FAQ

According to Wikipedia The Quick and the Dead is set in 1881 in the town of Redemption.

In order to exact revenge on her father's killer, ruthless gunfighter John Herod (Gene Hackman), tough lady gunfighter Ellen (Sharon Stone) rides into the small, desert town of Redemption, which is basically "ruled" by Herod. Herod has arranged for a gun-fighting competition where two people duel and the winner goes on to the next round of competition until only two people are left standing.

The Quick and the Dead is based on a script by British screenwriter Simon Moore. There is a book with the same title written by Louis L'Amour, an American author of Western novels, but this movie is not based on that novel. The title is said to come from two verses in the Bible, 1 Peter 4:5 and Acts 10:42, which use the phrase "the living and the dead," substituting the more archaic term "quick," as in the "quick" of the fingernails, for the term "living." Moore wrote his script as an homage to the Spaghetti Westerns that emerged in the mid-1960s thanks to Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone.

Without any explanation given in the movie, viewers have come up with some possibilities: (1) they're the result of burns from his revolver's gunpowder flash, or (2) Herod's goons stomped on his hands when they were beating him up at the beginning of the movie. (3) they were from punching someone.

Three 1960s westerns directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood are considered classics. They include A Fistful of Dollars (1964) (A Fistful of Dollars) (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) (For a Few Dollars More) (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) (1966). Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) (Once Upon a Time in the West) (1968) is another typical spaghetti western directed by Leone (but without Eastwood). Eastwood went on to make more westerns that are often compared to The Quick and the Dead, including High Plains Drifter (1973) (1973) and Unforgiven (1992) (1992). Another film with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale: 3:10 to Yuma (2007) 3:10 to Yuma, 2007 a remake of a 1957 American Western film directed by Delmer Daves and starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin.

There are very few movies that feature female gunfighters, probably because there were so few female gunfighters in the Old West. Perhaps most famous was sharpshooter Annie Oakley (real name Phoebe Ann Moses) [1860-1926], whose sharpshooting landed her a role as an exhibition shooter in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Her character, often paired with Buffalo Bill, shows up in several westerns, but there are two movies that mainly headline Oakley: Annie Oakley (1935) (1935) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950) (1950). Although an army scout, not a sharpshooter, Calamity Jane (real name Martha Jane Canary) [1852-1903] also is featured in the title role in Calamity Jane (1953) (1953). Two other women whose names figure in the Old West include Belle Starr (real name Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr) [1848-1889] and Cattle Kate (real name Ellen Liddy Watson) [1861-1889]. Belle Starr is featured in the title role in Belle Starr (1980) (1980) as well as other movies (see list here). There are no movies listed that feature Cattle Kate. Although fictional, Cat Ballou (1965) (1965) features a woman gunfighter who teams up with an aging gunfighter to avenge her father's death. In Hannie Caulder (1971) (1971), a woman gunfighter attempts to avenge her husband's murder. Actress Dale Evans also was pretty handy with her gun when riding with her cowboy husband Roy Rogers in numerous movies of the 1940s and 50s.

It's a LeMat 1861 revolver. The LeMat was a uniquely-engineered pistol at that time: it was black powder meaning it had no cartridges (common at the time) and the cylinder surrounded a 16-gauge shotgun barrel. More info here.

For fans of the HBO series Westworld, The Man in Black also uses this pistol as his main sidearm. Though his has been altered to use cartridges. It is also a purchasable weapon in Red Dead Redemption and its sequel. Chris Hemsworth's character, Dementus also uses one in the film Furiosa.