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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 20, 2019 3:36:06 GMT
I can live without his Westerns!!
But I own all the Vincent Price pics, they were a great pairing. There's enough reviews and quality posts on here so I wont choc a post, just wanted to add something to a Roger thread.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 21, 2019 4:14:48 GMT
I can live without his Westerns!!
But I own all the Vincent Price pics, they were a great pairing. There's enough reviews and quality posts on here so I wont choc a post, just wanted to add something to a Roger thread. I like 'Five Guns West'. I think it influenced Robert Aldrich's war film 'The Dirty Dozen' (1967). I should back that statement up >
Five Guns West (1955)
The Dirty Five.
Five Guns West is directed by Roger Corman and written by R. Wright Campbell. It stars John Lund, Dorothy Malone, Mike Connors and Jonathan Haze. Filmed in Pathecolor with cinematography by Floyd Crosby and music by Buddy Bregman.
Desperate for men during the last days of the war between the States, the South found it necessary to offer pardons to outlaws to carry out special assignments. Strange dark figures rode under the flag of the Confederacy.
Well the central idea of the story formed the basis of better films to come further down the pipe, but outside of Malone's perky performance, there's not a great deal to sing about here. Corman was a master of the cheap production and he does well to keep this from total damnation, but excitement is rare, there's a lot of wood propping up the acting and the predictability of it all renders the finale a damp squib.
Its worth in the history of independent American cinema is at least notable, and once the film reaches the stagecoach station and Malone enters the fray; thus the ruffians have something to get in a pickle about, the pic just about holds interest. But come the end you realise it's the sort of Western that achieves the minimum it can to get released and is quite simply the first rung of the ladder for one Roger Corman. 4/10
Gunslinger (1956)
The Gunsligerette
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
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 21, 2019 4:22:31 GMT
I can live without his Westerns!!
But I own all the Vincent Price pics, they were a great pairing. There's enough reviews and quality posts on here so I wont choc a post, just wanted to add something to a Roger thread. I like 'Five Guns West'. I think it influenced Robert Aldrich's war film 'The Dirty Dozen' (1967).
Sorry mate I should have added. The Dirty Dozen novel wasn't written till 1965, and the film obviously adapted from that 2 years later, so really Five Guns has no influence credibility I'm afraid to say.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Jan 21, 2019 4:36:09 GMT
Sorry mate I should have added. The Dirty Dozen novel wasn't written till 1965, and the film obviously adapted from that 2 years later, so really Five Guns has no influence credibility I'm afraid to say. Wasn't the film released in the 1950s? Five Guns was, but it has nothing to do with E.M. Nathanson writing a War novel 10 years later, which is mostly fictionalised. The title ( Dirty Dozen - Filthy 13) has some substance to an actual outfit in WW2.
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