Gun Crazy (1991)

Memorable, crazy movie

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Much of Gun Crazy is imaginatively, strikingly filmed. Yet I was never entirely pulled into the story. Thus I spent much of the movie pondering what held it back.There were issues from the beginning. The movie begins with an intriguing scene of a young boy stealing a gun. Then there's a static courtroom scene broken up by interesting flashbacks. This foreshadowed what was to come, a movie whose striking directing and cinematography were undercut by pacing issues and a momentum-killing episodic approach.Peggy Cummins is interesting as a psychopath who leads her lover into a life of crime. She has an animal quality about her, and moves well from a disturbing coldness to disturbing heat in the midst of violence.John Dall is an interesting actor but I feel his character needed a hint of instability the performance lacked. It's in the script, but Dall seems more suited to playing a town sheriff, and the part needs someone more *off* (along the lines of Tony Perkins).My overall sense was there was no clear vision for this film. What separates a good from a great B movie is often the sense that the director had something to say. Here it feels like the director just wanted to play around with stuff. Sometimes it's very striking, like the robbery shot from a car's back seat or the final scene in the fog, while other times it feels rather arbitrary or precious, like framing Dall in the steering wheel. It's an interesting movie, and generally worth seeing, but I can see why the director never graduated from B movies for all his obvious skill.

At a time when gangster movies, thrillers and film noir were very popular - think Cagney, Bogart, Donlevy, Mitchum, Powell, Ryan, Raft et al - director Joseph Lewis and screen writer Dalton Trumbo, collaborated on a movie which casts a couple of ostensibly ordinary citizens, and not criminals, (Dall and Cummins) as two people with a special talent: both crack shots with guns. Nothing too unusual about that, though, because guns have always been a factor in American culture.Incidentally, it would be later that same year that Hollywood would release Annie Get Your Gun with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel - and also both crack shots with guns - in an upbeat musical-comedy biopic about Annie Oakley, full colour, big budget ($3.8 million) family type Saturday afternoon matinee, reinforcing all the positive aspects of American Individualism and the American Dream. And presenting guns as cute toys with which you too could do some darn good tricks; that is, if you work hard enough to achieve your own particular goals in life.No such dream with this offering and a budget of less than one-tenth of Annie, however. In this outing, Dall (Bart) is swept off his feet by a woman who brags about having killed a man already. Was that true in this fiction? Probably, because later in the plot, Cummins (Annie) has no compunction about shooting anybody, even a person cowering on the floor. Dall, who still can't forget about a chicken he killed when only seven, is completely under her spell, driven, and driving across USA, to murderous excess to satisfy and justify his lust for Annie and her pathological dreams of wealth; and how to get it all - violently. In effect, she's the boss, no question.In crisp black-and-white, we're with both all the way, right to the bitter end - sometimes in the back seat of their car, voyeuristically listening, watching, seeing what they see - and knowing what the poor saps don't, or won't face: the cops will get 'em, in the end, for sure. Though it would spoil that end for you, for me to say anymore.Trumbo's script (assisted by MacKinlay Kantor) is appropriately effective, detailing the manner in which a person's skill set can be subverted and manipulated, by another, into socially self-destructive behaviour. Cinematography by long-time expert Russell Harlan (Red River, The Thing from Another World, Blackboard Jungle, Lust for Life, too many to list...) is - no pun intended - picture perfect, in my opinion. And direction by Lewis is faultless to this viewer's eyes as we take in this devastating critique of a key aspect of American culture.I'd seen Dall only twice before, in Rope (1948), in which I think he was, chillingly, much more effective as an actor; on the other hand, his continuous self-effacing attitude, as not-so-smart Bart, fit the bill for this story; the other time I saw Dall was in Spartacus (1960), but didn't recognize him. Had not seen Peggy Cummins, before or since; one thing's for sure, though - she was no one-trick pony; and made a beautiful, ice-cold killer. One can speculate whether Arthur Penn watched this classic movie prior to directing Bonnie and Clyde (1967), there being so many thematic and plot similarities between both stories. The one question, though, still unanswered for me is: was it only simple coincidence that Annie Get Your Gun was released only six months after Gun Crazy? Hey, both movies have heroines called Annie, after all; and perfect counterpoints for the American Good and the American Bad. By the way, I liked Annie Get Your Gun; Gun Crazy, however, is the better story and movie, I think.Recommended for all suitable ages. At only 87 minutes, it's definitely worth your time to see another true American classic. And a solid eight out of ten movie. April 6, 2018

In Cashville, the boy Bart Tare steals a gun from a hardware store and during his trial, his sister Ruby (Anabel Shaw) and his best friends Dave and Clyde testimonies to Judge Willoughby (Morris Carnovsky) disclose that Bart has always loved guns. Further, he is a skilled shooter but incapable to shoot a living being. However he is sentenced to spend four years in a reform school and after that, he joins the army. Years later, he returns to his hometown and is welcomed by Ruby and her family, and his friends Deputy Clyde Boston (Harry Lewis) and Dave Allister (Nedrick Young). They go to a carnival to celebrate, where Bart meets the performer Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) that is also a crack shot. Bart is hired by the owner of the carnival and soon the ambitious Annie convinces him to leave the carnival and try a better life. They get married and do not have lucky in gambling, losing all their money. Soon Annie convinces Bart to rob different towns in the beginning of their crime spree. Although Bart is unable to use his gun for killing, he does not know the violent past of his wife that murdered a man in St. Louis years ago. Until the day she kills again and they become wanted by the FBI. "Deadly Is the Female", a.k.a. "Gun Crazy", is a good film-noir with a story of a couple robbing several towns probably inspired by Bonnie and Clyde. But the acting and the great action scenes make this movie worthwhile watching. Peggy Cummins performs the femme fatale that ruins the life of a man that is not capable to shoot another human being. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Mortalmente Perigosa" ("Deadly Dangerous")

Joseph H. Lewis directed this memorable film that stars John Dall as Bart Tare, who is portrayed as a gun-loving child in trouble with the law, who grows into an expert marksman, just out of the army, who meets Annie Laurie Starr(played by Peggy Cummins) in her sharpshooting act in a carnival. They instantly fall in love, though his dire financial situation inspires her to prod him into an escalating series of robberies, that make them wanted criminals on a multi-state crime spree. Annie is excited by the violence, though Bart isn't, which will eventually lead to the final pursuit as the authorities close in... Exciting and well-acted film with interesting role-reversal, though of course the inevitable outcome is the same...