The Quick and the Dead
Encyclopedia
The Quick and the Dead is a 1995 western film directed by Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
and starring Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
, Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
, Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
and Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
. The story focuses on "The Lady" (Stone), a gunfighter who rides into the 1878 Wild West
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
town of Redemption, controlled by the ruthless John Herod (Hackman). The Lady joins a deadly duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
ing competition in an attempt to exact revenge for her father's death.
Writer Simon Moore
Simon Moore (writer)
Simon Moore is a British screenplay writer. He wrote Traffik miniseries, which was the basis for the Oscar-winning adaptation written for Traffic. He is also the writer and director of the 1991 film Under Suspicion and the fantasy mini series The 10th Kingdom .Moore wrote the adaptation of Stephen...
's script for The Quick and the Dead was purchased by Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
in May 1993, and actress Sharon Stone signed on as both star and co-producer. Development was fast tracked after director Sam Raimi's hiring, and principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began in Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios is a movie studio and theme park just west of Tucson, Arizona, adjacent to the Tucson Mountains and close to the western portion of Saguaro National Park. Built in 1939 for the movie Arizona, it has been used for the filming of several movies and television westerns since then,...
in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
on November 21, 1993. Distribution duties were covered by Sony-owned TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...
and Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. The Quick and the Dead was released in the United States on February 10, 1995 to a dismal box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
performance, and received mixed but generally favorable reviews from critics.
This was Woody Strode
Woody Strode
Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...
's final performance (the film is dedicated to him), as well as the last theatrical release of Roberts Blossom
Roberts Blossom
Roberts Scott Blossom was an American theater, film and television actor and poet. He is best known for his roles as Old Man Marley in Home Alone and as Ezra Cobb in the horror film Deranged...
.
Plot
The Lady (Sharon StoneSharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
) enters the Old West town of Redemption circa 1881. In an attempt to seek vengeance for her father's death, The Lady enters a single elimination
Bracket (tournament)
A bracket is a tree diagram that represents the series of games played during a tournament, named as such because it appears to be a large number of interconnected brackets....
gunfighting contest held by Redemption's ruthless leader, John Herod (Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
). The Lady is introduced to Cort (Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
), a former Herod henchman turned reverend, whom Herod forced to enter the contest.
The winner of the contest will receive $123,000 in cash "courtesy of Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization. Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home...
", the implication being that the money was stolen from Wells Fargo, since the cash is still in the sort of strongbox used to transport valuables on stagecoaches. The Lady forges a platonic friendship with Fee "The Kid" Herod (Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
), an arrogant and young gunslinger who hopes to impress Herod, whom he believes to be his Father, despite Herod's assertions that there is only a possibility of it. As Cort is persecuted for abandoning his violent past in favor of a peaceful religious life, the first and second rounds of the competition ensue. Both Lady and Cort find that Herod's main goal of the contest is to eliminate anyone who might pose a threat to him as leader of the town.
Haunted by her childhood traumas, Lady reflects that as a young girl, Herod manipulated her into killing her father (Gary Sinise
Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
), the town's former Marshal. With Lady, Cort, Herod and The Kid left as the four remaining contestants, Kid challenges Herod to a duel to win his respect. Although they both injure each other with bullet wounds, Kid's wounds prove fatal. John declares that Fee was not his son. He explains to the bystanders that his wife (Fee's mother) had an affair with a farmer. When Lady and Cort are forced to face each other, they devise a successful plan to kill Herod and free Redemption from his oppression. Cort then becomes the new Marshal of the town as Lady rides off into the sunset.
Cast
- Sharon StoneSharon StoneSharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
as Ellen ("The Lady"): The tournament's only female gunfighter has a personal vendetta against Herod for tricking her into killing her father, and finds an ally in Cort. When they have to eliminate one another, neither draw their guns at first; when Cort shoots her, everyone believes she has died, but she comes back to shoot Herod. Stacy Linn RamsowerStacy Linn RamsowerStacy Linn Ramsower is a former American child actress.- Filmography :-External links:...
plays Young Ellen in flashbacks. - Gene HackmanGene HackmanEugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
as John Herod: Herod rules over the town from his mansion in its center; his mercenaries enforce his will, posing as the town's "Councilors". He also develops an attraction to Ellen, and invites her to dinner one night, where he reveals that he also has a tragic backstory: his father, a judge, forced him to watch people he had sentenced being hanged, he forced his family to play Russian roulette with him which resulted in Herod's Father's death. - Russell CroweRussell CroweRussell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
as Cort: Herod's former right-hand man, who abandons his violent career in favor of a peaceful religious life. Herod has Foy and Ratsy burn Cort's missionMission (station)A religious mission or mission station is a location for missionary work.While primarily a Christian term, the concept of the religious "mission" is also used prominently by the Church of Scientology and their Scientology Missions International....
