Gunslinger (1956)

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

What the world anyone truly sees in Roger Corman movies is at loss to me. While this one may be part of his early days - he never improved all that much for my tastes - his appeal is surley limited to those who have a bent towards BAD movies. This one offers us a female lead in the lovely and talented Beverly Garland who clearly deserved far better material but, with stinkers like 'Gunslinger' on her résumé she never had a chance. She plays a 'female sheriff' who has to look for her holster each time she puts her gun away - then there's the saloon with all of three small tables and less than a dozen clients who sit around watching all three (3) dance hall gals doing their best to keep in time (in a Randolph Scott Picture, any less than 23 song and dance ladies would have been cheap). John Ireland is OK in his limited way but the script gives him nothing to work with - same goes for the whole cast of a dozen or more. MGM/UA who has given us some fine rare gems - must have far more deserving movies to transfer to DVD than this penny pinching, idea stealing, dog eared oater. For the very easily pleased, if even they want to bother.

It's just a terrible injustice here that "Gunslinger" is saddled with a 2.8 IMDb rating as I write this. Come on - this is a Roger Corman film, that should be good for at least a bonus point, no? Actually, I never knew Corman did a Western, so this was a bit of a treat stumbling across it on Encore Westerns last night. I have to say, I was hooked the minute Rose Hood (Beverly Garland) shot the guy at her husband's funeral. That took some moxie, which Garland had plenty of.With the words, "Pin it on", Rose takes over as the town sheriff and goes after the bad guys and gals that want to run the show in Oracle, Texas. The primary villain is Erica Page (Allison Hayes), proprietor of the Red Dog Saloon, and architect of a major land grab, buying up local properties in anticipation of a possible railroad passing through the town. I had to admire the way Miss Page managed her cash flow; when she pays someone for the land she just bought, she sends out her puppy dog 'little man' Jake (Jonathan Haze) to kill him and bring the money back. This strategy must have played out more than the single time we get to see it, which makes me wonder why all those dead former landowners never roused anyone's suspicion.Say, can you have a Corman flick without the obligatory cat-fight? Garland mixes it up with Hayes in an early encounter at the Red Dog, starting with a right cross to the face. They didn't get to do much more than roll around on the floor after that, which didn't make it as exciting as the one in Corman's other 1956 film "Swamp Women". Garland was in that one too, and in the middle of the hot steamy swamp, it wasn't hard to come up with an excuse for a wet blouse tussle. Gee, couldn't the two gals have thrown a beer at each other before the rumpus started? Heading up the cast is John Ireland as the titled Gunslinger, but that's probably a dubious honor considering Garland appears to have more screen time. As Cane Miro (love that name!), he has the best line of dialog in the picture. After gunning down Nate Signo, he says to Rose - "I'll help you get your worm bait back to town". Ah, the imagery.You know, you have to hand it to veteran character actor William Schallert for the job he did negotiating a credit for less than a minute of screen time at the start of the picture. He was the town marshal and husband of Rose Hood, who didn't make it past the opening scene. Imagine making a living out of bit parts like that!

Gunslinger (1956) * (out of 4) Rumor has it that director Corman had this film shot in 7-days and you can pretty much tell that's probably the case and you can look at any scene in this thing and tell that not too much care went into it. The film tells a pretty simple story of a woman, Rose Hood (Beverly Garland) who sees her sheriff husband shot down so she buries him and takes his place behind the badge so that she can seek vengeance against those who killed him. It seems that a local bar owner (Allison Hayes) might have had something to do with it and then there's the loving new man (John Ireland) who might be hiding a few secrets as well. The career of Roger Corman is certainly an amazing one but no one could deny that he's made quite a few bad ones in his day and this here is certainly among the worst. I really, really had a hard time sitting through this one even though it only runs 78-minutes but more than likely you could have cut this down to 8-minutes and it still would have felt too long. As you'd expect, everything seems quite rushed, which is understandable considering how short of a shooting time they had. We even get some Ed Wood like moments including the early scene where the husband is shot. We see Garland go outside in the daylight to get the men who did it but when she turns to walk back in the office you can see that it's now dark. We even get a couple shots where you can see Jeep tracks in the dirt. The amazing thing about this "C" Western is that we've got a very familiar cast of Corman regulars. Garland isn't too bad in her role but don't expect Oscar quality. Ireland is always fun to watch but even here is a bit too lame here. Hayes gives the typical type of performance that you'd expect from her but at least we get a few laughs. Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze also appear in small role. The entire story is just so bland that even a better quality film would have struggled to be entertaining. Considering how poorly made this is it's even harder to sit through and one can only be happy that the director would eventually stay away from this genre.

When the local sheriff is killed, his wife takes over until and is determined to clean-up the town. Not everyone in town, however, is happy with what she's doing. When the sheriff orders a curfew in town, the local saloon owner (also a woman) hires a killer to take care of the sheriff. There's no way the saloon owner could know that the sheriff and the killer would fall in love.Gunslinger is an example of what happens when you have a fairly interesting concept and combine it with poor execution. There's a good movie here somewhere trying to get out. In more capable hands or with a larger budget, Gunslinger might have been an entertaining look at the role of women in the Old West. As it is, Gunslinger is a sloppy mess of a movie.There are just so many things wrong with the movie: a supporting cast with no acting ability, stilted and unnatural dialogue, and sets that look like sets. But the biggest offender is the editing. I was amazed at how many times a scene would begin with the actors (and horses for that matter) obviously waiting for Corman to yell "Action". The best is the scene of two riders on horseback just standing beside a building. All of a sudden, they take off and come racing around the corner like they had been riding hard for several miles. Or, take the example of people who can seemingly transport themselves across town. We see a man enter a building and a second later emerge across town to mount his horse.It's not as if Corman didn't have a few decent actors to work with. While none were great stars, Beverly Garland, John Ireland, and Allison Hayes were all capable of turning in a good performance. But, in Gunslinger, they're not given much to work with.I have now seen both the MST3K and non-MST3K versions of the movie. I would strongly recommend going the MST3K route.