Navigation

Forty Guns (1957)

Dir: Sam Fuller

Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck), lords it over her territory with the aid of her 40 hired guns.
She has the Sheriff (Dean Jagger) in her pocket as well as various local politicians.
The only fly in the ointment is her out of control brother, Brockie (John Ericson).

One day though U.S. Marshal and former professional killer Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan) and his Brothers Wes (Gene Barry) and the young, inexperienced, Chico (Robert Dix) ride into town with an arrest warrant to serve on one of Drummond’s men….

Samuel Fuller's bizarre Western mix of high camp and seriousness is certainly an experience.

A dated and generally dire (pops up out of nowhere) song about Jessica Drummond and her wicked whip (which is sung actually onscreen by a character, played by Jidge Carroll, as he walks to the bathhouse, there's lots of manly bathing in the film) throws the viewer completely off not long after the ‘thundering horsemen’ credits have finished.
From then on this veiled take on the legend of Wyatt Earp and his brothers never fails to entertain and bewilder.

As the hard-ass gang leader/matriarch Jessica Drummond, Barbara Stanwyk is in full gay icon mode here with her man berating dialogue and attitude while dressed in her black clothes with her black cowboy hat pitched to the side to show off her blonde locks.
Stanwyk would eventually embrace full-on, predatory, psychotic, lesbianism in "Walk on the Wild Side", but here she's basically just a visual/aural flirtation with lesbianism as her character’s urges are very much Heterosexual (Fuller famously called the film "Forty Pricks", relating to the fact her character has slept with, and then cast aside, every one of her all-male gang!), and are part of a romantic plot arc that sadly sees her tough character softened once again as it did at the disappointing end to Anthony Mann’s “The Furies”.

The cocked gun that breaks her cold heart down belongs to Barry Sullivan’s Wyatt Earp stand-in Griff Bonnell. But the relationship never really rings true as it happens much too fast.
This relationship also opens up a conflicting aspect of the film’s success.
The scenes between Sullivan and Stanwyk (not helped by a typically crud 50’s Western score that generally intrudes, annoys and swamps you in saccharine strings) are drippy and tiresome for the most part but they also contain some of the best, most enjoyable, camp dialogue and glorious sexual innuendo we would never want to be without.
While sitting at her massive dining table (more later) with Sullivan, Stanwyk suddenly holds out her open hand and says;
“Can I feel it”
A sly smile later and Sullivan slowly hands her his gun with the warning “Careful, it might go off in your face”.
Wonderfully unsubtle subtly.

This camp/absurdist aspect and sly sexuality is perhaps best summed up visually by a tracking shot (that’s as far from anything you’d find in a conventional 50’s Western as you could imagine) that sees Griff’s arrest warrant passed down the line of Drummond’s male gang, while they are all seated at her amazingly long dining table, and it takes a good 30 seconds of uninterrupted screen-time to follow this piece of paper through the hands of every male buck in Drummond’s stable until it eventually ends up in her cold palm where she sits at the head of the table.
It’s a bizarre and wonderful moment.

The action is pretty nicely spaced and often packed with tension as Griff Bonnell takes on bad guys with his famous ‘walk‘, where he openly walks down a street towards his prey, while his brother Wes (Gene Barry, in a nicely cool and steel-eyed performance) covers him with his rifle.
But there is also the occasional bit of fast paced action and the final confrontation is just a delight as Griff does something wonderfully unexpected and matter of fact that shows actually just what a hard, uncompromising killer he is.
The sharp edges of Sulivan’s character are never worn away here (unlike Stanwyk’s character) by the romantic interest in his life, which is a welcome event indeed for the audience.

As mentioned Gene Barry does a good job as Griff’s ‘second gun’ and even Wes’ romantic sub-plot with a female gunsmith (which again is given a joyfully silly and sexual moment when Wes looks through the barrel of an unfinished rifle at the girl, giving us an early phallic version of the famous ‘James Bond’ opening) never takes away his tough, getting the job done, attitude to his job.

Sullivan at first seems too bland and generally does not look tough enough for his legendary killer character (he has to work a damn sight harder to impress than Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef would, in a role that is often as cold and cynical as the ‘Spaghetti Western’ characters to come, the close-up on his eyes would also not look out of place in a Leone movie) but as the film goes on his hard attitude and tough dialogue delivery manage to create a character in Griff that does fit with the status he seemingly has and the draw he has (respect and fear by the townsfolk, mysterious desire by Jessica Drummond) and Sullivan handles the action well enough.

The screenplay also manages to weave these interesting lead characters into a pretty complex plot of murder, corruption, changing mores and bounty hunting that opens up not only some interesting ‘thriller’ elements but also broadens the support characters as well (look out for the wonderful Hank “Twin Peaks” Worden ) with the most notable being the corrupt Sheriff Ned Logan, played by that tough old boot Dean Jagger (who would end his days slumming in low rent horror films), who’s a basic villain character on the surface but is later revealed to have some extra depth which results in one of the film’s darkest moments.

Overall then the great, eccentric as hell, Sam Fuller has yet again gone against the Hollywood grain (the occasional, undiluted, moments of conventional romantic slush aside) to make a Western that’s part dark drama and part goodtime shootout entertainment and all wrapped up in mischievous high camp.
Lots of fun…Check it out.