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Forty Guns



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 digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• 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
• PLUS: An essay by film scholar Lisa Dombrowski and excerpts from Fuller's 2002 autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking

dwk wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 1:30 am According to this tweet from Christa Fuller, Criterion is going to be releasing Forty Guns

Wish they'd focus on a Fuller that doesn't already have a great Blu-ray

Like maybe a proper restoration of The Big Red One? Or maybe Park Row or Verboten!.

Park Row or Verboten would be nice HD upgrades. It always seemed to me, on top of that, that the available elements are in very good shape. The masters used for the DVD releases were quite good already, and I wonder why they haven't been upgraded yet (especially Park Row).

I've only seen Park Row out of those but what a hell of a film. I really do wish we'll get more HD Fuller

Generally westerns don't do it for me, but I love these unconventional and experimental takes on the genre, much like Johnny Guitar or The Furies. The fact that it stars a favorite of mine, Barbara Stanwyck is another plus. I'm glad I never ended up getting the Eureka version considering this one has a new 4K restoration, too bad there's not much in the way of special features though. The documentary and the interview with Sara Smith should be interesting though.

Excited to have more Fuller in the collection.

I guess we're not ever getting a White Dog upgrade, since a career retrospective doc would make more sense to add to that film coming at the end of his career...

domino harvey wrote: Mon Sep 17, 2018 11:31 pm I guess we're not ever getting a White Dog upgrade, since a career retrospective doc would make more sense to add to that film coming at the end of his career...

Not necessarily. Forty Guns is new to the collection whereas White Dog is already in the collection and could easily be upgraded without new material.

Dom, there is a UK blu ray of White Dog? Given your post above re focusing on a Fuller that doesn’t already have a blu ray, why not just get the UK disc?

I've been anticipating Park Row for almost a decade now, back when Criterion's interest was first mentioned. We finally got Rublev, so here's hoping.