Editing Gun Crazy

{{Short description|1950 film by Joseph H. Lewis}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Gun Crazy
| image          = Gun Crazy (1950 poster).jpg
| alt            = 
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Joseph H. Lewis]]
| producer       = [[Frank King (producer)|Frank King]]<br />[[Maurice King (producer)|Maurice King]]
| screenplay     = [[Dalton Trumbo]]<br />[[MacKinlay Kantor]]
| based_on       = {{based on|"Gun Crazy"<br>1940 story in ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''|[[MacKinlay Kantor]]}}
| starring       = [[Peggy Cummins]]<br />[[John Dall]]
| music          = [[Victor Young]]
| cinematography = [[Russell Harlan]]
| editing        = [[Harry Gerstad]]
| studio         = [[King Brothers Productions]]
| distributor    = [[United Artists]]
| released       = {{Film date|1950|1|20|United States}}<!--Per AFI-->
| runtime        = 87 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = $400,000 (1949)
| gross          = 
}}

'''''Gun Crazy''''' (also known as '''''Deadly Is the Female''''')<ref>{{TCMDb title|id=77083|title=Gun Crazy}}.</ref> is a 1950 American [[Crime film|crime]] [[film noir]] starring [[Peggy Cummins]] and [[John Dall]] in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife.<ref>{{AFI film|id=25944|title=Gun Crazy}}.</ref>  It was directed by [[Joseph H. Lewis]], and produced by [[King Brothers Productions|Frank and Maurice King]].

The screenplay by [[Hollywood blacklist|blacklisted]] writer [[Dalton Trumbo]] (credited to [[Millard Kaufman]] because of the blacklist) and [[MacKinlay Kantor]] was based upon a short story by Kantor published in 1940 in ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''.<ref>{{Cite news|title=BY WAY OF REPORT: Previewing a Theatre and Other Film Matters Love Seats Busy Kantor Glamour's Power|author=A.H. WEILER|date=Oct 27, 1946|work=New York Times|page=67}}</ref> In 1998, ''Gun Crazy'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/|website=Library of Congress|access-date=2020-04-30}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Hooray for Hollywood (December 1998) – Library of Congress Information Bulletin|url=https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9812/film.html|access-date=2020-06-23|website=www.loc.gov}}</ref>

==Plot==
Teenager Barton "Bart" Tare gets caught breaking a hardware store window to steal a gun. He is sent to [[reform school]] for four years despite the supportive testimony of his friends Dave and Clyde, his older sister Ruby and others. They claim he would never kill any living creature, even though he has had a fascination with guns even as a child. Flashbacks provide a portrait of Bart who, after killing a young chick with a [[BB gun]] at age seven, is hesitant to shoot at anything, even a mountain lion with a bounty on its head. However, he is a dead shot with a handgun.

After reform school and a stint in the Army teaching marksmanship, Bart returns home. He, Dave, and Clyde go to a traveling carnival in town. Once there, Bart challenges sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr ("Laurie") to a contest and wins. She gets him a job with the carnival and he becomes smitten with her. Their mutual attraction inflames the jealousy of their boss, Packett, who wants her for himself. When Packett tries to force himself on her, Bart fires a warning shot within an inch of his nose. Packett fires the couple, who leave together. Before they marry, Laurie warns Bart that she is "bad, but will try to be good". They embark on a carefree honeymoon on Bart's savings. When the money runs out, she gives Bart a stark choice:  she wants to obtain the good things in life, so he must  join her in a career of crime or she will leave him. They hold up stores and gas stations, but the paltry take does not last long.

While fleeing a police car Laurie tells Bart to shoot at the driver so they can escape, but he hesitates and becomes disoriented. Ultimately, he shoots the tire out and the car crashes. Later that day, at another robbery, Laurie intends to shoot and kill a grocer, but Bart stops her in time. The couple have now been identified in national newspapers as notorious robbers.

Bart says he is done with a life of crime. Laurie persuades him to take on one last big robbery so they can flee the country and live in peace and comfort. They get jobs at a meat processing plant and make detailed plans. When they hold up the payroll department, the office manager pulls the burglar alarm and Laurie shoots her dead. While fleeing the plant, Laurie also kills a security guard. Bart does not realize at the time that both victims are dead, but learns about it later from a newspaper. Laurie then discloses she shot a man dead in St. Louis while she and Packett were attempting a hold-up. She claims that these murders happened because her fear makes her unable to think straight in the moment.

