Very well executed

good back-story, and good acting

Brilliant and touching

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Between classics They Live by Night (48) and Bonnie and Clyde (67) featuring male female duos on the run from the law is this outstanding B entry; also worthy of classic status. Joseph Lewis's Gun Crazy is pulp at its best.Young Bart Tare ( Rusty Tamblyn ) is so gun obsessed he resorts to stealing one in his small town and immediately caught sentenced harshly to a reformatory. Flashing ahead to adulthood he returns to home after a stint in the army as a weapons instructor and hooks up with his established pals. They take in a carnival where he becomes smitten with sideshow Annie Oakley, Annie Starr (Peggy Cummins) with both sharing a passion for guns. Sexy Annie unlike Bart is cold blooded however and with him under her spell they begin to pull armed robberies and establish a body count.Highly stylized and featuring a florid use of cinema language Joseph Lewis made a pocket masterpiece with Gun Crazy that features one of the finest and coldest noir femme fatales in history played by Peggy Cummins. Homicidal and into the next big rush she softens only once and even that is with passion. Unapologetic from start to finish she dominates the film while leaving the playing field littered with men (subserviently played by John Dall, grovelingly and snidely rich by Barry Kroeger) emotionally destroyed by her allure and others by her aim.In addition to brilliantly framing and informing Starr's character Lewin along with master cinematographer Russell Harlan offers up a series of fine tracking shots in which one in particular puts you in the back seat of a getaway car in essence making you an accomplice to a bank job. Harlan had six Oscar noms in his future but he would never shoot a scene as memorable.Well edited and to the point Gun Crazy's pace is also enhanced by it's clipped dialogue and tight composition establishing suspense in no time, surrendering occasionally to mawkish devices but nearly throughout it is a smoothly well made economical work. It is the archetypal B that A directors have been making the past 25 years with millions more and an hour longer and getting rave reviews yet paling and failing in the face of this black and white treasure.

The infamous Bonnie and Clyde pair of the Depression years is updated in this film of 1950, but with the femme fatale as a supposedly British woman from London (actually, Peggy Cummins was born in Wales), possibly because no US female could be half as bad (the real Bonnie was, though) and no self-respecting US actress would soil her image by taking on such a depraved role.As it turns out, Cummins does indeed look crazy throughout the film, killing as a matter of course, and even thinking of kidnapping her own baby nephew. Her eyes reflect a demented state throughout.In contrast, John Dall plays the part of the wholesome American boy who just loves guns, and even cries when he shoots a baby chicken dead with his BB gun. He does not want to kill anybody but he loves to steal guns, and he falls in love at first sight of that crazy British woman, so he can't help but rob places, and then feel terrible about stealing just not to have to work for a living. Curiously, the one thing that works is that these two misfits really love each other, and cannot be apart, even when it would be wiser to split for a while and reunite somewhere else.Inconsistencies of character undermine what could potentially be a very good film noir, but photography, some wonderful car chases, and assured direction make GUN CRAZY well worth watching.

Classic 'Flim Noir' One of the most distinguished works of art to emerge from the B movie swamp. Art it is with most of the films dialog was performed via improvisation. There is the famous bank robbery scene that is shot in one continuous take from the back seat of the getaway car. Repeat 'one take' improvised acting genius . A well meaning crack shot husband is pressured by his beautiful marksman wife to go on an interstate robbery spree, where he finds out just how depraved and deadly she really is. 'Gun Crazy' is a Quintessential film-noir .

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...