The film began production in February 1956, as director Corman wanted to shoot one final film in six days before a change in union contracts meant that actors were limited to working only five days a week. Filming of Gunslinger was marred by several inconveniences; rain caused the filming location to become muddy, and the two lead actresses were both injured on set. Eventually, Gunslinger was released to mixed reviews, and, in 1993, was featured in a fifth-season episode of the film-mocking comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Plot
After her husband Scott, the town marshal of Oracle, Texas, is killed by two assailants, Rose Hood shoots one of men and is named temporary marshal until the renowned Sam Bass arrives to take the job. At the funeral, she spots and shoots the second killer.
That night, Rose asks Erica Page to close her saloon at 3 a.m. in accordance with town regulations, but Erica insists that her saloon is open 24 hours. After the women fight, Erica capitulates and closes for the night. She tells lackey Jake to hire a gunslinger, and he finds Cane Miro. In the saloon, Mayor Polk tells Erica that she has overextended herself by buying property along a proposed railroad track, but she dismisses his warnings.
As Cane rides toward town, Rose shoots at him, mistaking him for a Nate Signo, a man whom she has been seeking. She apologizes and they ride together to find Signo, and Cane shoots him. Cane enters the saloon and confronts Polk. Erica reveals that she paid Cane to kill Rose, but she states that if the proposed railroad track is a success, Rose may not have to die.
Erica buys a freight line from Zebulon Taub for $15,000 but has Jake follow him. Rose follows Cane as he exits town. He stops and they talk and eventually kiss. Jake finds and kills Taub and reclaims the money. When Rose and Cane arrive, Erica becomes jealous and irate. She demands that Jake kill Rose immediately. Cane reminds her that they cannot change the deal they made.
Cane tells Rose that he has come to see Mayor Polk, who was his former military commander. At a pivotal battle, Polk had panicked and fled, leaving his men, including Cane's four brothers, to be captured or killed. Rose makes Cane promise not to harm Polk, but has Polk placed in protective custody.
Three of Erica's dance-hall girls whom Rose had banished from the town ambush Rose and try to hang her. However, Cane rescues her from the girls, who leave town. Cane becomes intoxicated and kisses Erica. Jake, who has been spying, sees the kiss but leaves before Erica is rejected by Cane. Erica orders Cane to kill Rose. When she returns to her saloon, Jake slaps her and Erica vows that she will kill him. Jake seeks Rose and tells her everything that he knows. Back at the saloon, Jake draws a gun on Cane, who kills him. Rose does not arrest him, as Erica claims that the murder was in self-defense.
After stealing a letter informing her that the railroad will not be built, killing the messenger in the process, Erica rides into town, intending to have Cane kill Rose. Deputy Joshua Tate is killed when he confronts them. Cane attacks Polk, killing his wife when she shields him. Cane then shoots and kills Polk.
Rose enters town and Erica aims at her, but Erica is shot by Cane before she can pull the trigger. Rose pursues Cane out of town, and they exchange fire. After he is shot, Cane asks Rose whether she had loved him, and she replies that she did. Cane's wound is fatal, and Rose rides out of Oracle, declaring she will never return. Sam Bass arrives just as she leaves and asks her whether the town is quiet, and she confirms.
The screenplay for Gunslinger was written by Mark Hanna and Charles B. Griffith based on an idea by director Roger Corman, who proposed a Western film in which a sheriff is murdered while on duty, with the sheriff's widow inheriting the job.[2] Griffith was hired after Jonathan Haze showed several of Griffith's screenplays to Corman.[3]
Griffith had written two Westerns for Corman that had not been made. Griffith said: "He took me out to see Three Hours to Kill with Dana Andrews and said to me, 'I want you to do the same picture but with a woman as the sheriff'."[4]
Corman later said, "I'm weary of prepackaged formulas, and when you try out a new idea, you necessarily think about shooting a hackneyed scene in a funny way without resorting to parody. This wasn't a parody, it was 'Good God, how can I find a different sort of gunslinger?' Right away, I thought of a woman gunslinger, and the idea for the script came to me all of a sudden. It was the sheriff's wife. He's killed and she takes over for her husband. It was logical when it wasn't, but that was enough for a six-or seven-day Western."[5]
The film was originally known as The Yellow Rose of Texas.[6]
Filming
Gunslinger began production on January 22, 1956.[7][8] The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the film studios had renegotiated for a five-day work week instead of six days, and Corman wished to film a low-budget Western in six days before the new contract took effect, with Gene Corman providing half of the financing.[9] The film was shot at the Jack Ingram Western Movie Ranch[10] in Topanga, California, but it rained for five days during the shoot.[11] As a result, the filming took seven days instead of six. The rain made the area muddy, causing trucks, cameras and lighting equipment to sink.
