Forty Guns

Movie: ***** DVD Transfer: ****1/2 Extras: ****

Barbara Stanwyck is rougher than rawhide as Jessica Drummond, the high-riding "Woman With a Whip" (the film's pre-production title) in writer-producer-director Sam Fuller's movie about the female ruler of rugged Cochise County, Arizona. Armed with determination, wiles, and a savage lash, Drummond has firm control over the territory ... and she's backed up by a gang of forty sharp-shooting killers who follow her orders without question. Everything's going her way until a former gunslinger turned marshal (Barry Sullivan) arrives with his two brothers and begins to chip away at Drummond's power by attempting to restore law and order to the territory. Soon enough the lady and the lawman are engaged in a deadly battle of equals that will eventually engulf the entire community.

It's hard to believe that "Forty Guns" proved to be Stanwyck's last big screen appearance for five long years, a period in which she didn't make films because, in her own words, "no one asked me." Her performance is simply astonishing, and superbly nuanced: her voice and physical bearing communicate all too clearly that Jessica is not a woman to be trifled with. Stanwyck's triumph is even more complete when one realizes that the fifty-year-old actress performed all her own stunts in the film --- including being dragged by a horse during a harrowing tornado sequence! The rest of the cast is excellent throughout: Sullivan pulls off the difficult task of matching Stanwyck's energy without attempting to steal scenes; and nice work is also turned in by supporting players Gene Barry, John Ericson, and Dean Jagger. However, this is Stanwyck's movie all the way; her presence infuses every scene, even when she's off-camera.

The DVD presentation of this film is a credit to 20th Century-Fox Home Video. Both widescreen (Cinemascope) and pan-and-scan versions are included on the disc, and although it's not mentioned on the packaging, the DVD also includes the film's Original Theatrical Trailer. Picture and sound quality are superb throughout ... even the trailer is beautifully transferred. Overall, this is a magnificent release of a rarely screened film, enthusiastically recommended for fans of Samuel Fuller, Barbara Stanwyck, and the Western genre.

The imminent release of this 1957 DVD is well worth waiting for especially in showing the fim in its original widescreen format. FORTY GUNS is a creative Fuller reworking of the western genre turning stereotypes on their heads, revealing the raw emotionalism and insecurity affecting various characters, and containing brilliant examples of crane and tracking shots representing key elements of this cinematic genius.

FORRTY GUNS has received good critical comment in the past. But what is most notable in this film is the reworking of previous westerns such as THE GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K CORRAL and THE FURIES into a Fulleresque cinematic battleground. The Bonnell brothers (led by Barry Sullivan now reluctant to kill) are reworked versions of the Earpps while Barbara Stanwyck's sexually assertive Jessica Drummond is Fuller's masculinized version of Vance Jeffords from Anthony Mann's THE FURIES and her previous "Cattle Queen of Montana." Stanwyck, of course, personified the strong woman on screen in the pre-feminist era and this is one of her best performances. In this film, all conventions are overturned resulting in one of the most iconoclastic endings ever to appear in a Western. I will not spoil it for those who have not seen it but merely point out that Fuller directs the studio's "official climax" in a deliberately unbelievable manner. This is one of the best westerns of its kind directed by one of the major artists of Hollywood cinema. Cliches are absent and Stanwyck's character represents one of the most amazing inversions of classical Hollywood gender stereotypes ever to appear outside "film noir."

Companies should now follow Criterion's DVD release of PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET (1952)by releasing restored widescreen versions of Fuller's early Vietnam War entry CHINA GATE (1957) and MERRILL'S MARAUDERS (1961). In this current age of Hollywood creative bankruptcy, a return to the legacy of one of its greatest exponents is long overdue.

Hell and High Water was one of 20th Century Fox's earliest experiments with CinemaScope, widescreen movies that were Hollywood's attempt to lure people away from their TV sets and back into the theatres by giving them something they couldn't get staying home. Sam Fuller did such a good job with this format that he used it again on Forty Guns, a hard-hitting western as only he could make.

Right from the opening scene, Fuller presents an impressive, expansive vista: a wide open plain with a lone horse and carriage. There is a sudden, jarring cut to a close-up of many horse hooves thundering across the plain. It is 40 men on horseback being led by landowner Jessica Drummond (Stanwyck), clad all in black. They head straight for the men and their carriage only to go flying past them, surrounding them on all sides with no intention of slowing down. And then they're gone. Welcome to a Sam Fuller western.

Fuller uses every opportunity to show off the widescreen format while employing extensive use of close-ups and one of the longest tracking shots ever done at Fox's studio at that time. Forty Guns is one of the most dynamic westerns ever made and this is due to Fuller's infectious energy as reflected in his pulpy prose and kinetic camerawork. It's not enough to say that they don't make westerns like this anymore - they just don't make movies like this anymore.