Forty Guns

Infobox_Film
name = Forty Guns


imdb_id = 0050407
producer = Jules Schermer
director = Samuel Fuller
writer = Samuel Fuller
starring = Barbara Stanwyck
Barry Sullivan
Gene Barry
music = Harry Sukman
cinematography = Joseph F. Biroc
editing = Gene Fowler Jr.
distributor = 20th Century Fox
released = December 5, 1958 (U.S. release)
runtime = 79 min.
language = English
amg_id = 1:92169

"Forty Guns" is writer-director Samuel Fuller's 1958 western released by the 20th Century Fox studio. The film stars Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan and Gene Barry.

Plot

Griff Bonnell (Sullivan) and his brothers arrive in a small, Arizona town. He is a U.S. Marshal looking to arrest Howard Swain (Chuck Roberson), coincidentally one of landowner Jessica Drummond’s (Stanwyck) 40 guns. The town is being terrorized and trashed by Rocky and his boys. He’s an arrogant drunk and bully but when he shoots an old buddy of Griff’s, he and his brothers intervene.

Griff strides purposefully towards the action, unconcerned at the mayhem going on. Rocky’s buddies recognize the lawman and flee but the drunk Rocky doesn’t know or care. Fuller cuts back and forth between a close-up of Griff’s eyes and Rocky’s gun repeatedly until the climax when Griff finally reaches Rocky and knocks him unconscious with a punch. Griff and Jessica inevitably cross paths and their relationship starts off as antagonistic but eventually blossoms into a romance.

Production

Fuller uses every opportunity to show off the widescreen format while employing extensive use of close-ups and one of the longest tracking shots ever done at Fox’s studio at that time.