Because of the quick shooting schedule, the rain forced several exterior scenes to be rewritten in order to be shot indoors.[9] Other scenes were shot with a large tarp draped over the actors.[12] Corman overcame the audible rainfall in the background by employing the film's score and an assortment of sound effects to cover the noise.[9] The first sequence shot was a love scene between Beverly Garland and John Ireland in a tree. The tree's colony of red ants crawled on the actors and repeatedly bit them.[13]
Actors were injured several times on set. One day, Allison Hayes' horse slipped in the mud, causing her to fall[9][14] and breaking her arm. While the crew waited for an ambulance to arrive, Corman shot a reel of closeups of Hayes, intending to splice the shots into the final cut while using a double to shoot other scenes.[9]
While filming a scene, Garland twisted her ankle running down the stairs in the saloon but continued.[15] Her ankle later swelled to twice its normal size. When she returned to the set, the crew cut the back of the boot and taped it to her foot.[13]
While Corman described the production of Gunslinger as "one of the worst experiences of my life" and Hayes wanted to leave the film during shooting,[9] Garland considered Rose Hood among her favorite roles, noting:
I think I was the first woman to play a marshal in a movie Western. Roger would often cast against type in those days. I could never resist a plum role like a lady marshal in a genre that would never have considered such a gender reversal like that before. However, working with Roger was always an adventure and this film was no exception.[11]
Corman later said:
My Texas distributor arrived in the city where I was filming and asked me how it was going. I told him that I thought that it was good but that there was too much violence and passion, and he answered, "Roger, I’ve been in this business for forty years, and you’ve been in it for just two. Let me tell you that no one has ever made a film with too much passion and violence." So I pressed on. Everyone was dying. At the end of the film half of the city was dead.[16]
Release
Reception
Gunslinger was released in October 1956.
The Hollywood Reporter called it "quite a startling Western" and praised the two lead actresses, saying "Miss Garland and Hayes are good as the feuding ladies from different sides of the tracks."[citation needed]
Variety wrote that "with such a twist to the conventional Western plot, this Roger Corman production should get its share of playing time attention in the program market."[1][17]
VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever praised Gunslinger for being a "unique Western with a surprise ending."[18] In The Encyclopedia of Western Movies, Gunslinger was praised for exploring the potential of a woman gunfighter,[19] and that it was "the most assured of Corman's quartet of Westerns."[20] In his book Western Movies: A Guide to 5,105 Feature Films, Michael R. Pitts said that it was an "early six day Roger Corman cheapie that is rather appealing."[21]
Bill Gibron wrote a negative review for DVD Verdict: "Roger Corman was responsible for a lot of smoldering cinematic cowflops over the course of his economically sound career, but Gunslinger has got to be one of the most overripe and ridiculous." While he stated that "Beverly Garland, who plays our dispassionate Rose, and John Ireland, as the cool and callous Cane Myro, are decent enough", he wrote that "there isn't much to recommend in this movie", saying that "there's too much unresolved intrigue, too many easy answers to rotten questions, to make heads or tails of what is supposed to matter."[22]TV Guide awarded Gunslinger two stars, writing that "it's a strange little Corman film, made before he went wholeheartedly for horror films, and this too has a semi-sense of the strange."[23] Film reviewer Leonard Maltin awarded Gunslinger one star and a half.[24]
Filmink said "There are terrific moments, like Garland spotting one of her husband’s killers at her husband’s funeral and plugging the guy then and there – but if I’m being honest, Corman’s direction back then wasn’t up to the quality of his script or cast."[25]
Gunslinger was featured in a fifth-season episode of the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1993.[28] It was the penultimate episode for series creator and host Joel Hodgson, who left the show after the next episode, Mitchell.[22]
Actor and writer Kevin Murphy, who provides the voice and puppetry of Tom Servo in the series, spoke disparagingly about the film in the book Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide: "One of my darkest fears is that I'll one day make my own film, my story, my direction, my own crystalline vision of something so universal, it must needs be shared with the world on the silver screen. And I make the movie, and it turns out like Gunslinger, or any other Corman film—turgid, insipid, clichéd, confusing, every opportunity for artistic expression intentionally ignored."[29]
Related Research Articles
It Conquered the World is an independently made 1956 American science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman, and starring Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Fraser. Shot in black-and-white, It Conquered the World was released theatrically by American International Pictures (AIP) as a double feature with The She-Creature.
Not of This Earth is an independently made 1957 American black-and-white science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman, that stars Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones, William Roerick, and Anna Lee Carroll. The film was written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna and was distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation as a double feature with Attack of the Crab Monsters. Its theatrical release had a running time of 67 minutes, that was expanded to 70 minutes in 1962 for TV syndication.
Swamp Women is a 1956 American adventure film noir crime film directed by Roger Corman. It stars Carole Mathews, Beverly Garland, and Marie Windsor, with Mike Connors and Ed Nelson in small roles.
The Undead is a 1957 horror film directed by Roger Corman and starring Pamela Duncan, Allison Hayes, Richard Garland and Val Dufour. It also features Corman regulars Richard Devon, Dick Miller, Mel Welles and Bruno VeSota. The authors' original working title was The Trance of Diana Love. The film follows the story of a prostitute, Diana Love (Duncan), who is put into a hypnotic trance by psychic Quintus (Dufour), thus causing her to regress to a previous life. Hayes later starred in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958). The film was released on February 14, 1957 by American International Pictures as a double feature with Voodoo Woman.