to the ground and force him to join the competition. He is arguably the fastest and most skilled shooter in Redemption after Herod himself. - Leonardo DiCaprioLeonardo DiCaprioLeonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
as Fee "The Kid" Herod: Fee claims to be the son of John Herod and makes a living as the town's gunsmith and enters the tournament hoping to earn his father's acknowledgment and respect. He develops a crush on Ellen, and although she claims the opposite, she deeply cares for him and is greatly saddened when he is killed by Herod. - Pat HinglePat HingleMartin Patterson "Pat" Hingle was an American actor.-Early life:Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle in Miami, Florida, the son of Marvin Louise , a schoolteacher and musician, and Clarence Martin Hingle, a building contractor. Hingle enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1941, dropping out of...
as Horace: Proprietor of the town's only saloon and manager of the gunfighter tournament. - Roberts BlossomRoberts BlossomRoberts Scott Blossom was an American theater, film and television actor and poet. He is best known for his roles as Old Man Marley in Home Alone and as Ezra Cobb in the horror film Deranged...
as Doc Wallace: Redemption's local doctor for as long as anyone can remember. He forms an alliance with Lady and Cort to stop Herod's oppression. - Kevin Conway as Eugene Dred: Local pedophile who is goaded by The Kid into joining the tournament. Killed by Ellen in an unofficial duel after he rapes Horace's young daughter Katie.
- Keith DavidKeith DavidKeith David Williams , better known as Keith David, is an American film, television, voice actor, and singer. He is perhaps most known for his live-action roles in such films as Crash, There's Something About Mary, Barbershop and Men at Work...
as Sgt. Clay Cantrell: Former Union soldier of the American Civil War. Cantrell is hired by the town to participate in the tournament in the hopes he will eliminate Herod in the process. Herod kills him in a duel to "make an example of him". - Lance HenriksenLance HenriksenLance James Henriksen is an American actor and artist best known to film and television audiences for his roles in science fiction, action, and horror films such as the Alien film franchise, and on television shows such as Millennium....
as Ace Hanlon: Trick shot performer. who also entertains by telling tall tales of his exploits. He is however a fraud on several accounts and far less skilled than he claims. He is easily killed by Herod. - Mark Boone JuniorMark Boone JuniorMark Boone Junior is an American actor perhaps best known for his roles as Bobby Munson in FX's Sons of Anarchy and in two films by Christopher Nolan, Memento and Batman Begins...
as Scars: Outlaw who was sentenced to 35 years for murder, but escaped after a mere three days. He is bald, filthy and blind in one eye. Scars is eventually killed by The Kid. - Tobin BellTobin BellTobin Bell is an American film and television character actor. After years of work doing stand-ins and background work on films, he got his first major acting job in Mississippi Burning and went on to star in made-for-television films and guest star in television shows throughout the 1990s.Bell...
as Dog Kelly: Outlaw bent on finding some buried loot, but he seems to have forgotten its location. His name comes from an incident in his backstory where he had to eat his beloved dog or die of starvation, and gets angry when anyone brings it up. Wounded by Ellen in the tournament and knocked out. - Raynor ScheineRaynor ScheineRaynor Scheine is an American actor who has appeared in films for three decades dating back to 1979, including My Cousin Vinny and Fried Green Tomatoes. His name is a play on the phrase "rain or shine".-Broadway performances:...
as Ratsy: Herod's errant henchman who is killed by his own boss. - Jonothon Gill as Spotted Horse: Sioux gunfighter who has a reputation for being impossible to kill. His body is covered with 14 bullet wounds; shot in the head by Cort after surviving a shot in the stomach.
- Olivia BurnetteOlivia BurnetteOlivia Nicole Burnette is an American actress.-Career:She began her career at age six. Perhaps her most famous role was that of Dorothy Jane Torkelson on the NBC sitcom The Torkelsons, later renamed Almost Home. She also notably played two different roles on the NBC series Quantum Leap...
as Katie: Horace's teenager daughter who also idolizes Ellen. - Gary SiniseGary SiniseGary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
as The Marshal: Ellen's father who was killed by Herod. - Lennie Loftin as Flat Nose Foy: Gunfighter with bad teeth and a brood of ill-tempered young children. Wounded by Cort in the first round.
