land baron only to find himself falling for her. His is a largely passive role however he works well with Stanwyck and has some interesting contradictions to his character having been a killer turned law enforcer. While "Forty Guns", is dominated by the fierce Stanwyck performance the supporting cast is also an interesting one with the standouts being the always good Gene Barry fresh from his recent triumph in the classic "War of the Worlds", playing Sullivan's younger brother Wes, John Ericson as Jessica's hot headed brother Brockie and Dean Jagger in a very uncharacteristic role as untrustworthy and weak willed sheriff Ned Logan. Another interesting and non traditional role is also created for another female character in "Forty Guns", where Eve Brent takes on the part of the gun making Louvenia who loses her husband Wes on her wedding day. Her's is a most unusual female character for the 1950's and the western genre in particular which she plays very well and she has a great scene when Barbara Stanwyck comes to pay her condolences. Of course the great look and feel present on screen in "Forty Guns", is very much the result of a collaborative effort between Samuel Fuller and his main production staff. Special credit needs to go to Oscar winning cinematographer Joseph Biroc for his stunning photography of the Arizona region captured beautifully in breathtaking cinemascope, the renowned Charles le Maire for his authentic 1860 period costumes for both sexes in the story, and especially to the team of L. B. Abbot and Norman Breedlove for their stunning special effects efforts work. Their recreation of the savage tornado sequence in particular is amazing in its realism and even today it is still quite rightly regarded as a benchmark for such efforts on film.

Disappointment has sometimes been levied at Fuller's supposedly sell out ending that follows the conventional course of having former land baroness Barbara Stanwyck chasing after Barry Sullivan's wagon as it rolls out of town. While that could be viewed as conventional in the movie sense of how many similiar stories conclude Samuel Fuller still manages to illustrate the ever present strength of the Jessica Drummond character here where she is willing to risk everything for something that she knows she wants but still on her terms. When critically looking at "Forty Guns", the story, cinematography, and for the most part non stereotyped character construction makes it an exceptional western which strangely is not well known and not often revived nowadays. Samuel Fuller really provided Barbara Stanwyck with one of her last strong film characters here and the film is a worthy addition to any retrospective of the amazing body of work achieved by both Barbara Stanwyck and Samuel Fuller in their exceptional careers. Highly recommended viewing for western genre enthusiasts.

Wildly Neurotic Western.......2005-11-11

Sam Fullers FORTY GUNS is nothing less than a neurotic and a psychologically perplexing and complex story that is truly beyond any measure of rational or conventional storytelling. The more I see it, them more bizarre it looks. Even though he made this at a major studio it is unlike his MERRILL'S MARAUDERS or HOUSE OF BMBOO also made for major studios. It has that definite Fuller look and feel. This is really a fascinating look at emotions gone booth recklessly uncontrolled and painfully restrained beyond the point of reason.

Classic Western Collection - The Outlaws (The Proud Ones, Forty Guns, Broken Lance, The Culpepper Cattle Co.)

Average customer rating:

Classic Western Collection

Classic Western Collection - The Outlaws (The Proud Ones, Forty Guns, Broken Lance, The Culpepper Cattle Co.)
Starring: Robert Ryan , Virginia Mayo , Jeffrey Hunter , Robert Middleton , and Walter Brennan
Director: Robert D. Webb , Samuel Fuller , and Edward Dmytryk
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Westerns | Genres | DVD | Video

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Yellow Sky
These Thousand Hills
The Last Wagon
The Man Behind the Gun / Thunder Over the Plains / Riding Shotgun
Colt .45 / Tall Man Riding / Fort Worth

ASIN: B000EMGJC2
Release Date: 2006-05-23

Amazon.com

The Proud Ones: The main draw (and quick draw) of this 1956 Western is the marvelous presence of Robert Ryan in the lead role. This underappreciated actor plays a Kansas marshal with a history of perceived cowardice in his past. Everything comes to a head in a single week: a cattle drive ends in town, bringing shootin' and hollerin'; Ryan's nemesis, a casino-runner played by veteran bad guy Robert Middleton, arrives to soak the suckers; and young hotshot Jeffrey Hunter, whose father was killed by Ryan, arrives with revenge on his mind. Oh, and Ryan himself begins to suffer from blinding headaches. Despite the crowded plot, the results are Fifties Western boilerplate, with few distinguishing features beyond the cast. But the supporting ranks are crowded with essential horse-saga actors: Walter Brennan, Arthur O'Connell, Rodolfo Acosta, and of course the bearded, lizard-eyed Middleton. Virginia Mayo plays Ryan's hotel-keeper ladyfriend. Ace cinematographer Lucien Ballard gets a few good outdoor CinemaScope set-ups into the generally backlot feel of the thing. But the reason to see the film is lanky Robert Ryan, whose compelling mix of neurosis, gentleness, and fury is on full display here. --Robert Horton

