Dragões da Violência

Aided by her trigger-happy brother and a small army, a cattle queen owns the county including the sheriff. But there's trouble when a marshal arrives who has a trigger-happy brother of his own. Thus a load of complications ensue.

Interesting, if not wholly successful, western. There's really too many principal characters and plot for the limited time frame (79-min's.). Nonetheless, director and screenwriter Fuller manage a few real surprises. Then too, this may be the "walkingest" horse opera I've seen – note how many tracking shots Fuller manages of people walking. This may be a budget consideration since little action occurs away from town. The forty guns are forty guys riding behind queen bee Jessica (Stanwyck) like a mounted army. Oddly, these guys never talk even after being dismissed from the extra-long dinner table, and soon disappear when Jessica's little empire crumbles. There are a lot of cross-currents to the highly involved plot line, so you may need the proverbial scorecard to keep up.

Unsurprisingly, Stanwyck is imperious as the big cheese running both her ranch and the town, while Sullivan is appropriately steely-eyed as the town tamer. But give John Ericson (Brockie) an upside-down Oscar for the worst over-the-top mugging since The Three Stooges. At the same time, Jagger does well as the spineless Sheriff in the employ of queen bee Jessica. Fuller shows real style at times. He certainly knows how to subvert western cliché and keep audience interest. However, in my little book, this is not one of his better films, basically because of a crowded script and budgetary limitations. I mean a lot of money went into the name cast that perhaps had to be made up elsewhere as in the pedestrian settings. All in all, it's, a rather exotic if not exactly memorable western.

`Can I touch it?' asks Barbara Stanwyck's cattle queen, presumably referring to Marshal Barry Sullivan's gun. `It might go off in your face', replies the Marshal. In this brief interchange lies the implicit heart of Sam Fuller's somewhat surreal and operatic western, `Forty Guns'. Fans of more mainstream western movies moseying in from great but chaste works like `My Darling Clementine' or more contemporary cheroot-grinders like `Silverado' will find their expectations seriously challenged.

`Forty Guns' gets your attention immediately with a thunderous opening-credit ride-by. Ms. Stanwyck is astride a pure white stallion leading her Forty `guns' in a column of twos, like a female Custer on her way to a last stand that only she might be able to imagine. As the riders flow, without breaking stride, around a buckboard carrying the three Bonnell brothers, of whom Barry Sullivan's Griff is the eldest, each bro registers the proceedings with a facial expression consistent with his age and experience. It is, perhaps, with the exception of the previously-quoted sequence, the best moment in the film. The dust having settled, much of it on the Bonnells, 164 hooves fading into silence, the brothers repair to a nearby town for a rollicking bath. Thus it begins. Eventually it ends. You may or may not be quite sure what happened in between. But this is not necessarily a bad thing.

In terms of fundamental style, `Forty Guns' is really a 50's TV western jumped up the big board, complete with that genre's trademark, clothes-make-the-hombre ambience. The 50's TV western was a highly stylized form in which anyone having the correct attire could be a cowboy, even Gene Barry, who plays the middle Bonnell brother. Mr. Barry went on to a successful TV career, launched by the series `Bat Masterson', in which his undeniable urbanity percolated up through his character for several seasons, forcing out a Masterson who was rather too smirky, and overburdened by savoir faire. (The real Bat, born in rural Kansas, was a colleague of Wyatt Earp, and cut from the trans-outlaw cloth. He had polish, compared to many contemporaries, but was not a fop). A form as stylized and libidinously constrained as the 50's TV western then falls into the hands of Samuel Fuller, one of Hollywood's most intense and emotional directors; a man who would have shoved a submarine through a soda straw if he had felt the cinematic need. In the case of `Forty Guns', the result is a movie that struggles to proceed, straining in one direction while constantly implying that it would love to go in any number of others, like a big dog on a short leash. But it is this quality that gives the film much of its cult appeal. I'd be hard pressed to call it a good film, although many would. But it is absolutely interesting.

`Forty Guns' should probably not be anyone's first Western (It's really film noir, podnuh). Said person might not ever want to see another. Still, it's worthy of appreciation, if for no other reason than for what it tried to be. Westerns of the 60's and 70's (of which I remain a die-hard fan) often did service by examining sensitive social issues, mainly racism, buffering them with the remove of a century or so. Why not a western that attempts, in its own unusual way, to examine sexuality? Post-feminist womanhood will not be thrilled with the somewhat perfunctory, testosterone-uber-alles ending. But, given the rather startling preceding scene, the ending is entirely consistent with the film's innate strangeness, and its apparent message: love may be over-rated and should probably be avoided whenever possible. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything quite like `Forty Guns', at least under a Stetson, though certainly under a snap-brim fedora. `Johnny Guitar' is in the same angst-arama zone but it's a girl-fight. In `Forty Guns', Barbara Stanwyck, though certainly a presence, is more the May Pole around which the boys gyrate, or on which they hang. The only films I can recall hitting me in quite the same way were some 60's products of the Kuchar Brothers (George and/or Mike). Kuchar films were works of droll, satirical, goofiness that happened to have assumed cinematic form (try keeping a straight face while just reading a list of their titles). `Forty Guns' felt much the same at times but was, apparently, being serious.