- Sven-Ole ThorsenSven-Ole ThorsenSven-Ole Thorsen is a Danish actor, stuntman, bodybuilder and strongman competitor. Sven won Denmark's Strongest Man in 1983....
as Gutzon: Champion shooter from his native country of Sweden, a title nobody takes seriously. Wounded by The Kid in the first round and eliminated. - Scott SpiegelScott SpiegelScott Spiegel is an American screenwriter, film director, producer and actor. He is best known for co-writing the screenplay for the movie Evil Dead II with longtime friend, film director Sam Raimi, with whom he attended Wylie E. Groves High School in Birmingham, Michigan...
as Gold Teeth Man: Eccentric street vendorHawker (trade)A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells items or food that are native to the area...
of Redemption. - Woody StrodeWoody StrodeWoodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...
as Charlie Moonlight: CoffinCoffinA coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...
maker for the town of Redemption.
Development
Writer Simon MooreSimon Moore (writer)
Simon Moore is a British screenplay writer. He wrote Traffik miniseries, which was the basis for the Oscar-winning adaptation written for Traffic. He is also the writer and director of the 1991 film Under Suspicion and the fantasy mini series The 10th Kingdom .Moore wrote the adaptation of Stephen...
finished his spec script
Spec script
A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio....
for The Quick and the Dead in late 1992, writing it as a homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to the Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
s of Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
, particularly the Dollars Trilogy
Dollars Trilogy
The "Dollars Trilogy" , also known as the "Man with No Name Trilogy", refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars , For a Few Dollars More , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .A Fistful of Dollars is an unofficial remake of...
starring Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
. The writer decided the lead character should be a female. "When you introduce women into that kind of world, something very interesting happens and you have an interesting dynamic straight away," Moore commented. The names of the lead villain (Herod
Herod the Great
Herod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
) and the town (Redemption) were intentional allusions to the Bible. Moore considered directing his own script as an independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
and shooting The Quick and the Dead on a $3–4 million budget in either Spain or Italy.
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
purchased Moore's script in May 1993 and approached Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
to star in the lead role in July 1993. Because Stone also signed on as co-producer, she had approval over the choice of director. Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
was hired to direct because Stone was impressed with his work on Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness, also known as Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness or simply Evil Dead III, is a 1992 horror comedy fantasy action film directed by Sam Raimi. It is the third and final installment in The Evil Dead trilogy. The film was written by Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Robert Tapert,...
(1993). The actress told the producers that if Raimi did not direct the film, she would not star in it. Although she had mixed emotions on Raimi's previous work, she believed that the director still had yet to showcase his talents, feeling that The Quick and the Dead would be a perfect opportunity to "stretch the limits of his technical and creative ability." Moore was also enthusiastic over Raimi's hiring, based on his previous work with the Evil Dead film series.
When Sony began fast tracking development The Quick and the Dead, the studio commissioned a series of rewrites from Moore. The writer was eventually fired and replaced with John Sayles
John Sayles
John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter and author.-Early life:Sayles was born in Schenectady, New York, the son of Mary , a teacher, and Donald John Sayles, a school administrator. He was raised Catholic and took to labeling himself "a Catholic atheist"...
, who, according to Moore, took Sony's orders of "making more of an American Old West
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
film". Moore was rehired with filming to begin in three weeks because Sayles' script was approaching a 2.5 hour runtime. When rewriting the shooting script
Shooting script
A shooting script is the version of a screenplay used during the production of a motion picture. Shooting scripts are distinct from spec scripts in that they make use of scene numbers , and they follow a well defined set of procedures specifying how script revisions should be implemented and...
, Moore simply omitted Sayles' work without Sony noticing. A week before shooting, Sony considered the script good so that Moore described the rewrites "a completely fucking pointless exercise".
Filming
Russell CroweRussell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
originally auditioned for a different role in the film before Sharon Stone asked that the actor try for the lead male role. "When I saw Romper Stomper
Romper Stomper
-Awards:The film was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute Awards. It won Best Achievement in Sound, Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Original Music Score.-Box office and Reception:Romper Stomper grossed $3,165,034 at the box office in Australia,...
(1992), I thought Russell was not only charismatic, attractive and talented but also fearless," Stone reasoned. "And I find fearlessness very attractive. I was convinced I wouldn't scare him." Raimi found Crowe to be "bold and challenging. He reminds me of what we imagine the American cowboy to have been like." On working with Raimi, Crowe later described the director as "sort of like the fourth Stooge".
