Film

Forty Guns

Name: Forty Guns
Genre: Western, Drama
Released: 1957
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry

Samuel Fuller's fever-dream Western turns Barbara Stanwyck into a one-woman cattle empire, riding a white horse at the head of forty hired guns. It's pulpy and over-the-top, shot with such wild visual bravado — whip-pans, phallic gun barrels, a wedding gunned down mid-ceremony — that it plays more like opera than a programmer. Eighty minutes of pure, delirious style for anyone who likes their Westerns strange.

TMDb rating

6.6

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John Ford's meditation on the myth versus the reality of frontier violence pairs beautifully with Fuller's own skepticism about guns solving anything.

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