To minimize the chances of being caught, the two decide to split up for a couple of months, but neither can bear to be away from the other. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] is brought in, and the fugitives become the targets of an intense manhunt.

In California, Bart arranges for passage to Mexico, when the FBI finds them in a dance hall. Forced to run, they leave all their loot behind. With roadblocks everywhere, they jump on a train and get off near Ruby's house. Clyde, then the local sheriff, notices that the house has the curtains drawn and the children are not in school. He informs Dave, and the two plead with Bart to give himself and Laurie up. Instead, the couple flee into the mountains. Pursued by police dogs, they are surrounded in [[Reed (plant)|reed grass]] the next morning. In dense fog, Dave and Clyde approach to try to reason with them. As soon as Bart sees Laurie preparing to gun them down, he shoots her and is, in turn, killed by the police.

==Cast==
{{col-begin|width=75%}}
{{col-2}}
* [[Peggy Cummins]] as Annie Laurie Starr
* [[John Dall]] as Barton "Bart" Tare
* [[Berry Kroeger]] as Packett
* [[Morris Carnovsky]] as Judge Willoughby
* [[Anabel Shaw]] as Ruby Tare Flagler
* [[Harry Lewis (actor)|Harry Lewis]] as Deputy Clyde Boston
* [[Nedrick Young]] as Dave Allister
* [[Trevor Bardette]] as Sheriff Boston, who apprehends the teenage Bart
* Mickey Little as Bart Tare at age 7
* [[Russ Tamblyn]] as Bart Tare at age 14 (billed as Rusty Tamblyn)
* Paul Frison as Clyde Boston at age 14
* David Bair as Dave Allister at age 7
* [[Stanley Prager]] as Bluey-Bluey
* Virginia Farmer as Miss Wynn
* [[Anne O'Neal]] as Miss Augustine Sifert  (office manager shot dead by Laurie)
* Frances Irvin as Danceland singer
*[[Robert Osterloh]] as Hampton Policeman
* Shimen Ruskin as Cab Driver
* [[Harry Hayden]] as Mr. Mallenberg, the plant manager
{{col-end}}

==Production==
The screenplay was credited to Kantor and [[Millard Kaufman]]; however, Kaufman was a front for [[Hollywood Ten]] outcast [[Dalton Trumbo]], who considerably reworked the story into a doomed love affair.

The film was budgeted at $400,000, and principal photography took 30 days.<ref>{{cite news|last=Van Gelder|first=Lawrence|title=Joseph H. Lewis, 93, Director Who Turned B-Movies Into Art|work=The New York Times|date=September 13, 2000|accessdate=January 20, 2024|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/13/arts/joseph-h-lewis-93-director-who-turned-b-movies-into-art.html}}</ref>

The picture originally was slated to be released by [[Monogram Studios]]. However, [[King Brothers Productions]], the producers, chose [[United Artists]] as the distributor. ''Gun Crazy'' enjoyed wider exposure because it was a United Artists release.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

The King Brothers originally announced they wanted [[Veronica Lake]] for the lead.<ref>{{Cite news|title=STUDIO BRIEFS|date=Apr 11, 1949|work=Los Angeles Times|page=B7}}</ref>

In an interview with [[Danny Peary]], director Joseph H. Lewis revealed his instructions to actors John Dall and Peggy Cummins: 
:I told John, "Your cock's never been so hard", and I told Peggy, "You're a female dog in heat, and you want him. But don't let him have it in a hurry. Keep him waiting." That's exactly how I talked to them and I turned them loose. I didn't have to give them more directions.<ref name="Peary">Peary, Danny. ''Cult Movies: The Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful'', Delta Books, 1981. pp. 120-121 {{ISBN|0-517-20185-2}}.</ref>

The bank heist sequence was shot entirely in one long take in [[Montrose, California]], with no one besides the principal actors and people inside the bank alerted to the operation.<ref name="Peary"/> This one-take shot includes the sequence of driving into town to the bank, distracting and then knocking out a patrolman, and making the get-away. This was done by simulating the interior of a sedan with a stretch Cadillac with room enough to mount the camera and a jockey's saddle for the cameraman on a greased two-by-twelve board in the back. Lewis kept the onscreen conversations fresh by having the actors improvise their dialogue.