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen "Gene" Hackman is an American actor and novelist.Nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, Hackman has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned five decades. He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde...
to portray Herod, the film's antagonist, TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...
changed the shooting location from Durango
Durango
Durango officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. With a population of 1,632,934, it has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja...
, Mexico to Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
. Sam Rockwell
Sam Rockwell
Sam Rockwell is an American actor known for his leading roles in Lawn Dogs, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Choke and Moon, as well as for his supporting roles in The Green Mile, Iron Man 2, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Frost/Nixon, Galaxy Quest, Matchstick Men, The Assassination of...
auditioned for The Kid, a role which ended up going to Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
. Sony was also dubious over DiCaprio's casting. As a result, Stone decided to pay for the actor's salary herself.
Filming was originally set to begin in October 1993, but was delayed because Crowe was busy on another film in Australia. Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
for The Quick and the Dead lasted from November 21, 1993 to February 27, 1994. Locations included Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios
Old Tucson Studios is a movie studio and theme park just west of Tucson, Arizona, adjacent to the Tucson Mountains and close to the western portion of Saguaro National Park. Built in 1939 for the movie Arizona, it has been used for the filming of several movies and television westerns since then,...
in Arizona and Mescal, 40 miles southeast of Tucson. Production was briefly halted at times over weather problems. Thell Reed
Thell Reed (Shooter)
Thell Reed is an exhibition shooter, specializing in fast draw, who is a consultant to the movie industry, stuntman, armorer and extra. Thell Reed began his shooting career at seven years of age when his father presented him with a pair of Colt pistols and built for him an indoor range in which to...
, who was hired as the gun coach and weapons master
Weapons master
The weapons master, sometimes credited as the armorer, weapons specialist, weapons handler, weapons wrangler, or weapons coordinator, is a film crew specialist that works with the property master, director, actors and script supervisor...
, worked with the cast through over three months of training. To age Cort's Colt 1851 Navy Revolver
Colt 1851 Navy Revolver
The Colt Revolving Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber , later known as the Colt 1851 Navy or Navy Revolver, is a cap and ball revolver. It was designed by Samuel Colt between 1847 and 1850. It remained in production until 1873, when revolvers using fixed metallic cartridges came into widespread use...
and the other guns used, Reed experimented with simple measures. "I took them out by my swimming pool and dipped them in chlorine water to let them rust," he explained. "They looked rusty and old, but were brand new guns." Such detail, including the nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
plating and ivory handles on Ellen's Colt Peacemaker
Colt Single Action Army
The Colt Single Action Army is a single action revolver with a revolving cylinder holding six metallic cartridges. It was designed for the U.S...
s, was accurate to the time period.
The town of Redemption was designed by Patrizia von Brandenstein
Patrizia von Brandenstein
Patrizia von Brandenstein is an American production designer. She was the first woman to win an Academy Award for production design and has been nominated for two more in the category Best Art Direction. She has shown versatility in creating sets for both lavish historical films and glossy...
, known for her work on Amadeus
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
(1984) and The Untouchables (1987). Raimi's first choice as the visual effects supervisor
Visual effects supervisor
In the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
was William Mesa, his collaborator on Darkman
Darkman
Darkman is a 1990 superhero action film directed by Sam Raimi. It is based on a short story Raimi wrote that paid homage to Universal's horror films of the 1930s...
(1991) and Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness
Army of Darkness, also known as Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness or simply Evil Dead III, is a 1992 horror comedy fantasy action film directed by Sam Raimi. It is the third and final installment in The Evil Dead trilogy. The film was written by Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Robert Tapert,...
(1993). Instead, Sony choose The Computer Film Company to created the VFX sequences. Pick-up scenes took place through November - December 1994. This included an extended duel between Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman.
It was reported that Stone had a love scene removed from the final cut of the film prior to its release in the United States. The actress/co-producer believed the scene did not fit in with the picture's established reality.
Soundtrack
The original motion picture soundtrack for The Quick and the Dead, was released by the Varese SarabandeVarèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
music label on February 14, 1995. The score for the film was orchestrated by Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri
Alan Anthony Silvestri is an American film composer and conductor.-Career:Silvestri is best known for his collaborations with director Robert Zemeckis, having scored Romancing the Stone , the Back to the Future trilogy , Who Framed Roger Rabbit , Death Becomes Her , Forrest Gump , Contact ,...
and mixed by Dennis Sands. Kenneth Karman and Thomas Drescher edited the film's music.
