August 12th would’ve been Samuel Fuller’s 100th birthday, and the Aero in Santa Monica is paying tribute with three double bills. Friday’s is The Shock Corridor (1963) and Forty Guns (1957). Just seeing the title sequence on a big screen is worth price of admission.
Sorry about the short notice, but things move fast with Fuller.
Friday, August 24
7:30pm
Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90403
“It’s not even really a Western. I don’t know what it is… Forty Guns doesn’t care.” — Martin Scorsese.
Forty Guns in my favorite Fuller movie! I think it is great that they have included it. Those camera angles are amazing. It is one of the movies every aspiring filmmaker should see.
I couldn’t agree more. There are so many terrific things about that movie, from its black and white CinemaScope to Hank Worden to Dean Jagger offing himself offscreen (masterful sound design) — and all that’s before we get around to Barbara Stanwyck!
Saw a used copy of the DVD in a store not long ago. Felt like finding the original owner and asking them what their problem is.
I say it’s a Western and I say to hell with it!
I’m with you — and what a Western it is!
I saw this movie last year. Of course, it’s a western, how could there be a question?. Babs is great in it as usual.
It’s a Western all right, but any movie by Fuller is pumped up beyond traditional genre conventions. The Steel Helmet is still my favorite Fuller film because of its raw intensity, but Forty Guns is still something else. Wish I could see it on a big screen.
Fuller always works within the genres, but as Andrew says he tends to push them to their limits and sometimes beyond, mostly with good results. In the case of Forty Guns, I always find the film stylistically exciting more than dramatically satisfying, though it’s always interesting. It has some incredible moments, especially the shooting of Gene Barry at the wedding. And any movie gets an automatic plus if it uses the wonderful format of black and white CinemaScope so well as this one does.
One has to accord Fuller a fairly strong place in the Western, though maybe his very adventurousness and audaciousness pulls him down in relation to some others, even though he is as great a director–for me, one of the great directors and that judgement has held up over the years. With Run of the Arrow, it’s a little the opposite for me of Forty Guns as I actually like the story better but find the direction–after a great opening sequence–not quite as inspired. The Western of his I most enjoy overall is I Shot Jesse James–a brilliant film and Fuller’s first film which shows his flair for cinema was innate. His next one can reasonably be called a Western–The Baron of Arizona; an interesting movie.
Despite my customary preferences for most director’s Westerns, in Fuller’s case I may like his urban crime thrillers best overall–Pickup on South Street and The Crimson Kimon are my favorites; Underworld U.S.A. as well. And also his war films, especially Merrill’s Marauders, which was not his own project like the earlier Korean war films but it’s magisterially well done.
A one of a kind director and movies wouldn’t be the same without him.