#954: FULLER, Samuel: Forty Guns (1957)

FULLER, Samuel (United States)
Forty Guns [1957]
Spine #954
Blu-ray


Hollywood legend Barbara Stanwyck saddled up with writer-director Samuel Fuller for the pulp maestro's most audacious western, a boldly feminist spin on the genre that pivots effortlessly between ribald humor, visceral action, and disarming tenderness. High-riding rancher Jessica Drummond (Stanwyck) commands a forty-strong posse of cowboys, ruling Cochise County, Arizona, without challenge. When U.S. Marshall Griff Bonell (Barry Sullivan) and his brothers arrive in town with a warrant for one of her hired guns, Jessica begins to fall for the lawman even as he chips away at her authority. With astonishing black-and-white CinemaScope photography, hard-boiled dialogue laced with double entendres, and a fiery performance by Stanwyck at her most imperious, Forty Guns is a virtuosos display of Fuller's sharpshooting talents.

80 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
2:35:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2018
Director/Writer



A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Thirty-two page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Lisa Dombrowski and a chapter from Fuller’s posthumously published 2002 autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking.

Commentary

None.

Interview 1

With director Fuller’s widow, Christa Lang Fuller, and daughter, Samantha Fuller.

A Fuller Life (2013)

A feature-length documentary by Samantha Fuller about her father, featuring filmmakers Wim Wenders, William Friedkin, and Monte Hellman; actors Mark Hamill, James Franco, Jennifer Beals, Bill Duke, and Constance Towers; and others.

Audio interview

With Fuller at London’s National Film Theatre from 1969.

Interview 2

With critic Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City.

Stills gallery

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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