ma-cortes An average Western on the hands of hard-boiled director Roger Corman and a tough-as-leather cast as well as mostly female , headed by Beverly Garland , John Ireland and Allison Hayes , that's all the plot that's needed to make one rip-roaring Western flick . After her hubby (William Schallert) is gunned down , Rose Hood (Beverly Garland) takes his place temporarily as marshal of a small Western town , Oracle , and she fights for peace and tranquility . She takes his badge and sets out in personal revenge to find the murderers , and as soon as she meets the outlaws to kill and bury them at Boot Hill cemetery . Meanwhile, the nasty Erica Page (Alison Hayes) , the gorgeous saloon owner , along with her moronic underling , Jake Hayes (Jonathan Haze), are busy buying up local properties because of the railroad is going to make an Oracle depot stop . Soon after , villain Erica hires a quick-draw gunfighter called Cane Miro (John Ireland) to come kill Rose . But the unscrupulous hired hand Miro falls in love for Rose and brings back a double-crossing and start to confront among themselves . At the end there appears the famous sheriff Sam Bass.This is a middling Western with crossfire , fights , thrills , shotdown , pursuits , go riding , but some boring and slow-moving . Unique Western with little action , excessive talking and a surprising ending . It has some good shots but lots of dull spots . It's made in low budget ; however , being well played by acceptable actors as John Ireland , Beverly Garland and Allyson Hayes . Passable support cast , including ordinary players from Corman factory as Dick Miller , William Schallert and Jonathan Haze who acted in ¨Little shop of horrors¨ and many others Corman products . The secondary actors , technicians (cameraman Fred West , musician Ronald Stein) and writer (Charles B. Griffith who wrote various Corman's scripts and also directed) will repeat with Roger in subsequent films .The motion picture was regularly made by Roger Corman and shot in seven days. During the 50s-60s Roger Corman directed 3 Westerns as ¨The Oklahoma Woman ¨ , ¨Apache Woman¨ and ¨Five guns West ¨ , but his specialty were terror films , Edgar Alan Poe saga , and monsters movies . As Corman realized all kinds of genres as Mobster movie : ¨Bloody mama¨ , ¨St. Valentine's massacre¨, ¨I Mobster¨, ¨Machine Gun Kelly¨ ; and especially known the Edgar Alan Poe renditions : ¨Fall of the haunted house¨ , ¨Tales of terror¨ , ¨Raven¨, ¨Terror¨, ¨Pit and Pendulum¨, ¨Tomb of Ligeia¨, ¨Masque of the red death¨, ¨Premature burial¨; Juvenile movies : ¨Carnival rock¨, ¨Rock all night¨ , ¨Sorority girl¨, ¨Teenage doll¨ ; Monster movie : ¨Attack the crab monsters¨ , ¨It conquered the world¨, ¨ Beast with a million eyes¨ , ¨Viking women and great serpent ¨ , ¨Swamp women¨, ¨Wasp woman¨ ; Sci-Fi : ¨Gasss¨, ¨The man with X-ray eyes¨, ¨Last woman on earth¨ ; Horror : ¨The Undead¨, ¨Tower of London¨, ¨Haunted palace¨, ¨Frankestein unbound¨ ; and Motorcycle films : ¨Wild Angels¨, ¨The Trip¨. Although Corman also produced several films as ¨ Night of the blood beast ¨ , ¨ Attack of the giant leeches¨ and several others . ¨Gunslinger¨ rating : Mediocre : 4.5/10 , only for Roger Corman aficionados .