`Forty Guns' might stand up quite well to a remake, now that most audiences and studio suits have accepted that sex exists; preserve the stylistic essence of the original but let it be as tumescent as it needs to be. There is actually nothing wrong with the fundamental plot, which I won't reveal so you can project your own understanding. It simply lacks a certain level of on-screen flow. Story elements sort of roil in and out of view in this nearly over-full cauldron. But they're all in the same film, which helps. `Forty Guns' has a slightly messed-with feel to me and may not be entirely what the late Mr. Fuller had in mind. But, unfortunately, we probably won't be seeing a director's cut. The song, `High-riding Lady with a Whip', should certainly be preserved in any remake. It's a piece of music that is as hilariously strange as the rest of the film; one that seems to take itself entirely seriously while making you wonder, `Can this really be happening?'

Don't get off the Sam Fuller train at this outlying station. Fuller's the real deal, an artist who wielded a very distinct brush. Reboard and move on to the `The Steel Helmet', his gritty Korean War drama. If this one works for you, consider hanging out in Fullerville for a while. Anyone who appreciates film should become familiar with his work. And, if you thought the device of looking at one's target through the bore of a gun originated with the James Bond films, `Forty Guns' will set you straight, right down to the lands and grooves.

I often record films off TCM or other film channels and I'll nearly always record westerns. Often I don't get past the first few minutes but every now and then I come across a real classic. I wasn't aware of this film or its cult status when I watched it so I was able to form an opinion without a prior bias.

Firstly I was impressed by the opening scene of Barbara Stanwyck and her forty horsemen thundering across the screen and richness of the black and white cinematography. The film itself immediately grabbed my interest and the dialogue was at times cheesy, at times full of sexual innuendo, but always interesting. It was only when it came to a scene where the Bonnell brothers are walking through Tombstone that I realised I was watching a single shot that went on and on and on. There's no merit in doing long tracking shots just for the hell of it but this was something that worked beautifully.

The composition of many shots and their realisation was quite magnificent and I would love to see this on a big screen now. One scene where a widow is shot from below and there is a long pan past the hearse to a singer under a tree and back again puts most modern music videos to shame.

It has to be said that this is also one of the silliest and campest films ever made with its emphasis, not to mention song, on a "high riding woman with a whip". The general fondling of firearms and sexual references are so blatant that it seems surprising that this film wasn't universally condemned by the usual suspects on its release.

I was also impressed by the cast who weren't what you might expect for a western. I especially liked Barry Sullivan's pre-Leone, pre-Eastwood portrayal of the gunslinger.

All in all a complete delight. I'm looking forward to watching it again.

Forty Guns is written and directed by Sam Fuller. It stars Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry, Robert Dix, Eve Brent and Ziva Rodann. Music is by Harry Sukman and cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc.

It's all going to kick off in Arizona between the Bonnell brothers, U.S.Marshals, and Jessica Drummond - the tough no nonsense lady rancher who controls the territory.

So what do we have here then? Just another recycled Western plot that is basically the Earp's/Clanton's feud that culminated in the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral? Well no, not really, for this is Sam Fuller on devilishly twisty form.

Fuller gives this particular Western a film noir make over, both in look and dialogue innuendo. Pic is filled with outstanding sequences, be it shocking deaths, bravado pumped show downs or chiaroscuro framing of key characters, no frame is wasted in this piece - visually or aurally.

From a psychological stand point it's a right hornets nest, a meaty broth of cynical observations on love, power and that bastion of American cinema - the Western. The action construction on offer is electrifying, if Fuller isn't dallying with various camera techniques to keep the story on the hop, he's being kinetic with his action filming. All of which is in the Scope format, with the ace Biroc weaving some monochrome magic.

Probably now it has risen above being just a cult Western classic, Fuller's standing in the decades that would follow this release have ensured that to be the case. Yet it is noted that this holds no surprises in how story eventually pans out, which is disappointing given the noir pulse beats driving it forward. In fact a charge of schmaltz at pics end is justified and stops this being the masterpiece many of us yearn it to be.

Still, tis a superb genre piece of some considerable substance. A film that begs to be revisited on more than one occasion. Thank You Samuel. 8/10

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.

For Barbara Stanwyck fans, this might be a little disappointing because Barry Sullivan is the star of the film, not her, despite the billing. Sullivan plays "Griff Bonnell" and he is the principal figure in the movie, although Stanwyck's presence and character in the story are very strong as "Jessica Drummond." "Griff," along with his brothers, played by Gene Barry and Robert Dix, have more lines than Stanwyck, who doesn't even come on screen until 20 of the 80 minutes have elapsed.

All the characters are pretty interesting, however, no matter what their screen time. Those include some strange supporting roles, particularly two lawmen who don't sound and act like lawmen: Hank Worden's marshal role in the beginning and Dean Jagger's stint as the sheriff who has designs on Stanwyck.

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.