Forty Guns: Forty Guns is the most rampantly sexualized Western ever made, and the most outrageous of Samuel Fuller's late-'50s B movies. Fuller's original title was "Woman with a Whip," referring to the hard-riding range baroness--Barbara Stanwyck, sporting silver hair and (most of the time) black, skintight man togs--who's "the boss of Cochise County" and a law unto herself. The forty guns are an army of pistoleros who accompany her just about everywhere, and Fuller misses no opportunity to exaggerate their macho assertiveness in black-and-white CinemaScope, whether thundering along the horizon or formed up on either side of a preposterously long dinner table with Stanwyck at its head. Barry Sullivan costars as a Wyatt Earp-like gunfighter who both threatens Stanwyck's empire and awakens her lust for something besides power. As one of his brothers, Gene Barry (soon to star in Fuller's mind-blowing Vietnam movie China Gate) enjoys a passionate liaison with a gunsmith's busty blond daughter (Eve Brent) whom he romances down the bore of a rifle--an image Jean-Luc Godard would memorialize in Breathless. In the relentlessly double-entendre dialogue and the blocking of scenes, everything takes on sexual overtones: power and impotence, political advantage and exclusion. Fuller and cameraman Joseph Biroc capture many sequences in single, minutes-long takes that often end in a death--and in one perverse instance, the revelation of a death that has occurred midway through without our knowing it. (It's a T.S. Eliot moment, though we won't insist on it.) Style is all in this movie, which will leave you either astonished or aghast. More likely, both. --Richard T. Jameson

Broken Lance: Broken Lance is a noble entry in the trend of adult Westerns of the early 1950s, scoring on a couple of fronts: (1) as a multigenerational saga, with Shakespearian overtones, of a family bickering over a giant ranch, and (2) as a grown-up look at the dilemma of the Native American... its title perhaps inspired by the Indian-friendly Broken Arrow? Spencer Tracy stars as the blustery patriarch of a cattle spread, threatened by pollution from a nearby copper mine as well as the shiftiness of his older sons (Richard Widmark, Hugh O'Brian, and Earl Holliman). Tracy's bluff characterization--as ever, he seems to be yanking at the script like a cat unraveling a ball of yarn--carries the film effortlessly along. The central character is actually his youngest and wisest son, played by Robert Wagner, who's not especially convincing as the mixed-race issue of Tracy's second marriage, to an Indian woman (Oscar nominee Katy Jurado). Edward Dmytryk directs in a style that could be called "intelligent," which is another way of saying "not very exciting." The early CinemaScope probably accounts for some of the static set-ups, although there are exteriors that are breathtaking (watching this film in its full-screen version would be crazy). The cast is certainly tops; Widmark is overqualified to play a third lead, but who's complaining? Most memorable is the loving relationship between Tracy's cattleman and his Indian wife, although the subject of Native Americans is secondary here (check out The Devil's Doorway and Apache for more overt Fifties looks at the topic). Veteran screenwriter Philip Yordan won an Oscar for his "original story," a curious and long-defunct Academy Award category. --Robert Horton

The Culpepper Cattle Co.: The Culpepper Cattle Company is a worthy example of a certain kind of early-1970s Western: deglamorized, unromantic, and frankly violent. This one begins in familiar terms, as a greenhorn lad (Gary Grimes, recently deflowered in Summer of '42) joins a cattle drive, surrendering himself to the extremely focused leadership of boss Frank Culpepper (the authentically Western Billy "Green" Bush). The episodes that follow are engrossing and colorful, and the drive gets more interesting when a quartet of lethal hombres (among them Bo Hopkins, Luke Askew, and wild-eyed Geoffrey Lewis) join the ride. The business of frontier justice--which here usually means shooting strangers just to be on the safe side--is worked out in refreshingly unheroic ways. Clearly director Dick Richards (making his debut in a relatively brief directing career) is responding to the revisionist era, and specifically to the films of the great Sam Peckinpah; this movie's climax is a scaled-down nod to The Wild Bunch. Probably too scaled-down, given the somewhat abrupt ending. The music uses themes from Jerry Goldsmith's terrific score for The Flim-Flam Man, released five years earlier. Culpepper got lost in the flurry of revisionist westerns that sounded similar themes: The Cowboys, The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid, and by far the best of this group, Robert Benton's Bad Company. All were released in 1972, a high-water mark for re-thinking the genre. --Robert Horton

Description

Episode Description: GiftSet Includes the Following Titles:

**Culpepper Cattle Co. **The Proud Ones **Broken Lance **Forty Guns

Customer Reviews:

Classic Western Collection.......2007-01-10

This was a xmas present for my fater-in-law. He loved it.

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

What a Girl Wants / How to Deal

See How They Grow - Jungle Animals : Video

Ladies Man [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

DVD: Mulan (Madacy Entertainment)

Der Supercop