Gun Crazy
Director: Joseph H. Lewis 
Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo and MacKinlay Kanton
Minutes: 87
Year: 1950
Score: 6.20
Release: Warner Archive
Gun Crazy was a movie that I wanted to watch on it’s name, alone. Without seeing anything about the film aside from those two words it could be an old picture, or it could be a modern documentary. When you see the poster, or that it is from the Warner Archive you quickly know what to expect. It is, though, better than that new expectation you have.
From WBShop.com:
When gun fancier Bart Tare sees Annie Laurie Starr’s sideshow sharpshooting act, he’s a dead-bang goner. He and she go together, as Bart ultimately says, “like guns and ammunition.”The two become bank robbers on the run, eluding roadblocks and roaring into movie history as one of the benchmark film-noir works. Joseph H. Lewis directs this ferocious thriller, selected for the National Film Registry and often cited as a forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde. Peggy Cummins and John Dall star, meeting in a sexually charged carny shooting contest and soon driven by impulses of violence and arousal they don’t fully understand. They’re young, foolish, doomed – and point blank in Gun Crazy’s unforgiving sights.
Gun Crazy would not likely make it very high on my noir list, or my crazy couple list. It is a fine film and certainly won’t let you down, but it also doesn’t excel too much, as a noir, as an artifact, though, that is where it holds it’s value.
I was just about to write a whole to-do about the Hollywood Blacklist but you, as a film fan, owe it to yourself to head over to YouMustRememberThisPodcast.com and let the delightful Karina Longworth tickle your ears with a long form audio essay about the communist years in Hollywood. The reason this matters is because Gun Crazy was written, uncredited, but the illustrious Dalton Trumbo who was blacklisted in Hollywood from 1946 through 1960, though he did work under pseudonyms and in Mexico.
Now, should you buy this movie? Maybe not. It is a good movie but there are many good movies. Should you stream this movie, definitely. Where can you stream it? Over with our friends at Filmstruck.com, they’ll be glad to have you.
Special Features:
- Commentary with Glenn Erickson
- Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light
Director: 6 – Cinematography: 6 – Edit: 5 – Parity: 4 – Main performance: 6 – Else performance: 4 – Score: 6 – Sound: 5 – Story: 7 – Script: 7 – Effects: 7 – Design: 7 – Costumes: 8 – Keeps interest: 8 – Lasting: 5