Truly Dreadful Film

That was an excellent one.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

'Gunslinger' is strange little western - unique and experimental where 'King of B's' Roger Corman went against usual western rules and the main gunslinger is a woman - town marshal Rose Hood (Beverly Garland) who is as fast with her thinking as with her hands, and as coldblooded as her male counterparts. And her cruel scheming sworn enemy Erica Page (Allisson Hayes) is as evil and dirty as one greedy villain should be. As the director himself said, that he was tired of using same formulas, so he came up with an idea about woman gunslinger and hired Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna to write the screenplay.After her husband, the marshal of of Oracle City is murdered, Rose Hood is appointed as new marshal and she plans to take the law into her own hands. With that she starts feud with saloon keeper Erica Page who is ready to use every method to get rid of the new law-woman. She hires gunslinger form out of town (super cool John Ireland whose performance seems even too good for this unpretentious cheap entertainment) to kill Rose. Romance, double games, deceptions and a lot of blood shedding follows. Although unconventional in casting and with many interesting and original twists and turns mixed with lousy clichés, and enough entertainment value, the film is still uneven mess which proves that western wasn't Cormans forte. Not to mention those fast-motioned horse chasing scenes that felt unnecessary and more like self parody.'Gunslinger' might not be up par with Cormans finest works (or even with some of his previous westerns like 'Five Guns West') the film is still worth enough to give it a chance, even for the sake of the inventiveness of it.

The idea behind this movie - a woman in the wild west taking on the responsibilities of a marshal - was a promising one. It could have worked both in a realistic light, or one that was aimed more at an exploitation audience. However, the end results will more likely than not be unpleasing to any audience. I could live with the cheap nature of the production, from the tacky sets to the poor color photography. The biggest problem is that the movie is surprisingly boring. It's mostly talk talk talk, and none of the talk is particularly interesting or lively. There seems to be no particular effort to exploit the idea to the maximum potential. I think that audiences even in 1956 would have found the movie to be deadly boring. Even in a modern age of poor remakes, I am sure that a remake of this movie would be much more interesting than this version.

