Bonnie & Clyde style romance between a conflicted obsessive and a deeply corrupt femme fatale. Fuller does an excellent job of developing his male lead through the childhood sequence in the film's opening, but leaves the backstory of his leading lady mostly opaque, reducing her motivations to simple short-sighted greed. Though she primarily drives the story's action, her character is missing the depth needed to give it much meaning. Despite its shortcomings, Gun Crazy is a decent thrill ride with some exciting moments.

Sure it has its stylistic moments - lots of them actually- but the film is badly dated and the often corny acting undercuts the 'art' of it.

This film is subtle brilliance. I think too many people don't see the forest through the trees here. It's a film noir fairy tale, and that is how it should be perceived. The characters are just that, characters, not meant to be taken literally.

I didn't find John Dall particularly believable as a tough guy armed robber on the lam. Peggy Cummins is good though, and it's a good story, has a real Bonnie and Clyde feel to it.

Utterly boring and predictable pulp, and not even particularly well-acted. The more I watched, the less sense it made and more over-the-top it traveled. At least it was shortish at 87 minutes, but was still about 30 minutes too long.

Overrated by the critics, the direction and pacing is a bit uneven in this Bonnie-and-Clyde type drama. Dall and Cummins are good and the finale is atmospheric.

Somewhat a forgotten classic, but its about the cast in a pre-Bonnie and Clyde sense

An obvious template for Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands, this low budget fugitives-on-the-run thriller uses soundstages and back projection to speed through its penny dreadful plot and is greatly assisted by crisp cinematography and - despite their lack of chemistry - decent performances by its two gun-toting leads.

The obsession with firearms in the U.S. has been a matter of concern for many. It may even be said to form part of the basis of Gun Crazy, Joseph H Lewis's 1950 film noir. I am not saying that the story was written for the express purpose of making a point about the fetishisation of guns, but that is certainly the message that many might take away from the movie. Joseph H Lewis is not one of America's most famous directors. He remained stuck in the background world of B-Movies, making films on a low budget with less well-known actors. Nonetheless for those who are familiar with Lewis's work, there is much to treasure in this quirky offbeat moviemaker. We might also note the curious choice of lead actors. John Dall's most famous role is playing a homosexual murderer in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, Rope. I cannot recall seeing Peggy Cummins in any film other than Jacques Tourneur's horror movie, Curse of the Demon. Yet here both stars are cast in a completely different part. Even the screenplay has an unusual feature in that it was actually written by the blacklisted scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo under another name. Gun Crazy was made in a time when explicit violence and sex were censored on screen. Lewis seems to have made up for this in his instructions to his two actors. In one scene he suggested to Dall, "Your cock's never been so hard". As for Cummins, his instruction to her was, "You are a female dog in heat". Despite Lewis's efforts, neither actor exudes raw sexuality, but the director had to do the best he could with the actors available. The bank heist was carried out in one take, and members of the public were unaware what was happening. As in most scenes, Dall and Cummins did their own driving (it is said that Lewis only used one rear projection in the film). The typical camera shot is taken from the back of their getaway car, allowing the audience to see what they see. For the bank robbery, Lewis had a camera attached to a Sedan, which had the back ripped out. The director and crew were in the car, and the crew member with the boom mic was on the roof. The dialogue between Dall and Cummins has an improvisatory feel to it. It is a fine example of what can be done by an imaginative director with limited resources. Lewis made a number of interesting films, but none better than Gun Crazy. He captured the dangers of a society in which guns are glamorised, and where they offer the option of a better life than people can achieve by trying to make an honest living. I wrote a longer appreciation of Gun Crazy on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2019/12/13/gun-crazy-1950/

Peggy Cummins - nice ass! Supposedly noir, but more of a sappy romance/melodrama

The greatest 01 hour: and 27 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was given a Blu-Ray disc as a gift, that contained four film noir movies. Watched this one last, but enjoyed it the most. Gun Crazy is a film from 1950 that stars John Dall and Peggy Cummins. In my opinion, Peggy Cummins steals the show as the self professed "bad girl" that leads her boyfriend played by John Dall down a trail of robbery and murder. The love that the two lead characters have for each other comes across on the screen. Although they were criminals, I found myself rooting for them as I wanted to see them find the happiness they were looking for. Outstanding film.

1949-50 Film NOIR. I've seen this movie before & it is very good, as the reviews and rankings attest. It's on again, L.A. Channel 13, LAbor Day Eve. Stars JOHN DALL, a name that vaguely rings a bell. Conflicting reports which year: 1949 or 50? Kinda like BONNIE & CLYDE way later.

