When we first meet Texas Guinan in The Gun Woman – a character nameless except for the moniker “The Tigress” – she is outside of her saloon at night, lingering half in the shadows, lighting her cigarette. Pre-Dietrich and pre-Noir, Guinan has femme fatale written over every inch of her body — yet this was made in 1918, and it is a Western. The cinematic predecessors that influenced film noir (namely German Expressionist and American hardboiled literature, both of the 1920s) were years away from being developed. Yet there she is, a deadly, dangerous woman, lurking in the darkest corners of the Old West – our lady Tex, “The Gun Woman” herself.
Read my full review of The Gun Woman here at Not Coming to a Theater Near You.
1 comment:
Guinan is too much of a "what you see is what you get" personality to really interest him, though he does send her off in high Johnny Guitar style as she rides away from her burning saloon in the end. The cynicism of her character doesn't jibe at all with Borzage's point of view, which leaves the film a curiosity but nothing more.
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