Halfway through the 1950 film Gun Crazy, Bart and Annie, dressed in buckskins and cowboy hats and brandishing shiny revolvers, stick up a bank, clobber a lawman, then jump in their car and make tracks out of town.

Peggy Cummins nearly 20 years before Faye Dunaway’s role

In a subsequent scene, actors John Dall and Peggy Cummins are dressed in street clothes, pulling a robbery and trying to make the best of a noir B movie. And they succeed. Backed by direction from Joseph H. Lewis and solid cinematography, the actors lift the film above its station and its average-at-best plot.

In fact this film, unknown outside of hardcore noir fans, is a critics’ choice breakthrough movie. Eddie Muller, TCM’s Noir Alley host and author of a book on Gun Crazy, says the film “is recognized as one of the most dynamic and subversive films of its day.”  Another critic called it an “impeccably crafted film… with a razor-sharp screenplay.”  I wouldn’t go that far. Yet Gun Crazy can draw you in if you watch closely.

Bart Tare (Dall) and Annie Laurie Starr (Cummins) meet when she’s the trick shooting, western-clad star of a carnival show and he’s an ex-GI World War II vet with a history.  During the performance, the show’s manager challenges audience members to try to outshoot the star and win $500. Having grown up fascinated with guns, Bart accepts the challenge.  He walks on stage smiling and eager.  Is it for the chance to shoot or for the beautiful Cummins’ attractions. He exchanges looks with the sultry shooter then outshoots her, earning himself a permanent place on stage with Annie.

As we learn in the film’s first scene, Bart became a crack shot through years of shooting bb guns and larger weapons as a child. His obsession with guns—despite abject fear of hurting anyone or anything—leads him to steal a revolver from a store window.  He’s caught and sent to reform school before joining the service.

Although his shooting prowess puts him on the stage with the six-gun siren, his job is short-lived. The manager who believes he has a hold on Annie becomes jealous when the two sharpshooters start to date, and he fires them.

On the road together Bart suggests marriage and Annie, who he calls Laurie, agrees.  In classic B movie fashion they drive up to a dark clapboard building housing a justice of the peace.  A large sign proclaims, “Desert justice – Get married.” The building also has signs, “Cocktails, bar, café.” And conveniently next door is the Continue Reading →