Way out West (August 2004).

However Westerns are still frequently made and this article will concentrate on Westerns made after it's heyday. The first film I'll discuss is 'Bad Girls' (1994) which introduced the concept of a gang of female outlaws running amok in the Wild West to a modern audience. This wasn't exactly the first time this idea had been explored as you'll see if you continue reading but it was the template for other films which followed. Andie McDowell, Madeline Stowe, Drew Barrymore and Mary Stuart Masterton play the four prostitutes who band together to go on the rampage after one of them kills a man in self-defence.

After a few run ins with the both fellow outlaws and pursuing Pinkerton detectives they make their last stand. Whilst this film has big name stars the film is really pretty poor both as a Western and as a 'Girls with Guns' feature. None of the actresses really convinces as a female gunslinger and the story takes too long to arrive at it's fairly predictable conclusion. Maybe if it hadn't taken itself so seriously and the actresses had put some effort into developing their characters into believable action heroines then we would have had something better than the slightly stale offering which is presented.

As I stated earlier stories featuring female gangs of outlaws had been made previous to 'Bad Girls'. The earliest of these was probably 'Outlaw Women' where Marie Windsor and her girls rule the town from their saloon but 'The Daltons Girls' quickly followed in it's wake. However the most bizarre entry in this genre is the french language euro-western 'Legend of Frenchie King' which starred Bridget Bardot and Claudia Cardinale. This film was made in the 1970's and tells the story of Frenchie King (Bardot) and her sisters who terrorize the old west by robbing trains and playing poker(!). After finding a map of a homestead they decide to move there to let the heat cool down.

The local town (where everybody is French by the way) is run by Marie (Cardinale) and her brothers - are you beginning to see what's going to happen here? They want the homestead as it overlooks an oil field (hence the film's original title of 'Les Petroleuses') so it is only a matter of time before Cardinale and Bardot go head to head to see who is the boss lady. The sisters fall in love with the brothers and by the end they join forces for the new bigger and better Frenchie King gang to ride again.

This film is a comedy, a fact you can't overlook if you study the acting of Michael J Pollard who gurns his way through his role of the local sherrif who is pushed around first by Cardinale and then by Bardot. You don't get much gun girl action for your money either. But if you want to see a tremendous cat fight between two (fading) stars of the silver screen then this is the film for you. Personally I could watch Cardinale cut her toenails and still be entranced but I couldn't really recommend this film as anything but a very lightweight comedy with limited girl gang appeal. Here are the final stills from the film.

Originally 'Hooded Angels' and 'Gang of Roses' were going to make up the rest of this article. However because of the number of vidcaps each of these films demanded they now have a separate page each. So to see more of  Wild West Girl gangs follow the following links:-

See the 'Hooded Angels' article.
See the 'Gang of Roses' article.

The last film featured here is mainly for curiousity value. 'The Woman they almost Lynched' is a strange 1950's entry in the western gang girl theme of this page. Because this film was made in the 1950's you only get one female gang member rampaging through the old west. This lady is Kate Quantrill (Audrey Totter) who is married to William Quantrill (Brian Donlevy), leader of the notorious gang of raiders during the American civil war. However this film does have a highly unusual setting. The town where the action takes place is firmly placed off limits to both sides of the civil war by the battleaxe lady mayor of the town. However the arrivial of Eastern gal Sally Maris (played by Joan Leslie) soon destroys the neutrality of the town and at one stage has Leslie and Totter facing each other in a western showdown.  Totter is obviously the bad girl because she shoots people (pretty good clue that), sings and wears 1950's leather pants whilst Leslie straps her gun belt around her riding habit and is nice to everybody (though she is the one 'almost lynched'). Taken from a poor quality tape so please excuse quality of the vidcaps.