I’m proud to be contributing to the upcoming Roger Corman Blogathon, sponsored by Forgotten Classics Of Yesteryear.
Each blogger has selected a particular film. You’ll find a full schedule here. Expect lots of good stuff.
On Saturday, a post will appear here on Five Guns West (1955) starring John Lund and Dorothy Malone. This was Corman’s first film as director and the first of four Westerns he made in 1955 and 1956. One of them — Gunslinger (1956) starring Beverly Garland, John Ireland and Allison Hayes — is well worth seeking out.
Of course, Roger Corman’s contribution to cinema is immense, from his own pictures to the many careers he helped launch over the years — a list of heavy hitters you’ve probably seen many times. His Pit And The Pendulum (1961) is a personal favorite, one of the films that made me the old movie nut I am today, and one I’m dying for my daughter to get old enough to appreciate.
Cool! I’ll be sure to check it out. Thanks for the heads-up.
I have seen this movie lots of years ago, as well as The Oklahoma Woman, while The Gunslinger has been released in Italian on dvd.
Don’t know if it is the right place to ask, but I try… Here in Italy nobody knows what does it mean
“Hell bent for leather”,
and also an american wasn’t able to answer.
Excuse for the matter, Andrea from Italy.
“Hell bent for leather” means willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve your objective.
Does that help? I’m not sure what the origin of the phrase is.
Yes, Toby, many thanks, this helps me a lot!
The italian edition of The Gunslinger is a poor one, even if the image is good, in the same serie they published also the restored version of Johnny Guitar. The image is good, but the original italian dubbing has probably been re-recorded using a very low bitrate, like an mp3 at a lower bitrate than 128.
I also noticed that this version begins with a totally blue screen, with titles.
On the italian pay tv aired Johnny Guitar in HD, the dubbing was perfect and the introduction was not blue, but showed a paysage, the same that in Italy was used to make a painting and add italian titles.
We used to have very good dubbing, it was done by prepared actors. Sometimes they dub the movie again, and you can’t imagine how horrible it is to hear James Stewart or John Wayne dubbed like a japanese anime.
Universal released a version of Bend of the River and The Far Country with a dubbing you can’t listen to, while in tv they repeat the old dubbing.
Curse of the Cat People in the italian version has a Schubert symphony which is not on the original…
Gunslinger has also a Spanish DVD with removable subtitles:
http://www.mundodvd.com/showthread.php?t=86508&highlight=pistolero+asesino
I believe there’s an Australian DVD that’s anamorphic.
John Knight, is that correct?
Yep; the Aussie edition (from MGM/UA) is a very nice Superscope/Pathecolor
transfer.
I think that it has just been re-issued in Australia as a double bill with Arnold
Lavens “The Glory Guys” (script by Peckinpah)
Check out the Sanity Australia website then click onto “Westerns”
Just saw GUNSLINGER today with the Australian DVD copy that Toby mentioned – I was amazed to see it only gets a 2.8 on IMDB – I quite enjoyed it!