Reception
The Quick and the Dead was released in the U.S. on February 10, 1995 in 2,158 theaters, earning $6,515,861 in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed $18,636,537 in revenue and was declared to be a box office bombBox office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
. However, writer Simon Moore acknowledged that the film performed modestly in Europe.
The Quick and the Deads dismal box office performance can be attributed to competition from Billy Madison
Billy Madison
Billy Madison is a 1995 American comedy film directed by Tamra Davis and starring Adam Sandler, in the title role, Bradley Whitford, Bridgette Wilson, Norm Macdonald and Darren McGavin. The film was written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy, and produced by Universal Studios. It made over $25.5 million...
, The Brady Bunch Movie
The Brady Bunch Movie
The Brady Bunch Movie is a 1995 American comedy film based on the 1969–1974 television series The Brady Bunch.The film features all the original regular characters, all played by new actors...
, Just Cause
Just Cause (film)
Just Cause is a 1995 film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name.-Plot:...
and Heavyweights
Heavyweights
Heavyweights is a 1995 comedy-drama film, directed by Steven Brill and co-written by Brill with Judd Apatow. Heavyweights is about a fat camp for kids that is taken over by a fitness guru named Tony Perkis .-Plot:...
. Director Sam Raimi later blamed himself and his visual style for the film's failure. "I was very confused after I made that movie. For a number of years I thought, I'm like a dinosaur. I couldn't change with the material." TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures
TriStar Pictures, Inc. is an American film production/distribution studio and subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures...
also showed The Quick and the Dead as an "out-of-competition" film at the May 1995 Cannes Film Festival
1995 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Jeanne Moreau *Gianni Amelio *Jean-Claude Brialy *Nadine Gordimer *Gaston Kabore *Michele-Ray Gavras *Emilio Garcia Riera *Philippe Rousselot *John Waters...
. Additionally, Stone was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress, but lost to Angela Bassett
Angela Bassett
Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
in Strange Days
Strange Days (film)
Strange Days is a 1995 cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and produced and co-written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks, starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott and Vincent D'Onofrio. Despite positive reviews, the film was a...
. A novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
written by Jack Curtis was published by HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
in September 1995. The Region 1 DVD
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
release came in September 1998.
Critical response
Based on 40 reviews collected by Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 55% of the critics enjoyed The Quick and the Dead with an average rating of 6.2/10. By comparison, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
calculated an average score of 49/100, based on 21 reviews. Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
praised Stone's performance and Raimi's directing. "Stone's presence nicely underscores the genre-bending tactics of Raimi, the cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
maker now doing his best to reinvent the B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
in a spirit of self-referential glee."
| "The cinematographer, Dante Spinotti ("The Last of the Mohicans The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film) The Last of the Mohicans is a 1992 historical epic film set in 1757 during the French and Indian War and produced by Morgan Creek Pictures. It was directed by Michael Mann and based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel of the same name, although it owes more to George B. Seitz's 1936 film adaptation... ") makes the material look terrific. The lowering skies around the isolated town make it look ripe for vengeance of biblical proportions, and there are quiet satirical touches, as when a man stands in a saloon door and his shadow seems about 6 miles long." |
| —Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times |
Critic and Raimi biographer Bill Warren
Bill Warren
William Bond Warren , better known as Bill Warren, is an American film historian and critic generally regarded as one of the leading authorities on science fiction, horror and fantasy films....
wrote that the film "is a very conscious (though not self-conscious) attempt to recreate some of the themes, style and appeal of Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
's majestically operatic Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
s of the 1960s, especially the Man with No Name
Man with No Name
The man with no name is a stock character in Western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character played by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy."...
trilogy that starred Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
. It's brisker, more romantic and somehow more American than Leone's movies." Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
from the Chicago Reader observed that "Raimi tries to do a Sergio Leone, and though The Quick and the Dead is highly enjoyable in spots, it doesn't come across as very convincing, perhaps because nothing can turn Sharon Stone into Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
criticized the film for being overtly cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
, but praised Raimi's direction and Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti, A.S.C., A.I.C. is a cinematographer.Spinotti was born in Tolmezzo, Italy. Among the more notable films he has worked on are The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and L.A. Confidential...
's cinematography
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
. Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone magazine felt that "The Quick and the Dead plays like a crazed compilation of highlights from famous westerns. Raimi finds the right look but misses the heartbeat. You leave the film dazed instead of dazzled, as if an expert marksman had drawn his gun only to shoot himself in the foot."