On December 11th, the Criterion Collection will release a special restored 4K Edition BluRay of Sam Fuller’s 1957 pulp Western classic FORTY GUNS.
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 and Technical Specs: NEW 4K 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 • Optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature
