Forty Guns

3/27/2019

I was born upset. 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 sequence

5/3/2026

I don't think there was ever a woman as at home in a western at Barbara Stanwyck and even though I didn't love the direction of travel this one takes, she is still near the top of her game with this. Her "Jessica" runs a vast Arizona spread from the back of her brilliant white stallion with some help from a pliable sheriff and her own private army. Then marshall "Griff" (Barry Sullivan) arrives with his two brothers to impose some emblance of law and order on the place and to arrest her wayward younger brother. Initially, she is happy to see these interlopers dispensed with by said trigger happy sibling "Brockie" (John Ericson) but when that doesn't quite go to plan, she becomes intrigued by this enforcer who does not use a gun - but who has two brothers slightly less scrupulous on that fr