weezeralfalfa Not bad entertainment for a low budget B western, shot in less than a week, with all its production problems, including incessant rain, and debilitating injuries to the two female stars. After the murder of her sheriff husband, Rose(Beverly Garland) boldly proposes to Mayor Polk to pin her husband's star on her chest. Town boss Erika(Allison Hayes) applauds this unexpected turn of events, quipping " What badman would dream of shooting a woman marshal?" Rose proves adept as a gunslingerette, killing the man who shot her husband without seeing him, and shooting a man she claimed was his partner at her husband's funeral, before she was even made temporary sheriff. Not as adept at handling firearms nor as a horsewoman, Erika hires a gunslinger from Tombstone: Cane Miro(John Ireland), to do her killings for her. Her prime target for the near future is Rose, whom she fears if the railroad decides not to build some tract to the town, hopefully across some of her recent acquisitions. She figures, if the railroad doesn't come to town, she will have Rose and perhaps the sheriff killed before leaving town quickly(not clear to me why?). Most everybody in town is afraid of Erika's tongue and clout, but Rose barely wins a cat fight over whether her saloon has to close at 3A.M., as a town ordinance specifies.Gunslinger Cane proceeds to two-time Rose and Erika. He knew Erika from the past. She is jealous of his attention to Rose, providing an additional motive for wanting her eliminated, but not until Saturday, when news about the railroad's decision is scheduled to arrive. In turn, Cane had an additional motive for wanting to accept Erika's invitation. He blames Mayor Polk for essentially losing the war for the Confederacy, due to his cowardice as a commander at a battle in the mountains of NW Georgia. Cane lost some kin in this battle, and he wants to assassinate Polk in retaliation. So, Polk is put in the town jail to provide some safety, but he's released too soon. By the end of the film, nearly all the principal characters have been shot dead by each other. Rose and Cane, the last remaining, have a shooting duel, hiding behind some rocks and tree trunks, after Rose chased Cane on her horse. Interestingly, they profess their love for each other, while shooting to kill!!...Before this, Erika's 3 saloon girls waylay Rose as she returns from a sylvan rendezvous with Cane. The 3 nearly succeed in lynching Rose, but Cane happens along at just the right time to break it up(He doesn't want Rose killed just yet.) All in all, a story that will likely hold your interest throughout, despite its various faults others have enumerated. In the short term, two women dominate the power structure of the town, until Sam Bass, the next permanent sheriff, arrives in town. Unfortunately, 1878, when this story supposedly takes place, was the year that the historic Sam Bass was shot dead, as a fugitive from justice.Beverly Garland(Rose)was especially impressive in her role, although Allison(Erika) was not far behind. However, Beverly had to share the limelight, as an icon for girls to look up to, with Gail Davis, who starred in the TV series "Annie Oakley", which ran concurrently, as well as prior to, the release of this film.See it in color at YouTube

Spikeopath Gunslinger is directed by Roger Corman and written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna. It stars John Ireland, Beverly Garland, Allison Hayes, Martin Kingsley, Jonathahn Haze and Chris Alcaide. Music is by Ronald Stein and cinematography by Frederick E. West. When the sheriff of Oracle, Texas, is murdered by outlaws, his widow Rose Hood (Garland) takes over as Marshal and sets about cleaning up the town... As Roger Corman started out directing, a few years before he would turn his hand to the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that would find him respect and leave his mark on cinema, he ventured into the realm of the Western. None of these Westerns were particularly good, in fact they are some of the lowest rated Westerns on IMDb, with Gunslinger currently at the bottom of the pile with a 2.8/10 weighted average! Yet, and it's really not a movie you would want to revisit often - if at all, there's a quirkiness and feminist angled bravery about the whole thing that earns a tiny bit of respect. The problems are many. It's over talky and slow, and what action there is is so badly staged it comes off like an amateur playhouse production. Then there's the acting. Ireland kind of escapes criticism because he walks around in a dazed state, it's like he can't believe what he is doing there, you can see him thinking to himself that he was working for Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann not long ago! Garland is OK, spunky and at least correct in line deliveries and visual reaction to situations, and Hayes is sexy enough to get away with the incredulity of it all. The rest, however, are desperately poor, with some of them resorting to auto-cue type acting. Visually it's also poor, with barely dressed sets looking as fake as fake can be, especially when they shake as actors bump into them. Filmed in Pathecolor, the exteriors are sadly lifeless, the colours bland, and this in spite of the decent DVD print that I viewed. The sped up horse riding sequences raise a chuckle, while goof spotters will have a field day here. All told, with a weak and preposterous finale sealing the deal, it's a well below average "Z" grade Oater. One that's fun for the wrong reasons, but still! The sight of Garland blasting away with shotgun in hand, with star badge on chest, is a sexy image I shall not forget in a hurry! 3.5/10

moonspinner55 Temporary female marshal in the Texas town of Oracle tangles with the crooked saloon proprietress, her nefarious showgirls, and the outlaw from Tombstone hired to bump her off; the gunslinger, dressed in black, plays romantic smoothie with both ladies, but it's clear to whom his heart truly belongs after a romantic conversation in a tree with the badge-wearing blonde (during which time Beverly Garland is upstaged by an overactive black bug on her blouse). C-grade western from producer-director Roger Corman, probably patterned after "Johnny Guitar", keeps a needless time-line of events--ridiculous since all the exterior scenes appear to have been filmed on the same chilly morning and each of the actors seems to possess one outfit apiece. Garland does the only decent acting in the picture; otherwise, "Gunslinger" is a turkey looking to get shot. *1/2 from ****