Deadly Is the Female (1950)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Joseph H. Lewis

Writers (WGA):

MacKinlay Kantor (screenplay) and
Dalton Trumbo (screenplay) (front Millard Kaufman) ...

Release Date:

20 January 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Romance

Tagline:

Thrill crazy... Kill crazy...

Plot:

Since he was a child, Bart Tare has always loved guns. After leaving the army, his friends take him to a carnival...

Plot Keywords:

Gun | Robbery | Carnival | On The Run | Dominant Woman

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Peggy Cummins	...	Annie Laurie Starr
John Dall	...	Bart Tare
Berry Kroeger	...	Packett
Morris Carnovsky	...	Judge Willoughby
Anabel Shaw	...	Ruby Tare
Harry Lewis	...	Sheriff Clyde Boston
Nedrick Young	...	Dave Allister
Russ Tamblyn	...	Bart Tare (age 14) (as Rusty Tamblyn)

Also Known As:

Gun Crazy (USA) (new title)

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Iceland:L | Canada:14A (Ontario) | USA:Approved (certificate #14023) | West Germany:16 (nf) | UK:PG (2008) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:(Banned)

Filming Locations:

Montrose, California, USA

Company:

United Artists

Trivia:

The movie's poster was as #25 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Bart grabs Annie arm to prevent her from shooting an employee of the bank as the alarm sounds, they run to their getaway car and you can see the camera-man's reflection for a moment as he rides past the window on a dolly.

Quotes:

Packett: Honey, I'll make money like you want me to. Big money. But it takes time, you gotta give me time.
Annie Laurie Starr: You'll never make big money. You're a two-bit guy.
Packett: Honey, listen...
Annie Laurie Starr: No guts, nothing! I want action!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Exhumed (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside)

Influential But Hard To Like

The idea of a boy obsessed with guns but afraid of shooting anyone is ingenious. In those days, and for a couple decades to come, boys were expected to like guns. They were of course not expected to use them for crime.

We see classic signs of a disturbed person in John Dahl in the flashbacks where his character is played by Russ Tamblyn. He shoots a chick in in a brood with its mother hen. Now, right there, I was turned off. My brother-in-law is a hunter and though he's a nice guy, the hunting for sport is alien to me.

(Yes, this scene is, so to speak, chicken feed compared to contemporary violence in films. But I won't watch the,. Sex: fine. It's part of life. But I can't stand gory movies.) John Dahl was a limited actor. I believe he was openly gay. That works in "Rope" and it works to a degree here. As odd as this sounds, he comes across as sort of a gay James Stewart.

Peggy Cummins is the real find here. This was not her standard rep but she is fantastic as the brutal Annie Laurie.

We don't like either of them, though. Nor do we especially like Dahl's long-suffering sister. I think it's axiomatic that one must like at least someone in a play, book, or movie for the piece to work successfully.

The movie is stylistically innovative and frequently exciting. But, though I love film noir, I have never taken much to this one. I infinitely prefer the gentle, atypically tender "They Live By Night." It came out around the same time and treated a similar couple. It's a great American movie.

This one is well shot but Joseph H. Lewis had already done better ("My Name Is Julia Ross") and was to do several movies much more to my liking -- and no less harsh