Gun Crazy is a rare example of a film that was retitled during its initial release cycle. It was titled Deadly Is the Female from the film's premiere in January 1950 until March 1950, when the King brothers changed the title to Gun Crazy to more accurately reflect the character of the film.[4]
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".[5][6]
Plot
Teenager Barton "Bart" Tare is 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 that he would never kill any living creature, even though he has had a lifelong fascination with guns. After killing a young chick with a BB gun at age seven, he became hesitant to shoot at anything, even a mountain lion with a bounty on its head.
After reform school and a stint in the army teaching marksmanship, Bart returns home. At a carnival, Bart challenges sharpshooter Laurie Starr to a contest and wins. Laurie arranges a job for Bart with the carnival and he becomes smitten with her. Their mutual attraction inflames the jealousy of their boss Packett, who wants Laurie for himself. When Packett tries to force himself on her, Bart fires a warning shot within an inch of his nose. Packett fires them and they 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, but when the money is spent, she warns Bart that because she wants the finer things in life, he must join her in a career of crime or she will leave him. They rob stores and gas stations, but their paltry proceeds do not last long.w
While fleeing from the law, Laurie orders Bart to shoot at the pursuing police car. He shoots the tire of the police car, causing it to crash. Later that day at another robbery, Laurie intends to shoot and kill a grocer, but Bart stops her in time. They have now been identified in national newspapers as notorious robbers.
Bart proclaims that he wants to abandon his life of crime. Laurie persuades him to participate in one last large robbery so that they can flee the country and live in peace and comfort. They take jobs at a meat-processing plant and devise detailed plans. When they rob 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 that both victims are dead, but he later learns about it in the newspaper. Laurie discloses that she had killed a man in St. Louis during one of their holdups. She claims that these murders happened because her fear renders her unable to think clearly in the heat of the moment.
To minimize the chance of being caught, Laurie and Bart separate, but they cannot bear to be away from each other. The FBI becomes involved in the pursuit, and Laurie and Bart become the targets of an intense manhunt. In California, Bart arranges for their passage to Mexico, but the FBI finds them in a dance hall. Forced to run, they leave all of their loot behind. With roadblocks everywhere, they jump on a train and disembark near Ruby's house. Clyde, now the local sheriff, notices that the house's curtains are drawn and that the children are not in school. He informs Dave, and they plead with Bart to surrender. Laurie and Bart instead flee to the mountains. Pursued by police dogs, they are surrounded in reed grass the next morning. In dense fog, Dave and Clyde approach to try to reason with them. When Bart sees that Laurie preparing to shoot them, he shoots her and is then killed by the police.
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 King brothers originally announced that they had wanted Veronica Lake for the lead.[7]
The bank-heist sequence was shot entirely in one long take in Montrose, California, with no one except the principal actors and people inside the bank alerted to the operation.[9] The shot includes the sequence of driving into town to the bank, distracting and then incapacitating a patrolman and effecting a getaway. This was executed by simulating the interior of a sedan with a stretch Cadillac with room 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.[citation needed]
Release
The film premiered in Springfield, Massachusetts on January 23, 1950 under its original title of Deadly Is the Female.[10] After opening in several cities under that title, the film was retitled as Gun Crazy, the title of the original story by MacKinlay Kantor, in early March.[11]
Reception
Alternate theatrical release poster
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Howard Thompson called Gun Crazy "pretty cheap stuff" and wrote: "[T]his spurious concoction is basically on par with the most humdrum pulp fiction. ... 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 as Miss Cummins and Mr. Dall should be so cast is something for the Sphinx, but they certainly give it the works. ... At the risk of being drilled between the eyes by one of these sureshots, we must say that it takes more than crime and the King Brothers to make sows’ ears out of silk purses."[12]
Reviewing the film after its Springfield, Massachusetts premiere, Springfield Daily News critic W. Harley Rudkin wrote: "A tawdry piece of cheap theatrics that starts with a thin premise and winds up with absolutely nothing at all is 'Deadly Is the Female' ... Stripped down to its essentials, a revelation it cannot very well stand, this is a typical, warmed-over cops and robbers story, wrapped around the dubious moral that if you are a rather nice guy it does not do to get mixed up with a woman who likes to rob banks and kill guards."[10]
Reviewer Mae Tinée of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "John Dall does fine acting in this crime melodrama, which is frequently better than many of the more elaborate and expensive film son the same subject. ... Miss Cummins struck me as a bit miscast as the hardened little sadist, but on the whole the performances are good, and if it does nothing else, this film should convince anyone that earning a living with a gun is certainly doing it the hard way."[13]
In his 1998 book Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, critic and film historian Eddie Muller commended the production, writing: "Joseph H. Lewis's direction is propulsive, possessed of a confident, vigorous simplicity that all the frantic editing and visual pyrotechnics of the filmmaking progeny never quite surpassed."[14]
↑ Weiler, A. H. (1946-10-27). "By Way of Report: Previewing a Theatre and Other Film Matters Love Seats Busy Kantor Glamour's Power". The New York Times. p.67.
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 ISBN0826429777, pages 432-433
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