Sam Raimi’s 1995 western “The Quick and the Dead” has a Saturday morning cartoon vibe. Like all of Raimi’s films, it is wild and energetic, with fast, exciting camera movements, instant zooms, and oversized, boastful characters. The story revolves around a quick draw tournament in which all the best shooters in the West come together to outdo each other. The winner will receive a huge cash prize, but will also be the last one standing. The contest was orchestrated by bitter gunslinger turned mayor John Herod (Gene Hackman) who has more on his mind than the gunslinger. Other key players in the tournament include The Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio) who claims Herod is his father, and Cort (Russell Crowe), a gunslinger-turned-minister whom Herod forces to compete. The main character of the play is a mysterious badass known only as The Lady (Sharon Stone), who also has secrets of her own.
The background is dotted with caricatured gunslingers and an array of famous actors. Keith David, Pat Hingle, Tobin Bell, Woody Strode and Gary Sinise all appear. We’ll see Bruce Campbell’s name in the credits, but Campbell’s only scene was (to hear him tell it) filmed solely to appease a snippy (unnamed) movie star. Campbell’s scene was not included in the film. The venerable and astonishing Lance Henriksen plays a black leather-clad card shooter/shark named Ace Hanlon, who likes to wear ace of spades designs on his jacket. Ace is a brash and colorful character who is murdered almost immediately during a shootout tournament.
In 2011, Henriksen was interviewed by John Kenneth Muir, and he felt that Ace Hanlon’s death was no reason for him not to appear in a potential sequel to “The Quick and the Dead.” Indeed, he had a ready-made pitch. He intended to play his own quadruplet brothers.
Lance Henriksen wants to play his own quadruplet brothers in The Quick and the Dead 2
Henriksen loved working on “The Quick and the Dead” and he trained with a true firearms expert, a sniper named Thell Reed. It was Reed who asked Henriksen to carry his weapons high on his hips, as this was more historically accurate; the low holsters seen in most movies were invented for movies. Henriksen and the rest of the crew were very fond of Ace Hanlon, and there was even a brief effort to save the character. Unfortunately, in a movie about shootouts, he had to go.
Hanlon, as mentioned, wore spikes on his outfit. Henriksen believed that Ace Hanlon would, by extension, have three brothers who sported the other three suits in a deck of playing cards. These brothers, he thought, would be great additions to any potential “The Quick and the Dead 2.” He thought the brother who carried the hearts would be the new leader. By its description:
“I really felt like I was that guy… the team even signed a petition saying, ‘Don’t kill Ace Hanlon.’ I would have been all brothers.”
Of course, Henriksen reportedly had an idea in which he could play three characters at once and get a lot of screen time. As a Henriksen fan, I wouldn’t have dismissed the idea.
Henriksen hated dying in The Quick and the Dead
Henriksen believes that returning as his three quadruplet brothers would be a great way to retain some grace for Ace Hanlon. Because the character dies so early in “The Quick and the Dead”, he doesn’t have much dignity. Hanlon is dandy and cool, boasting of being ambidextrous when it comes to killing enemies. Herod, however, knows that Hanlon is lying about his murders (Herod actually killed the men Hanlon claims to have sent) and challenges him to a duel. Herod, a much faster slinger, shoots Hanlon in his right hand, causing him to scream. Then Herod shoots him in the left hand. He shoots the ground several times, forcing him to dance, mocking his lies. Then Herod shoots him in the chest. It’s a humiliating death.
Henriksen hated how embarrassing it was, feeling that he and his character deserved more. In his words:
“That’s the only role I didn’t like. I had to play it. I had to do it, but going down that way wasn’t the way I saw Ace Hanlon get fucked. Putting balls in both hands and turning into a dancing idiot. But you know what, there’s a lot of things you do as an actor. Who wants to get killed? I didn’t want that. [movie] be finished. Never. I really didn’t.”
Unfortunately, “The Quick and the Dead” was only a modest success and no sequel was made. But Stone, Crowe, DiCaprio, David, Bell and Henriksen are still working. Why not have Henriksen, 85, play quadruplets?