Beverly Lucy Garland was an American actress. Her work in feature films primarily consisted of small parts in a few major productions or leads in low-budget action and science-fiction movies; however, she had prominent recurring roles on several popular television series.
Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell, also known as Deathstalker III: The Warriors from Hell, is a 1988 sword and sorcery fantasy film. It is the third film in the Deathstalker tetralogy.
A Bucket of Blood is a 1959 American comedy horror film directed by Roger Corman. It starred Dick Miller and was set in the West Coast beatnik culture of the late 1950s. The film, produced on a $50,000 budget, was shot in five days and shares many of the low-budget filmmaking aesthetics commonly associated with Corman's work. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a dark comic satire about a dimwitted, impressionable young busboy at a Bohemian café who is acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor when he accidentally kills his landlady's cat and covers its body in clay to hide the evidence. When he is pressured to create similar work, he becomes a serial murderer.
Teenage Caveman is a 1958 American independent black-and-white science fiction adventure film produced and directed by Roger Corman, and starring Robert Vaughn and Darah Marshall. The film was released by American International Pictures in July 1958 as a double feature with How to Make a Monster.
Lords of the Deep is a 1989 American science-fiction horror film co-produced by Roger Corman, about an underwater colony being attacked by alien life forms. Actors included Bradford Dillman and Priscilla Barnes.
The Lady in Red is a 1979 American crime drama film directed by Lewis Teague and starring Pamela Sue Martin and Robert Conrad. It is an early writing effort of John Sayles who became better known as a director in the 1980s and 1990s.
High School Big Shot is a 1959 film starring Tom Pittman, in his final film role, as Marv Grant, a smart high school student whose plans for getting a college scholarship are threatened by his alcoholic father played by Malcolm Atterbury, and his relationship with the most popular girl in school. Filmed in 1958 under the title Blood Money, it was released by executive producer Roger Corman as a double feature with T-Bird Gang in his first Filmgroup release.
Night of the Blood Beast is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film about a team of scientists who are stalked by an alien creature, which implants its embryos in an astronaut's body during a space flight. Produced by exploitation filmmaker Roger Corman and his brother Gene, it was one of the first films directed by Bernard L. Kowalski and was written by first-time screenwriter Martin Varno, who was 21 years old. It starred several actors who had regularly worked with Roger Corman, including Michael Emmet, Ed Nelson, Steve Dunlap, Georgianna Carter and Tyler McVey. The film was theatrically released in December 1958 as a double feature with She Gods of Shark Reef.
Rock All Night is a 1957 crime drama film produced and directed by Roger Corman. Distributed by American International Pictures, it is based on a 25-minute television episode of The Jane Wyman Show from 1955 called "The Little Guy." It stars Dick Miller, Russell Johnson and Abby Dalton. It co-stars Mel Welles, Ed Nelson and Clegg Hoyt. The film was released as a double feature with Dragstrip Girl.
Avalanche is a 1978 disaster film directed by Corey Allen, featuring Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, Robert Forster, and Jeanette Nolan.
The Oklahoma Woman is a 1956 American Western film directed by Roger Corman.
Naked Paradise is a 1957 drama film directed by Roger Corman. It stars Richard Denning and Beverly Garland.
Ski Troop Attack is a 1960 American war film directed by Roger Corman and starring Michael Forest, Frank Wolff, Richard Sinatra and Wally Campo. Filmgroup released the film as a double feature with Battle of Blood Island (1960).
Atlas is a 1961 peplum film directed by Roger Corman and starring Michael Forest and Frank Wolff. It was filmed in Greece. Corman called it "my last attempt to do a big picture on a low budget." Writer Charles B. Griffith said "Atlas was a mess. It was a doomed project. "
Shoot Out is a 1971 American Western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gregory Peck. The film is adapted from Will James's 1930 novel, The Lone Cowboy. The film was produced, directed, and written by the team that delivered the Oscar-winning film True Grit.
A Day of Fury is a 1956 American Western film directed by Harmon Jones and starring Dale Robertson, Mara Corday and Jock Mahoney. The working title of the film was Jagade, the name of Robertson's character.
Del Vecchio, Deborah (2012). Beverly Garland: Her Life and Career. McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0786465019.
Hardy, Phil (1983). The Encyclopedia of Western Movies. Octopus. ISBN0706425553.
Maltin, Leonard (1995). Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide. Plume.
Murphy, Kevin (1996). The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide. Bantam Books. ISBN0553377833.
Naha, Ed (1982). The Films of Roger Corman: Brilliance on a Budget. Arco Publishing. ISBN0668053089.
Palmer, Randy (2009). Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist. McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0786440993.
Pitts, Michael (2012). Western Movies: A Guide to 5,105 Feature Films. McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0786463725.
Verswijver, Leo (2003). "Movies Were Always Magical": Interviews with 19 Actors, Directors, and Producers from the Hollywood of the 1930s Through the 1950s. McFarland & Company. ISBN0786411295.
Weaver, Tom (2006). Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls, and Makeup. McFarland. ISBN0786428589.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