Gun Crazy is notable for its attempts to demythologize the gun--the thing which seems so central to American history and what it means to be an American. Conflict through arms and liberation by the gun pervade myths about the American Revolution, and notably, the American West, which would have been a burgeoning genre upon this film's release. And of course, there's that politically contested stuff about gun ownership and gun rights being baked right into the U.S. Constitution. That's not to say that Gun Crazy is entirely anti-gun, but it does suggest that the allure of destruction (the purpose of the gun itself), the power of the gun, the satisfaction of experiencing release from danger, and self gratification through those aforementioned means ultimately can only have one outcome: you live by the gun, you die by the gun. Because of that, this 70-year-old film remains prescient.

"No, no. We go together, Laurie. I don't know why, maybe like guns and ammunition go together." Bart, if you want to stop people getting killed maybe separating the gun from the bullets is actually a good idea. Gun Crazy is a relatively early take on the 'crime couple' narrative that has been adapted to a range of genres since Bonnie & Clyde themselves seized headlines, and it's a testament to the influence of the film on later renditions of the general story that much of the plot feels pretty conventional. However, there are plenty of interesting components that make the film distinctive - some creative cinematography, a foggy final chase, and in particular the dynamic between its two leads, Cummins' Laurie and Dall's Bart. Far from male and female iterations of the same gun-toting roughneck, Annie is a capable and somewhat manipulative femme fatale with a streak for violence (who claims that she shoots people after acting out when scared, but is shown to take a thrilling pleasure in it), whereas Bart is a timid, generally nonviolent man who is driven to crime to satisfy the demands of his new wife. They take to crime as if it were a drug, reveling in the high but (at least for Bart), experiencing a hard crash in the aftermath. Though the seduction and manufactured fall of a partner are defining traits of the femme fatale, but it's still done competently (if not particularly innovatively) here; Laurie's treatment of Bart is not explored as a corruption of a pure man, but an amplification of his innate darkness, an interesting take that can be interpreted as tying into a more explicit anti-gun message. Regardless, a solid mid-range noir-thriller. On a lighter note, this kid straight up brings a gun to school to show off in 1950 and the worst that happens is he's asked to speak to the school superintendent. (3.5/5)

Gun Crazy – A Mini Masterpiece How did the King Bros and director Joseph H. Lewis (Cry of the Hunted '53) turn this independent work into a striking, major motion picture? Lewis was not considered for major productions yet he consistently turned minor projects into major works! This is pure genius at its best and while contemporary so-called ‘movie makers' constantly attempt to imitate him, they fail at every turn, and the more money they pour into their copycat works the more they elevate Mr Lewis. Director of photography Russel Harlan (Lust For Life '56) works superbly with Mr Lewis, bringing stylish visual spectacle to this well above par movie. The surprising performance of Irish Peggy Cummins as the sociopathic female carnival sharpshooter is a well-earned femme fatale classic. Her partner in crime is a fellow sharpshooter - who because of an incident in his youth, never wanted to ever use guns to kill anything again, is well played by John Dall (Spartacus '60). Both make a compelling pair on the tragic road to nowheresville. Black-banned performer Morris Carnovsky does a fine turn as a sympathetic small town Judge, with fellow black-banned writer, Dalton Trumbo smartly adapting MacKinlay Kantor's intriguing story for the screen. Production Designer Gordon Wiles keeps it looking interesting & Composer Victor Young provides a dramatic music score – complete with a song sequence. The Warner Achieves DVD 9 transfer offers clear images and sound.

A solid film noir, the camera work inside the cars for the getaway scenes are great! Peggy Cummins was the star of this.

Despite its budgetary constraints, this is a film of the highest caliber, a thrilling psychological portrait of America's phallic fetishization, synthesizing the phantasmic projections of Kleinian object relations, when present things stand in for absent people, with the aggressive sexuality of the Freudian drives.

Two gun experts get married and go on a bank robbing spree. The dialog is often lame and the plot predictable, but the attraction for this 1950 film is in its camera work, altering between gritty and at times almost dreamlike. Scenes shot from the back seat of a car show a crisp car interior contrast with hazy sun drenched towns as the car careens through them. The final scene in a theatrically staged foggy swamp scene borders on the surreal with closeups of the doomed couples desperate, sweaty faces. Johnny C sez check it out for that and a decent crime caper.

Femme fatales don't come any more sinister and psychopathic than Peggy Cummins' Annie Starr. Gun Crazy is among the most inventively shot B-movies I've ever seen.