As I’ve made way through the Western genre, I’ve had one silly hope — that I’d stumble on some awesome, forgotten, cultish series that centered on a female gunfighter. The Quick and the Dead couldn’t be the only one, could it? Surely Sam Raimi had a stash of some spaghetti westerns he drew from?
Obviously, there isn’t such a series. I’ve met many a tough broad in the genre (I mean that in the most complimentary of ways) but other than Doris Day’s Calamity Jane (a write up that will come eventually) or Jane Fonda’s Cat Ballou, lady gunslingers are in short supply. Thankfully, Sharon Stone has some competition in Raquel Welch and Hannie Caulder.
Hannie Caulder’s origin story is predictable pulp — her husband is killed, and the outlaws responsible promptly gang rape her. Caulder strides out of her burning house with only a blanket to her name, and vows to get revenge.
Luck delivers her a bounty hunter in Thomas Luther Price (Robert Culp) who reluctantly agrees to train her in the art of killing. He also buys her a pair of pants (but not, it seems, a shirt) and takes her to Mexico where she can have a pistol made by Bailey the gunsmith (Christopher Lee).
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