Fot those with short memories, "Forty Guns" is Sam Fuller's revised version of "My Darling Clementine" in which he replaces the Earp brothers with the Bonell brothers, and Old Man Clanton and his sons with Jessica Drummond and her forty hired guns (counting her trigger-happy, crazed brother), and Doc Holliday becomes the town gunsmith who has a gun-toting, sharp-shooting daughter. And spiced up the dialogue. This version has ranch owner Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) who is the boss of Cochise County, Arizona, who rides around with forty hired guns behind her. She is fond of riding her white horse, followed by forty men on black horses, into Tombstone just to remind the citizens of just who rules this lawless roost. But she is shaken by the appearance of U.S. Marshal Griff Bonell (Barry Sullivan) and his two brothers, Wes (Gene Barry) and Chico (Robert Dix), as Bonell has a reputation of cleaning up lawless towns. Jessica and Griff have a mutual respect for each other and become somewhat friendly. Law and order seems to come to Tombstone without a shot being fired. But all of that is shattered after Jessica's hot-tempered, trigger-happy idiot brother Brockie (John Ericson) kills Wes Bonell. Brockie later uses Jessica as a shield in a shootout which leads Jessican to change her attitude about a lot of things, especially her brother.
—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>