Forty Guns (1957)

A wacky western. Of course, the idea of a woman on a white horse leading 40 men on brown horses through the wilderness, wherever she wanted to take them, is absurd. If on a regular basis, that would have cost a fortune for a rancher, unless maybe they were also wranglers on a large ranch. Perhaps an exaggerated feminist statement? The problem for Jessica(Barbara Stanwyck) is that the new man she realized is the man for her isn't among her 40. His name is Griff Bonell: one of 3 brothers who came to town mainly to pick up a deputy accused of stealing US mail. They would have trouble from Jessica's much younger trigger-happy brother(son?) Brockie, whom Jessica pampered, bribing governmental officials and juries to get him out of jail or acquitted for disturbing the peace or shooting someone, mostly. But this babying of her brother conflicted with her growing infatuation with Griff. This was especially true after Brockie shot brother Chico just after his wedding, right next to his bride, still in her wedding dress. Brockie was soon locked up for this murder, as well as the murder of the deputy accused of stealing mail. Crazy Jessica gave away all her immense property trying to bribe the judge, etc. to cancel the charges against Brochie. However, when he was being transferred to another prison, he got loose, got a gun, and, using Jessica as a shield, began shooting on the street, killing one man. Griff came out of a nearby building, and, using a support beam as a cover, shot Jessica, who clutching her abdomen, slumped to the ground, apparently dead, then shot Brochie, behind her, several times. Griff carried Jessica's body down the street, presumably to the doctor's. Looks like the film is going to end a tragedy. But, in the next segment, incredibly, we see Jessica strolling down the street, with no hint that she had been wounded! Soon, Griff is in his buckboard, starting on his way to California, alone. Jessica sees him and runs down the street, hopping into the buckboard: Presumably, a happy ending, after all....... As I see it, the theme of this film is similar to that of the prior "Calamity Jane" and the subsequent "Ballad of Josie", both starring Doris Day. The message in all 3 films is that it is ok for strong women to take on roles traditionally reserved for men, to show they can succeed. But, eventually, they should ease up on the throttle, and form a partnership with a man. Thus, the ideal course is to exercise your feminist rights, then regress a bit, back to being more of a traditional wife.......Like some others, I felt that Barbara was a bit long in the tooth to be Jessica. A woman perhaps 10 or so years younger would have been more believable......I especially liked the tornado segment, following Jessica's being dragged by her horse due to her spur being caught in the stirrup. Afterward, Jessica and Griff lay down, telling more about themselves, and strengthening their romantic feelings.......Of course, the beginning segment, where Jessica is leading her 40 men down the road where the 3 brothers are traveling in a buckboard looks rather spectacular. See it at YouTube.

Definitely one of the worst westerns ever made, it's even on par with 5 Card Stud.The writing here is absolutely pathetic and you wonder how Stanwyck, Sullivan and others allowed themselves to be in such an awful movie.The 40 Guns has absolutely no relevance here. The plot is pathetically drawn. Let's hear about the deputy stealing mail, and the obsessive relationship between Stanwyck and her brother.Instead, we are subjected to ruffians shooting up a town, and shots being fired all over the place. It's a wonder that more people didn't drop from all the firing.What is the meaning of this picture? Who wrote such garbage?

"Forty Guns" effectively recycles what, even in 1957, was already a well-worn Western plot, the one about the tough but honest lawman who arrives in a small western town dominated by a powerful landowner and succeeds in restoring law and order to the community. Many such films were either straightforward retellings of the story of Wyatt Earp or fictionalised versions of the Earp legend ("Dodge City"), and this film falls into the latter category. The central character, Griff Bonnell, is clearly based on Wyatt Earp, and travels everywhere with his two brothers Wes and Chico, just as Earp was assisted by his brothers Morgan and Virgil. The one thing that sets this film apart from many treatments of a similar theme is the sex of the powerful rancher. In this film she is a woman, Jessica Drummond, and it is perhaps inevitable that she and Griff will end up by falling in love. At first, however, Jessica does not seem like a typical romantic heroine. She is a tough, ruthless lady who dominates the town and the surrounding area, ruling her territory with an iron fist and with the help of a gang of hired gunmen, the "forty guns" of the title. Griff originally arrives in the area, in fact, on a mission to arrest one of her men for mail robbery, and he soon clashes not only with Jessica but also with her spoilt, arrogant and sadistic brother Brockie. (The characterisation of Brockie Drummond is similar to that of Dave Waggoman in "The Man from Laramie", another Western of this period). The film was written and directed by Samuel Fuller. He was a director who worked in a number of genres, but I know him best for that excellent film noir, "Pickup on South Street". In some ways the plot of "Forty Guns", if updated to an American city in the mid twentieth century, with Griff as the tough-but-decent cop played by Glenn Ford, and Jessica as the glamorous but shady businesswoman played by someone like Gloria Grahame or Lizabeth Scott, could easily be that of a noir itself. The film has a complex noir-style plot and was shot in an expressionist black-and-white, even though it was made at a time when colour was increasingly becoming the norm for Westerns. (It was, however, far from being the only black-and-white Western from the late fifties; Arthur Penn's "Left Handed Gun" from the following year is another example). It also Barry Sullivan as Griff makes a rather stolid hero, but there is a good performance from Barbara Stanwyck, still strikingly glamorous and seductive in her late forties, as Jessica. (Stanwyck was five years older than Sullivan, but looks considerably younger). There is one striking scene where Jessica is dragged along the ground by a horse. I wondered how this was filmed as it seemed too dangerous for any stuntwoman to have performed, and thought that Fuller had perhaps used a dummy. The answer, in fact, is that Stanwyck performed the scene herself after her stunt double chickened out!The film was shot in CinemaScope, and Fuller uses the widescreen format to great effect. As John Ford has done earlier in films like "Rio Grande", he uses black-and-white photography as an effective medium for showing off the beauty of the Western landscapes, and as in his other films makes extensive use of close-ups. "Forty Guns" is not one of the great Westerns in the way that "Pickup on South Street" is one of the great noirs; the plot is too over-familiar and the acting is not always of the highest calibre. It is, however, a film which still retains some points of interest even today. 6/10

I found myself vaguely disappointed by this film. I have mixed feelings on Sam Fuller thus far-- I LOVED "Pickup On South Stree" (one of my favourites from the 1950's), but "Shock Corridor" did absolutely nothing for me. "The Naked Kiss" was one heck of a ride while it lasted but I'm not sure I ever want to see it again. So to this film--It was okay, quite good in places, but nowhere near the provocative cult classic I was expecting. I found the whole thing very hard to follow. Maybe Fuller's film had studio-imposed cuts? I don't know, but the plot seemed to jump around all over the place and never fully engaged my interest. Stanwyck is convincing as the tough woman, and her dialogue exchange with love interest Barry Sullivan over his gun is worth the price of the DVD alone. She has this strange relationship with her brother that you can never quite put your finger on. Some scenes are very good, others are instantly forgettable. It just wasn't the film I was hoping for.