moonspinner55 Barbara Stanwyck (hard as nails) plays a powerful rancher with political ties near Tombstone whose hired hands, mostly crooked and lead by her own brother, bring her together with Barry Sullivan of the U.S. Attorney General's office, out to arrest one of her boys for robbery. Surprisingly brutal and adult western from Globe Enterprises and distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox, written and directed by Samuel Fuller as if he were trying to find a place for every western cliché in the filmmaker's manual. Joseph Biroc's moody black-and-white cinematography gives the proceedings an intensity that elevates the script, even as Fuller's staging--particularly the gun-blazing confrontations--typically run the gamut from florid to outrageous. Sullivan is sturdy (and colorless) as usual; Stanwyck has this type of role down pat. **1/2 from ****

Wuchak Released in 1957, "Forty Guns" is a B&W Western that revolves around an authoritarian rancher, Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck), who rules an Arizona county with her private entourage of hired guns. When two marshal brothers arrive to set things aright (Barry Sullivan and Gene Barry), the cattle queen finds herself falling for the former. Both have young brothers who are problematic. Eve Brent plays a curvy gun-maker.The movie has a number of positives: The opening sequence is great with its apocalypse of thundering horses led by Jessica on a lone white horse (symbolically?).The tornado sequence is well-done with Jessica getting dragged by her horse and her subsequent monologue after the storm, hooking up with Griff (Sullivan).Eastwood's renowned "Unforgiven" (1992) was obviously influenced by "Forty Guns": Both feature a remote town without justice or law and order, an existential wasteland. Crooked, murderous Sheriff Logan (Dean Jagger), embodying the breakdown of social order, is similar to Hackman in "Unforgiven"; and his suicide is very eerily done. A blind marshal (Worden) is a literal joke on "blind justice" and another symbol of the impotence of law & order.The long shoot-up of the town by the "wet-nose" Brock is grand mayhem. In "Unforgiven" the attack on the prostitute by two young cowboys (also referred to as "boys") serves as the same type of initial, youthful, anarchic transgression which has to be set straight.A gruesome, dressed-up corpse in a coffin, put on full display on the main street, with accompanying, hand-written vindictive placards, is also seen in "Unforgiven." In each it's a grotesque slap to decency and civilization.The town ambush of Griff by Charlie Savage (fitting name) next to a row of empty coffins is effective, particularly the straight-up vertical shot of the window with the assassin's rifle sticking out.While the "Woman with a Whip" song is dated, ill-fitting and corny, the score is otherwise suited to the content.The stylish, irreverent way the movie strays from Western tradition reveals it to be the precursor to the (mostly lame) spaghetti Westerns of the 60s.Other highlights include: The shot of Wes's widow in black against the sky; the leitmotifs of the foal and hearse, representing the extremes of birth and death; the comedy at the baths; the sexy female gunsmith seen through a rifle barrel, a jarring juxtaposition of the feminine and force, as is the case with Jessica.Because of these positives "Forty Guns" is often touted as a groundbreaking Western. While true, it's also a decidedly average 50's Western filled with unbelievable dialogue/characterizations and deliberately contrived scenes, not to mention the story's just dull and it's shot in B&W. Just because it strays from the mold of traditional Westerns doesn't make it a good movie.The film runs 79 minutes and was shot in Arizona.GRADE: C

robertguttman Samuel Fuller, who wrote and directed most of his movies, was one of those filmmakers whose movies were rarely as good as they could have been. That was chiefly because he rarely got a chance to work with "A- List" actors, or with sufficient amounts of time and money. Almost all of his films were intended to be "B" movies or "Second Features", intended to be completed on a budget. Nevertheless, most of his films have a very individualistic style unlike anybody else's. "Forty Guns" is a case in point. Fuller did get Barbra Stanwick to work with, and she was always a great actress. However, she was past her prime as a leading lady, this being well over a decade after her great roles in films such as "The Lady Eve" and "Double Indemnity". Here she does a great job in a sort of dress-rehearsal for her later long-running role in the 1960s television series, "The Big Valley". However, this being a Sam Fuller movie, the character she plays as Jessica Drummond is a long way from that of her later character, Victoria Barkley. In "Forty Guns" Stanwick plays an "Alpha Female", ruling absolutely over the surrounding countryside with the aid of her own private army of gunmen.Into her realm stray Barry Sullivan and his two younger brothers, characters obviously inspired by those of the Earp brothers. While passing through town they immediately run foul of Stanwick's younger brother. Played by John Ericson, he is a spoiled punk who, backed up by Stanwick's gunmen, shoots the elderly and myopic town marshal just for kicks and then commences wrecking the whole town merely fun of it. Putting a stop to the mayhem, and the perpetrator in jail, earns the brothers the thanks of the townspeople and the enmity of Stanwick.Fuller, who began as a writer, was nothing if not an iconoclast. He loved nothing better than to turn clichés on their heads. He does that here in several places, in a particularly jarring manner. The initial confrontation between Sullivan and Ericson ends in a completely unexpected manner. A confrontation between Stanwick and Sullivan at her home morphs into a bizarre scene in which she admires his pistol in a suggestive manner. There is also a wedding scene that, likewise, suddenly goes off in a completely different and unexpected direction.Finally, without giving too much away, the ending reverses another movie cliché in a particularly shocking manner. While not wishing to give away the ending, it must be noted that rumor has it that, back in 1957, the "Powers-That-Be" at the studio were appalled with Fuller's ending. In fact, even today it would be considered pretty shocking. As a result they compelled Fuller to literally "tack on" a new ending that neither fit, worked, nor even made any sense. See the movie and you'll understand what I mean.I rate this one only at seven solely because of the obviously tacked-on ending that doesn't work, and which succeeds in nearly ruining what could have been a really superior western.

cowboyandvampire Forty Guns is a hoot -- a weird mix of western noir, musical (Really? 'Woman with a Whip?' That's a song?) and comedy ("I've never kissed a gunsmith before." "Any recoil?") all bundled up into a traditional cowboy tale with lots of steely eyed stares and deliberate walks down a dusty main street, hand clenched near a pistol aching to be drawn.Barbara Stanwyck is tremendous, as always, as the headstrong (was she ever anything else?) ranch owner who ruled a big chunk of Arizona with a delicately gloved fist (wrapped around the riding crop of course). She has a huge spread, an army of ruffians at her disposal, the local law in her pocket and a younger brother who causes nothing but trouble. You know he's a bad seed when he slaps around his beautiful Latina lover for nothing more than disagreeing with him.Her world is challenged by the arrival of a federal marshal with a craggy jaw, a strong moral compass and a nice suit, and his two brothers, who brings law and order, and romantic intrigue to that windswept (and, actually, tornado-swept) corner of the west.There are crooked lawmen, ambushes, fistfights, weddings, funerals, stolen kisses, tumbleweeds, public drinking (and bathing), a strolling minstrel and classic lines – "You seem upset." "I was born upset." Saddle up, this one's a winner.--www.cowboyandvampire.com--