Five Guns West

Five Guns West (1955)

GUNS, GOLD AND A GIRL!

During the Civil War, five condemned Southern prisoners are plucked off Death Row and promised pardons on the condition that they undertake a mission to head west and bring back a double-crossing Confederate spy who has a stagecoach full of Confederate gold.

Date of release
1955-04-15
TMDB
4.5 / 10 (27)
Runtime
1h 18m
Genres
Western, Action
Director
Roger Corman

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $60K
  • Filmed in: California

Five Guns West is a 1955 Western film set during the American Civil War directed by Roger Corman. It was Corman's first film as director although he had already made two as producer. It was the second film released by the American Releasing Company, which later became American International Pictures.

Production

The film was the third movie produced by Roger Corman but the first one he directed, and his first movie in color. The second film he produced, The Fast and the Furious, had been bought for distribution by a newly formed company, American Releasing Corporation (ARC), headed by Sam Arkoff and James H. Nicholson.

Corman had directed second unit on The Fast and the Furious and decided to direct Five Guns West himself. This was announced in November 1954. Corman later said "the work by the directors on the two films I had produced was acceptable.

Female lead Dorothy Malone had been in The Fast and the Furious. This was her first film following the death of her younger brother. Malone had Battle Cry and Young at Heart awaiting release when she made the film. It was one of a series of Westerns featuring Malone. Corman said he paid her and John Lund "as much as I could afford". Touch Connors was cast shortly after Malone.

Corman said the story idea was his but the structure and script was the work of R. Wright Campbell, an actor he had met through Jonathan Haze. Campbell was paid $200 to write the script - it was his first screenplay - and was cast in a key role.

Prior to filming, Corman's directing experience was limited to doing second unit on The Fast and the Furious and observing film sets on the lot at 20th Century Fox. In order to get some practice before starting Five Guns West, he shot an 8-minute short film on 16 mm over one day with some actor friends. Corman says he never bothered having this film processed and edited.

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