Forty Guns has some of Samuel Fuller's most daring and risky cinematography. It's obvious that he was awed by the possibilities of wide-screen cinematography and that he took every chance possible to show it off: bold compositions and impressive tracking shots dominate almost every scene. His use of tracking shots are particularly notable, especially one amazing scene where the camera starts with a bird's-eye view of a couple of lovers necking in a barn before rolling down to floor level. And yet the story doesn't manage to match the film's intense imagery. I didn't buy Barbara Stanwyck's character arc which began with her as a powerful landowner and ended with her as the protagonist's squeeze. The pathos just seemed perfunctory. Stanwyck also doesn't get enough screen-time to be properly nasty and vindictive. That's not to say that Forty Guns is a bad movie. But knowing Fuller, I'm surprised that it wasn't a lot better.
7/10
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