Forty Guns

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:

A Strange Western; Watch It In Widescreen.......2007-09-05

If you've never seen this film, I think you'll find it a bit different from most classic westerns. It's really more of a film noir, I thought, and I liked that angle. I say "film noir" because of feel. This western had stark black-and-white photography with tons of shadows and it had a dramatic scene near the end that was very noir-ish. I was very impressed with the ending, and that's all I will say as to not spoil it for others.

The DVD has the option of fullscreen or widescreen. Please consider the latter, because that is how it was presented: in "cinemascope," and you'll want to see photographer Joseph Birac's work in all its glory. This looks great!.

All the characters are pretty interesting. Barbara Stanwyck fans will be disappointed at her screen time. She is getting headlines here on this page, but she is not the leading character. To repeat, this is an odd story. I mean, how often does one see a tornado in the middle of a western movie? Some of the lines in here were quite profound, too, and some were uttered really stupidly. It's a curiosity piece, that's for sure.....but definitely worth watching if good photography and odd characters interest you.

a strange western from a great director.......2007-07-07

Occasionally some of the great noir directors of the 40's and 50's like Fuller, nicholas ray, and billy wilder (wilder made a film in pretty much every genre) would make a genre film like a western.. When they did the results were very interesting as they used the same sorts of techniques in these films as they used in their other movies..
The sexual and psychological tensions of such movies like this one and johnny guitar would set them apart from your typical john wayne style western.. and subsequently they are often embraced by a more varied audience..
40 guns is shot in painfully beautiful black and white cinema scope with a stylized technique which often takes very interesting angles on the action taking place in the scene.. The acting and dialogue is pretty typical for a fuller movie - deliberately over the top sometimes.. and the music which is so deliberately western it seems almost like a parody..
All these qualities make it very enjoyable and at times surprising to watch a movie in a genre i usually don't enjoy.. But fuller could turn any story into gold..

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.

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:

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.

Technical Manual & Armorer's Course Colt 1911 .45 Auto Applicablie to all manufactureers, models & calibers

Average customer rating:

Technical Manual & Armorer's Course Colt 1911 .45 Auto Applicablie to all manufactureers, models & calibers

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video
ASIN: B0009OAQQU

Product Description

Step-by-ste instruciton in design, function & repair. Complete disassembly & assembly. Proper cleaning & lubercation. Gunsmithing tricks, trouble shooting & repairs. Customizing, accurizing& tuning.

DVD:

DVD

DVD