40 Tueurs

I often record films off TCM or other film channels and I'll nearly always record westerns. Often I don't get past the first few minutes but every now and then I come across a real classic. I wasn't aware of this film or its cult status when I watched it so I was able to form an opinion without a prior bias.

Firstly I was impressed by the opening scene of Barbara Stanwyck and her forty horsemen thundering across the screen and richness of the black and white cinematography. The film itself immediately grabbed my interest and the dialogue was at times cheesy, at times full of sexual innuendo, but always interesting. It was only when it came to a scene where the Bonnell brothers are walking through Tombstone that I realised I was watching a single shot that went on and on and on. There's no merit in doing long tracking shots just for the hell of it but this was something that worked beautifully.

The composition of many shots and their realisation was quite magnificent and I would love to see this on a big screen now. One scene where a widow is shot from below and there is a long pan past the hearse to a singer under a tree and back again puts most modern music videos to shame.

It has to be said that this is also one of the silliest and campest films ever made with its emphasis, not to mention song, on a "high riding woman with a whip". The general fondling of firearms and sexual references are so blatant that it seems surprising that this film wasn't universally condemned by the usual suspects on its release.

I was also impressed by the cast who weren't what you might expect for a western. I especially liked Barry Sullivan's pre-Leone, pre-Eastwood portrayal of the gunslinger.

All in all a complete delight. I'm looking forward to watching it again.

Aided by her trigger-happy brother and a small army, a cattle queen owns the county including the sheriff. But there's trouble when a marshal arrives who has a trigger-happy brother of his own. Thus a load of complications ensue.

Interesting, if not wholly successful, western. There's really too many principal characters and plot for the limited time frame (79-min's.). Nonetheless, director and screenwriter Fuller manage a few real surprises. Then too, this may be the "walkingest" horse opera I've seen – note how many tracking shots Fuller manages of people walking. This may be a budget consideration since little action occurs away from town. The forty guns are forty guys riding behind queen bee Jessica (Stanwyck) like a mounted army. Oddly, these guys never talk even after being dismissed from the extra-long dinner table, and soon disappear when Jessica's little empire crumbles. There are a lot of cross-currents to the highly involved plot line, so you may need the proverbial scorecard to keep up.

Unsurprisingly, Stanwyck is imperious as the big cheese running both her ranch and the town, while Sullivan is appropriately steely-eyed as the town tamer. But give John Ericson (Brockie) an upside-down Oscar for the worst over-the-top mugging since The Three Stooges. At the same time, Jagger does well as the spineless Sheriff in the employ of queen bee Jessica. Fuller shows real style at times. He certainly knows how to subvert western cliché and keep audience interest. However, in my little book, this is not one of his better films, basically because of a crowded script and budgetary limitations. I mean a lot of money went into the name cast that perhaps had to be made up elsewhere as in the pedestrian settings. All in all, it's, a rather exotic if not exactly memorable western.

Jessicca Drummond ( Barbara Stanwick ) is an untameable owner who rules over a small city in Arizona county . The cattle queen is supported by a little army formed by forty gunfighters . Her power will be modified in arriving the Bonnell brothers ( Barry Sullivan, Gene Evans and Dix ). One of them ( Sullivan ) is proclaimed sheriff and his vision from law and justice differs quite of Jessica Drummond and her brother ( John Erikson ), a young gunman eager to take up a life of crime .

This is a magnificent Western plenty of violence , hatred ,gun-play, an impossible love story...in a word : emotion , besides it contains effective action sequences as the raid on the small town . Of course , there are ritual shootouts among gunslingers confronting each other in some quick-draw duels in the accepted Western movie fashion , but this time with no observing the honorable ¨ Code of the west ¨ . The showdown isn't the usual because of it is developed of strangest manner and no habitual rules , just like is seen at the initial and final feud . The film has exciting and captivating images as when Barbara Stanwick appears riding in her white stallion with his forty henchmen worn in black and in column( just like Alibaba and the forty thieves from ¨Thousand and one nights¨ book ) and strange images of a dead man on the showcase with the caption : murdered by Bonell brothers and shot in back . Furthermore , it packs a sensational black and white cinematography by Joseph Biroc . The film gets excellent edition by Gene Fowler , he is a famous editor and occasionally director of Western and Sci-Fi ( I married a monster from outer space , I was a teenage wolf ). Samuel Fuller direction is inspired , he directed other three especial Western ( Run of the arrow , Baron the Arizona , I shot Jesse James ). But ¨ Forty guns ¨ is the best , he realized a thrilling and fascinating story , nowadays converted in an essential and indispensable cult movie. Rating : Better than average. Wholesome watching .

This is the only one I've watched from a handful of Westerns Fuller made - and it's just as individualistic as any of his War films! Despite the presence of an A-list star in Barbara Stanwyck (past her prime but still extraordinary), at a mere 80 minutes, the film was pretty much considered a second-feature - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since this very compactness allows it greater focus on the themes inherent in Fuller's script (which are pretty much treated like high melodrama in the rampant style of Anthony Mann's THE FURIES [1950], also with Stanwyck, and Nicholas Ray's JOHNNY GUITAR [1954])!

Still, the rest of cast is equally impressive - especially Barry Sullivan (though never quite achieving stardom, he's suitably imposing here as the ageing but steadfast hero and matches Stanwyck every step of the way), Dean Jagger (in a role vaguely similar to the one he played in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK [1955], but with even fewer redeeming qualities) and John Ericson (also from BLACK ROCK, but in a completely different role as Stanwyck's hot-headed younger brother). There's also crooner Jidge Carroll on hand (in his one-and-only film) who, apart from performing two tolerable ballads, acts as a sort of Chorus to the proceedings!

Besides, the film features a number of effective scenes (an ambush, a hurricane, a matter-of-factly-presented suicide and a remarkable final shoot-out) - which are made even more memorable by Joseph Biroc's superlative 'Scope photography.

Sam Fuller actually made a good number of westerns in his early career, and thanks to DVD we are finally able to see these at home just in these past few years. I can't say how long I was looking for "Baron of Arizona." Pleased to say that this one is just as ambitious and fulfilling as the other two that I've seen, "Baron" and "I Shot Jesse James." Barbara Stanwyck is welcome in ANY western film as far as I'm concerned, and Barry Sullivan's "long walk" is the most stylish you'll ever see. Dean Jagger provides his usual characterization of a conflicted and compromised noble man.

Fuller centers the film around a few key scenes, specific confrontations that define the rest of the action surrounding them. His sense of style in terms of the characters and their interactions with their surroundings is impressive. For instance the scene with the man who's supposed to trick Griff into an ambush -- we really get to know that character and sense his fear just in a short time. I love how he and his actors make use of accidents and physical limitations of the sets. For instance there's a bit where Sullivan is running towards the action and a tumbleweed comes across his path, and he leaps across it in a really stylish way. In some circumstances that could have become a ruined take, but Fuller obviously has his actor so much into the spirit of the scene that he basically reacts in character. You can sense Fuller's ability to focus his actors that way hanging over both the action and dialog scenes.

I'd have to see the film again to really say much about its theme or its subject, but it seems to be in the classic mold of westerns about the end of the "Old West." Stanwyck and Sullivan represent different types of iconic western presence that will depart from the world forever with that ending.

The conclusion of the film is a bit underwhelming, but other than that I really have no complaints about this film. It's fine western entertainment from the closing days of the western about the closing days of the west.