Forty Guns [1957] [Criterion] (BLU)
Samuel Fuller
Synopsis
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. marshal Griff Bonnell (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 virtuoso display of Fuller's sharpshooting talents.
Special Features:
- New 4k restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New interview with director Samuel 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 admirers and collaborators Wim Wenders, William Friedkin, Mark Hamill, James Franco, Monte Hellman, Jennifer Beals, Bill Duke, Constance Towers, and others
- New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City
- Stills gallery
- An essay by film scholar Lisa Dombrowski and excerpts from Fuller's 2002 autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking
Product Details
- Format: Widescreen
- Language: English
- Subtitles: English
- Aspect Ratio: 2:35:1
- Number of Discs: 1
- Rating: Not Rated
- Label: Criterion Collection
- Release Date: 12/11/2018
- Run Time: 80 minutes
- Catalogue #: 954
- Region: A