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

classicsoncall It's just a terrible injustice here that "Gunslinger" is saddled with a 2.8 IMDb rating as I write this. Come on - this is a Roger Corman film, that should be good for at least a bonus point, no? Actually, I never knew Corman did a Western, so this was a bit of a treat stumbling across it on Encore Westerns last night. I have to say, I was hooked the minute Rose Hood (Beverly Garland) shot the guy at her husband's funeral. That took some moxie, which Garland had plenty of.With the words, "Pin it on", Rose takes over as the town sheriff and goes after the bad guys and gals that want to run the show in Oracle, Texas. The primary villain is Erica Page (Allison Hayes), proprietor of the Red Dog Saloon, and architect of a major land grab, buying up local properties in anticipation of a possible railroad passing through the town. I had to admire the way Miss Page managed her cash flow; when she pays someone for the land she just bought, she sends out her puppy dog 'little man' Jake (Jonathan Haze) to kill him and bring the money back. This strategy must have played out more than the single time we get to see it, which makes me wonder why all those dead former landowners never roused anyone's suspicion.Say, can you have a Corman flick without the obligatory cat-fight? Garland mixes it up with Hayes in an early encounter at the Red Dog, starting with a right cross to the face. They didn't get to do much more than roll around on the floor after that, which didn't make it as exciting as the one in Corman's other 1956 film "Swamp Women". Garland was in that one too, and in the middle of the hot steamy swamp, it wasn't hard to come up with an excuse for a wet blouse tussle. Gee, couldn't the two gals have thrown a beer at each other before the rumpus started? Heading up the cast is John Ireland as the titled Gunslinger, but that's probably a dubious honor considering Garland appears to have more screen time. As Cane Miro (love that name!), he has the best line of dialog in the picture. After gunning down Nate Signo, he says to Rose - "I'll help you get your worm bait back to town". Ah, the imagery.You know, you have to hand it to veteran character actor William Schallert for the job he did negotiating a credit for less than a minute of screen time at the start of the picture. He was the town marshal and husband of Rose Hood, who didn't make it past the opening scene. Imagine making a living out of bit parts like that!

TheUltimatePixy Talk about a boring, cliche old western movie! I saw this movie on TV and thought it was just another stupid 50s western movie. Then I saw it on the great grand pobah of humor, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and I laughed my bum off. MST3K pointed out everything that was wrong with that movie, like that bloody door that opened up incorrectly. For goodness sake, if you plan on viewing this movie, get the MST3K (All bow to it!! MST3K Rocks!) version!