==Reception==
[[File:Gun Crazy (1950 poster - three sheet).jpg|thumb|Alternate theatrical release poster]]

===Critical response===

The [[New York Times]] wrote: “Even with some adroit camouflaging, the Palace’s new picture...is pretty cheap stuff. ‘Gun Crazy’ just about covers it....this spurious concoction is basically on par with the most humdrum pulp fiction....In all fairness to Mr. Kantor’s idea, the actual script, which he wrote with Millard Kuafman, is a fairly literature business. Even if the young desperadoes aren’t motivated, apparently beyond Miss Cummins’ grim appreciation of money and her partner’s general restlessness, neither are they sentimentalized or offered as luckless tools of society. The dialogue is quite good and the photography is first-rate....The main drawbacks are the stars themselves, who look more like fugitives from a 4-H Club than from the law. Just why two such clean-cut youngsters...should be so cast is something for the Sphinx, but they certainly give it the works. Looking as fragile as a Dresden doll, Miss Cummins bites into her assignment like a shark. Mr. Dall’s pluck is just as admirable, even when he’s nervously begging his soulmate to make their next robbery ‘the lahst one’....we must say that it takes more than crime and the King Brothers to make sows’ ears out of silk purses.”<ref>H.H.T. “The Screen: Episodic and Familiar.” NewYork Times, 25 August 1950, 17.</ref>

In his 1998 book ''Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir'', critic and film historian [[Eddie Muller]] commends the production. "Joseph H. Lewis's direction", he notes, "is propulsive, possessed of a confident, vigorous simplicity that all the frantic editing and visual pyrotechnics of the filmmaking progeny never quite surpassed."<ref>Muller, Eddie. ''Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir'', St. Martin's Griffin, 208 pages, 1998.</ref>

Sam Adams, media critic for the ''[[Philadelphia City Paper]]'', wrote in 2008: "The codes of the time prevented Lewis from being explicit about the extent to which their fast-blooming romance is fueled by their mutual love of weaponry (Arthur Penn would rip off the covers in ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'', which owes ''Gun Crazy'' a substantial debt), but when Cummins' six-gun dangles provocatively as she gasses up their jalopy, it's clear what really fills their collective tank."<ref>[http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2004-07-29/screen.shtml Adams, Sam] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080522071020/http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2004-07-29/screen.shtml |date=2008-05-22 }}. ''Philadelphia City Paper'', film review, July 29-August 4, 2004. Accessed: August 1, 2013.</ref>

The review-aggregation website [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports that 91% of film critics gave the production a positive rating, one based on 64 reviews.<ref>[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031278-gun_crazy/ ''Gun Crazy''] at [[Rotten Tomatoes]]. Accessed: September 14, 2021.</ref>

===Recognition===
In 1998, ''Gun Crazy'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

==See also==
*[[List of cult films]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf ''Gun Crazy'']  by Richard T. Jameson on the [[National Film Registry]] website
* [https://books.google.com/books/about/America_s_Film_Legacy.html?id=deq3xI8OmCkC ''Gun Crazy''] essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 {{ISBN|0826429777}}, pages 432-433
*{{AFI film|id=25944|title=Gun Crazy}}
* {{IMDb title|id=0042530|title=Gun Crazy}}
* {{TCMDb title|id=77083|title=Gun Crazy}}
* [http://www.filmsite.org/gunc.html ''Gun Crazy''] at Film Site
* [http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue02/infocus/guncrazy.htm ''Gun Crazy''] at 10 Shades of Noir
* {{YouTube|28aPxWtdaGY|''Gun Crazy'' film clip}} (the bank heist scene)

{{Joseph H. Lewis}}
{{Dalton Trumbo}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1950 films]]
[[Category:1950s American films]]
[[Category:1950s crime thriller films]]
[[Category:1950s English-language films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:American crime thriller films]]
[[Category:American heist films]]
[[Category:Film noir]]
[[Category:Films based on American short stories]]
[[Category:Films based on works by MacKinlay Kantor]]
[[Category:Films directed by Joseph H. Lewis]]
[[Category:Films scored by Victor Young]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Dalton Trumbo]]
[[Category:United Artists films]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:Films about uxoricide]]
[[Category:English-language crime thriller films]]