When two gunmen blast the town marshal of Oracle, Texas, in an ambush, the marshal's widow not only kills the shooter, but she also takes over her dead husband's job to track down the accomplice and discover who paid them. Low-budget producer & director Roger Corman cut a different trail with the off-beat 1956 western "Gunslinger" by making the western hero into a heroine. This represents one of the earliest examples of a feminist horse opera. Beverly Garland stars as Ruth Hood, the widow who wears the star and lays down the law, at least for a week until her replacement arrives. Chiefly, "Gunslinger" illustrates the theme of women versus women. The marshal's wife and an ambitious female entrepreneur saloon owner go toe-to-toe so women versus women qualifies as the foremost theme of "Gunslinger." Meanwhile, our heroine defies the social patriarchal order when she appropriates her husband's badge to finish the job that he started. The least prevalent theme is women versus men, though Ruth tangles with several guys and guns them down. Corman designed "Gunslinger" as a different kind of movie and could only have been thinking of attracting a female audience as well as dyed-in-the-leather western movie fans. The Charles Griffith & Mark Hanna script unfolds in chronological fashion, charting a week in the life of Oracle, Texas, as the heroine and the villainess await a decision by a railroad firm about whether it will build its rail lines through the town as well as when the new marshal will arrive.The most important theme in "Gunslinger" is women versus women. The entire movie is a showdown between two women with neither prepared to give an inch. When Ruth Hood brings her husband, Marshal Scott Hood (William Schallert of "Hour of the Gun"), her breakfast, she has no idea that two gunmen working for Erica Page (Allison Hayes of "The Steel Jungle") who runs the Red Dog Saloon are poised to kill him. Scott tells Ruth that he has been out all night trying to track down a killer Nate Signal. Erica Page's name comes up in the conversation because she warned him about Marshal Hood's interest in him and got away from the lawman could catch him. Ruth sees Erica as the source of all the trouble in Oracle. Scott shrugs and asks his wife, "How, who in the world could stand up to that woman?" Ruth asserts that she could stand up to Erica. Before his husband dies, Ruth has indicated that she can stand up against Erica, foreshadowing their feud. At Scott's funeral, Ruth shoots the gunman standing alongside Erica and goads Mayor Gideon Polk into pinning the badge on her so she can smoke out the murderer. When Polk suggests that the two men did it alone, Ruth rejects this theory. Neither one knew her husband well enough to want to kill him. No, she contends that somebody else hired them and the guilty party had a reason to want her husband dead. She plans to remain marshal until she find the person behind the murder of her husband. Later, after Scott dies, Ruth imposed the curfew on Erica's saloon that Scott had not enforced so that Erica has to close up at 3 AM. Following the funeral and Ruth being sworn in as marshal, Ruth visits the Red Dog Saloon. When Erica refuses to shut down, Ruth and she have a brief fight and Ruth knocks her out. and forces Erica to shut down after 3 AM. Indeed, the entire plot of "Gunslinger" concerns the rivalry between Ruth as lawman and Erica as an entrepreneur who wants to own the land that the railroad will have to cross before it arrives in town. The second most important theme in "Gunslinger" is women versus society. The mayor isn't overly enthusiastic about swearing Ruth in as marshal to replace her husband. Ruth's deputy shares the mayor's sentiment. He observes as she is buckling on her gun belt, "I reckon some people won't thing it proper for a new widow to go around in pants, even if they are black." Ruth retorts, "Did you ever see a peace officer in a corset?" This reflects the feeling that the men and women of the Oracle, or what constitutes the society, won't feel good about a woman taking over a man's job. Similarly, Erica finds herself up against the same prejudice when Mayor Polk visits her saloon after hours one evening. Polk has discovered when he pored over the deeds in the land office that Erica has extended her notes on property. In fact, Erica is buying up property that has been selected by the land commission as the suggested right of way for the railroad depot. Polk believes that Erica's gamble is "the height of speculation. He reminds her that the railroad doesn't have to come through Oracle. "Of course," he points out, "you realize how the town will feel if . . ." The implication is that the citizens of Oracle won't like Erica's highhandedness. Erica replies, "Sometimes I lie awake at night two or three seconds worrying about it." Clearly, Erica doesn't care what society thinks about her.Ranking third is the theme of women versus men. Erica hires a professional gunslinger, Cane Miro (John Ireland of "Red River") to kill Ruth, but Cane is not in any hurry to earn his three thousand dollars. Meanwhile, Ruth proves her mettle against men by gunning down the assailant that murdered Scott in the first scene. Later, at Scott's funeral, Ruth slings dirt into a gunman's face, snatches a deputy's six-gun and blasts the man. As it turns out, Ruth recognized the man at the funeral as the accomplice. Later, Ruth guns down a bank robber. After she meets Cane, she gives him five days to clear out of town. "Gunslinger" is a top-notch feminist western from the late 1950s that thrusts a woman into a role usually reserved for men.

I first saw this movie one Friday night/morning in the 80's while staying in a cheap Midwestern motel room. It was the late late show on a small local UHF channel. After a few minutes I knew why it was small local UHF channel affordable. It was perfectly dreadful even for an early Roger Corman effort. Which is saying something in and of itself. I was also struck by the thought of perhaps how desperate John Ireland's, an actor already with solid accomplishments (My Darling Clementine, Red River, All the King's Men), finances must have been in 1956 to appear in this disaster.Years later it popped up again without warning on the late great MST3K television show where it received a proper and hilarious skewing. Of course, Corman had served up inning after inning of softballs for the boys to drive out of the park, but they still managed to find gems I missed the first time. Two that had me in tears were the room/hallway scene, "come out," and the "authentic" old west saloon chorus girls.The original version of the Gunslinger should be mercifully forgotten. The MST3K version should not be missed! Somehow I think even Roger Corman is laughing too.