Forty Guns

[stuart.uk]

Spoiler Alert

I have seen Forty Guns only in snipits before yesterday when I watched it right through for the first time.

There was peices to admire about the film, Stanwyck for a start, who in the films highlight did her own riding stunt, when being thrown from her horse during a tornado, her foot was caught in a stirup and was dragged along the ground at speed. Also good were Barry Sullivan and Gene Barry as brothering U.S Marshals.

However, I was disappointed in a lot of it too. For an adult western, the bad guys in the film were unbelievably thick, Dean Jagger and Chuck Robertson as local lawmen in Cattle Baroness' Stanwyck's pocket and her crazed kid brother John Erickson. Without his boss' approval Jagger had Robertson killed, organized a failed assassination on Sullivan, which helped to bring down Stanwyck's Empire, when it probably would have been better if he'd left alone or let Stanwyck sort it out. Then he hung himself after he failed to kill Sullivan and Stanwyck sent him packing.

Other failure I felt in the film was while it was explained Stanwyck was 12-yrs older than her brother and was almost a mother to him, I think it would have been better if the age gap between them could have been 20-yrs. I think that would have been more credible to have a mature woman, such as Stanwyck, as the sister of an immature brat.

Having listened to Stanwyck's brief account of her early life, where she bulit her Empire and became interested in politics. I felt that would have been a good movie and it reminded of Robert Wagner's explaination to Jean Peters how his pa Spencer Tracy built up his cattle empire in Broken Lance, where Tracy also supposedly had polititians in his pocket. Come to think of it Forty Guns might have been better served if it went down a similair road to IMO the much better Broken Lance with Stanwyck as big in stature as Spencer Tracy.

[movieman1957]

Something I wrote over at TCM some time ago.

Forty Guns starring Barbara Stanwyck is kind of an odd western. It is basically a story of a U.S. Marshal that comes to town to pick up some bad guys. The problem is they all work for Stanwyck.

It is directed by Samuel Fuller. I don't know much of his work but he has a very interesting visual style. He thrives on unusual camera angles and uses plenty of shadows for effect. In fact the look of it grabbed me even before the opening credits. As an aside everyone seems to be walking somewhere. Very few scenes are there where people are still. Also, there is a really good scene of a tornado.

At only 80 minutes it is worth a look to admire they way it is filmed. It has a great looking town too. It reminds me of The Ox-Bow Incident but it is not the same one.

After Stanwyck you get Barry Sullivan, Gene Barry and Dean Jagger and some familiar faces. I found Jagger's part as probably the most interesting.

[Vienna]

I've always liked FORTY GUNS. Maybe it is the Samuel Fuller touch. From that opening shot of Barbara and her 40 riders sweeping up to and past Barry Sullivan's rig. To the end when Barry Sullivan calmly shoots Barbara who is being held by her crazy brother John Ericson (the part Alex Nicol is so good at in other westerns). Of course he only injures Barbara and she goes running after him when she is well. I wish they hadn't tacked on that final scene.

[ChiO]

I wish they hadn't tacked on that final scene.

And Fuller felt the same way. As I recall, Fuller originally had Sullivan killing Stanwyck.

Oh, well.