Gunslinger

1956 "Hired to kill the woman he loved!"
3.8| 1h11m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 01 June 1956 Released
Producted By: American International Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

After her husband is gunned down, Rose Hood takes his place as sheriff of a small Western town.

Genre

Western, Romance

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Director

Roger Corman

Production Companies

American International Pictures

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Gunslinger Audience Reviews

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Leofwine_draca One of Roger Corman's first films is this lively and involving little western that has a gender role-reversal going on as a grieving widow (Beverly Garland) becomes the marshal of a violent town in which at least one of the inhabitants is going on a murderous rampage of land-grabbing. I was at first surprised to see that this film was in colour given that the rest of Corman's B-movie sci-fi and horror films of the 1950s are in black and white, and then pleased to see that this was just as entertaining as those genre movies.GUNSLINGER is fast-paced and fun, and even the romance scenes don't feel slow or dragged out. Garland makes for an enthusiastic heroine given decent support by John Ireland as a hired gun who has a change of heart. You know it's a Corman movie when you spy Dick Miller in a low down supporting role. GUNSLINGER is no masterpiece, that's for sure, but for a film which must have been made for a fraction of the budget of acclaimed classics like HIGH NOON, it's a nice surprise.
Eric Stevenson I guess this wasn't one of his worst movies, but that really is saying very little. The main problems with this film are that it tries to do too much at the same time. I can't help but think that maybe the reason I couldn't follow it is because I simply didn't care about what was going on. Was this his first color movie? It seemed like some step up for him. I just found it difficult to understand what was going on. There's kind of an interesting romantic story, but it really goes nowhere. At least the Old West isn't a place where you'd have to have a lot of good special effects.This was mostly just boring and uninteresting. Most of the characters are annoying and contribute little to the story. Everything happens too fast, but even then it seems like a slow moving movie. We get to see a cat fight, but they managed to make even that boring. It's probably the worst Western I've ever seen. I'm not even that big a fan of them, but I do realize they've given us lots of great movies. There's a reason John Wayne was the most prolific movie star. He just made these movies and he wasn't here. The dialogue is forced and it just isn't fun because it's confusing to the point where you don't want to understand it. *1/2
Spikeopath Gunslinger is directed by Roger Corman and written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna. It stars John Ireland, Beverly Garland, Allison Hayes, Martin Kingsley, Jonathahn Haze and Chris Alcaide. Music is by Ronald Stein and cinematography by Frederick E. West. When the sheriff of Oracle, Texas, is murdered by outlaws, his widow Rose Hood (Garland) takes over as Marshal and sets about cleaning up the town... As Roger Corman started out directing, a few years before he would turn his hand to the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that would find him respect and leave his mark on cinema, he ventured into the realm of the Western. None of these Westerns were particularly good, in fact they are some of the lowest rated Westerns on IMDb, with Gunslinger currently at the bottom of the pile with a 2.8/10 weighted average! Yet, and it's really not a movie you would want to revisit often - if at all, there's a quirkiness and feminist angled bravery about the whole thing that earns a tiny bit of respect. The problems are many. It's over talky and slow, and what action there is is so badly staged it comes off like an amateur playhouse production. Then there's the acting. Ireland kind of escapes criticism because he walks around in a dazed state, it's like he can't believe what he is doing there, you can see him thinking to himself that he was working for Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann not long ago! Garland is OK, spunky and at least correct in line deliveries and visual reaction to situations, and Hayes is sexy enough to get away with the incredulity of it all. The rest, however, are desperately poor, with some of them resorting to auto-cue type acting. Visually it's also poor, with barely dressed sets looking as fake as fake can be, especially when they shake as actors bump into them. Filmed in Pathecolor, the exteriors are sadly lifeless, the colours bland, and this in spite of the decent DVD print that I viewed. The sped up horse riding sequences raise a chuckle, while goof spotters will have a field day here. All told, with a weak and preposterous finale sealing the deal, it's a well below average "Z" grade Oater. One that's fun for the wrong reasons, but still! The sight of Garland blasting away with shotgun in hand, with star badge on chest, is a sexy image I shall not forget in a hurry! 3.5/10
moonspinner55 Temporary female marshal in the Texas town of Oracle tangles with the crooked saloon proprietress, her nefarious showgirls, and the outlaw from Tombstone hired to bump her off; the gunslinger, dressed in black, plays romantic smoothie with both ladies, but it's clear to whom his heart truly belongs after a romantic conversation in a tree with the badge-wearing blonde (during which time Beverly Garland is upstaged by an overactive black bug on her blouse). C-grade western from producer-director Roger Corman, probably patterned after "Johnny Guitar", keeps a needless time-line of events--ridiculous since all the exterior scenes appear to have been filmed on the same chilly morning and each of the actors seems to possess one outfit apiece. Garland does the only decent acting in the picture; otherwise, "Gunslinger" is a turkey looking to get shot. *1/2 from ****