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Quick and the Dead, The (1994)

The Quick and the Dead takes place around the late 1800’s when John Herod was a powerful man. Ellen, who is now a woman, was forced as a child by Herod to watch as her father, the town’s Marshall, stood on a chair with a noose around his neck. Herod gave the Marshall one last chance to live. He gave Ellen a gun and told her if she could shoot the rope, her father would be free. Because she was just a child, she missed the rope and shot and killed her father instead. Through the years, she has vowed to come back and kill the man who was responsible for her father’s death, namely, John Herod. Shortly after his arrival in town, Herod, who now runs the town, proposes a shooting contest amongst the customers in the saloon. The only thing about this contest is that everyone must enter. Herod assigns each contestant a partner. Then, after it is over, there’ll be another contest between the survivors. Eventually it comes down to Ellen, now an excellent gunslinger, and Herod. Herod draws faster and shoots Ellen, who’s body is delivered to the cemetery. What Herod doesn’t know is that Ellen is not dead. The blood bath continues, as Ellen and Cord, another of Herod’s enemies, ambush and ultimately kill Herod.

Animal actors in this production were monitored through American Humane Society’s No Animals Were Harmed^® program.

Quick and the Dead, The

Detailed Animal Action Report

The majority of the film is either interiors of the saloon or Ellen’s bedroom which she shared with Cord. There are several flashback scenes of Ellen shooting her father. In one scene, in slow motion, one of the outlaws reins up on a horse and turns around. A professional stuntman was used for this scene and no harm was done to the horse. Additional animal action included the calvary on horses who ride into town shooting at the men who killed the Marshall. Herod and his men fight back, also riding on horseback and shooting up the town. In the scenes with gunfire, cotton was placed in the ears of the livestock, and only quarter loads were used in the guns. The only other animal action was chickens clucking in the background, horses and burros tied to hitching posts and horses galloping out of town.

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