FORTY GUNS (1957)

I notice that this western keeps popping up on digital TV here in the UK so I feel I should offer up my recommendation.

It's ironic that the main draw is that it's directed by the wonderful Samuel Fuller. He's most famous for films about rugged, manly people doing rugged, manly things and yet here's a western that stars Barbary Stanwycke and opens with a little sing-song on the guitar.

Yep, I was worried too, but don't worry, it doesn't last. Some drunks turn up, kill the marshal and then shoot up the town. Western expectations are restored.

The film ends up offering up a touching portrait of friendship among men (something Fuller was always great with) but does still manage to introduce the token romance as hardass Stanwycke falls for a gunfighter.

Said gunfighter however can see that his ways are coming to an end and in that way the film makes a nice companion piece to such other films as ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and THE SEARCHERS, in the whole end-of-the-west kind of subgenre.

Melancholy, entertaining and yes, a bit manly, this is one to watch if you like westerns. And for once (for me) it's actually American rather than a nutty Italian effort.