It's a cheap, primitive film and it more than succeeds in what it was trying to do. We follow a pair of sharpshooters who have met at a carnival -- the sassy Peggy Cummins and the reform-school graduate, John Dall, a kind of Scandinavian George Hamilton. They're in love but broke and, attracted as they are to guns and shooting, they hold up some small businesses, gradually moving up to the Armour meat-packing plant that, according to Upton Sinclair, should have been held up years earlier. (Do I have to explain that wisecrack? Sinclair wrote a muckraking novel, "The Jungle," and -- well, forget it.) Where was I? Yes. Thank you. Their armed robberies grow more ambitious over time. They haven't shot anyone yet. True, Dall was tempted to shoot the driver instead of the tire of the police car that was screaming after them, but he managed to overcome the impulse. Cummins isn't so squeamish, so demanding of herself. She finally puts two holes through an elderly lady -- AFTER the woman has already set off the alarm -- and then drops a cop too.
Here's a point at which the story, based on a MacKinley Kantor short, exhibits its unexpected maturity. We begin with the dumb title -- "Gun Crazy" -- and the low budget. It leads you to expect that the two bandits, Cummins especially, would be exhilarated by the deaths, giggling and cackling happily as they make their getaway. But, no. Dall isn't a standard B-feature tough guy, no Lawrence Tierney. He's filled with anguish and guilt. Cummins isn't proud of having shot two people. It's just a dirty job that had to be done. When Dall, the more humanistic and wimpish of the two, later reprimands her, she's all frazzled and replies that she was scared. She only shoots when she's scared.
The pair become notorious and attract the kind of attention that the FBI and its president-for-life, J. Edgar Hoover, reserved for those peripatetic robbers of the 1930s. Everybody has heard of them. Their photos have appeared in newspapers with names like The Meadowville Dispatch and the Zinzinatti Zeitung. "Last seen driving a blue sedan with out-of-state license plates" -- that sort of thing. They are forced to leave their money and other goods and hop a freight back to Dall's home town where his friends, alerted to his presence, try to talk him and Cummins into giving themselves up peacefully.
The movie code and the trajectory of classic tragedy determine what happens next. It's hard to imagine that the writers and director of "Bonnie and Clyde" didn't see this, although "Gun Crazy" is a far less ambitious film. And it's a little like "Pretty Poison", in which Anthony Perkins enlists Tuesday Weld into his fantasies, only to find she's more committed to action than he is. It's also a little Shakespearean -- "Coriolanus" or something -- in which the central figure has a characterological flaw such that, whatever his virtues, he's brought down by it in the end.
Two virtually unknown leads -- John Dall and Peggy Cummins -- neither of whom had a substantial career. (Dall was to appear as the dominant and, aptly, homosexual partner of Farley Granger in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope.") Cummins doesn't do much for the role except look sort of pert in those tight black slacks at the shooting contest. She's not much more than a pistol with a pretty blond on the end of it. But Dall, with his long, loose-lipped face, is far more expressive. The photography is quite well done. And the direction seems surprisingly accomplished. Joseph H. Lewis places the camera where it will do the most good and isn't afraid to dolly in for effective close ups at dramatic moments. There is, of course, the famous scene of Cummins and Dall driving up to a bank, parking the car, robbing it, and making their escape -- all shot with a camera in the back seat in one take. (The shot was apparently "stolen", without the knowledge of bystanders that a movie was being made.) The exchanges between Cummins and Dall during the scene are qualitatively different from those in the rest of the film. The dialog sounds only party scripted, mostly improvised, and thus more convincing. When Dall worries about whether there will be a parking space at the bank, he really sounds like he's worried -- because he actually IS.
Some cheap noirs are risible in their badness, like "Detour." This one isn't. I expect you'll feel drawn to the pathetic lovers.
5 out of 12 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink