Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Tayyab Torres
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
moonspinner55
Barbara Stanwyck (hard as nails) plays a powerful rancher with political ties near Tombstone whose hired hands, mostly crooked and lead by her own brother, bring her together with Barry Sullivan of the U.S. Attorney General's office, out to arrest one of her boys for robbery. Surprisingly brutal and adult western from Globe Enterprises and distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox, written and directed by Samuel Fuller as if he were trying to find a place for every western cliché in the filmmaker's manual. Joseph Biroc's moody black-and-white cinematography gives the proceedings an intensity that elevates the script, even as Fuller's staging--particularly the gun-blazing confrontations--typically run the gamut from florid to outrageous. Sullivan is sturdy (and colorless) as usual; Stanwyck has this type of role down pat. **1/2 from ****
Jugu Abraham
One of the best westerns. Good script by Fuller adapting the Wyatt Earp tale with a female character added. That Barbara Stanwyck did the scene where she is dragged by the horse herself is amazing at age 49, when a stunt double opted out! Stanwyck is memorable throughout. Spectacular low angle cinematography by Joseph Biroc. The pre-titles opening sequence is unforgettable. Fuller's decision to shoot the film in b/w cinemascope is intriguing but laudable.
edwagreen
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?
bkoganbing
Long before she became the matriarch of The Big Valley, Barbara Stanwyck had two other roles as a prairie queen, the first was in The Violent Men and the second in this Samuel Fuller classic Forty Guns. The title refers to the number of riders, all of whom are handy with a six gun she has on the payroll to enforce her will.Coming to challenge that will is Barry Sullivan who is playing a Wyatt Earp like federal marshal complete with two brothers Gene Barry and Robert Dix. Stanwyck also has a brother, a really vicious punk played by John Ericson.Sullivan's in town to arrest one of Stanwyck's forty who decided to go out on his own and rob a mail coach. Any crime involving the US mail is stupid because it always brings in the Feds, then and now. That leads to a series of escalations and a few deaths among the cast members.Look for Dean Jagger's performance as a really sad sack and corrupt town marshal who is busy conniving against Sullivan and his brothers at every opportunity. But poor Jagger is also thinking with his male member as he's crushing out on Stanwyck as well. Note how Stanwyck responds to Sullivan who is her enemy on that score as opposed to Jagger who's ready to do all for her if she'll give him the time of day.Forty Guns is a nicely paced very much adult western with some nice double entendre lines neatly placed in the script. Barbara Stanwyck loved making westerns and this is a real good one.
