Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy (1950)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Joseph H. Lewis

Starring: John Dall, Peggy Cummins, Berry Kroeger, Harry Lewis, Nedrick Young

From: United Artists

Thankfully I picked something worthwhile to see last night, although it was due to unfortunate circumstances. See why below:

It was not the plan before last night to see this film on the 2nd of January... but I heard from someone I know-who is a huge fan of the film-that the lead girl (Peggy Cummins) recently passed away. He's championed the movie for years so I do feel a little guilty it took one of the leads dying for me to finally... pull the trigger and watch what proved to be a great noir.

The opening scene shows our lead Barton Tare as a 14 year old (he was played by “Rusty” Tamblyn in that opening segment) who does not want to ever kill someone with a gun yet is still obsessed with them to the point that he'd break a storefront window to steal one. He is sent to reform school then the Army. Yep, even back then some Americans were obsessed with guns, but that's a huge topic for another time. The rest of the film he is played by John Dall, who would be best known as one of the two killers in Rope. He sees trickshot artist Annie Laurie Starr (Cummins) perform in a traveling carnival and well, I'll just say him seeing an attractive woman be as good with a pistol as he was... a gun went off in his pants! They briefly work for the carnival worker but he's an A-hole so they both leave and as it's a noir, of course Starr is poor Tare's downfall, in a big way. I'll just say I've heard this compared to Bonnie & Clyde and various films in the French New Wave.

The movie is always compelling, it's shot pretty well throughout (sometimes tremendously so) and the two leads are great. There are some noteworthy moments, such as the haunting ending and a shot in one take sequence that lasts a few minutes, takes place in the confines of an automobile and the dialogue is probably ad-libbed. Oh, and the story was written by a blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. There are many worthwhile film noirs out there and this is certainly one of them; what a dynamic, magnetic performance from Cummins; I wish she would have done more films. At least there is this classic for people to watch.