{ "id": "ep6ennxe3q", "slug": "gun-crazy", "title": "Gun Crazy", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films", "label": "Film noir and neo-noir films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films.yr-1940-1975", "label": "Released 1940 to 1975", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films.yr-1940-1975" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000: Film noir and neo-noir films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films", "label": "Film noir and neo-noir films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Gun Crazy (Deadly Is the Female) is a 1950 film noir by Joseph H. Lewis starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins as armed robbers in love, famous for its single-take bank robbery and influence on Bonnie and Clyde.", "snippet": "Gun Crazy (Deadly Is the Female) is a 1950 film noir by Joseph H. Lewis starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins as armed robbers in love, famous for its single-take bank robbery and influence on Bonnie and Clyde.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.film-noir-and-neo-noir-films.yr-1940-1975", "markdown": "# Gun Crazy\n\n**Gun Crazy** (also released as *Deadly Is the Female*) is a 1950 American black-and-white film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis, starring [John Dall](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-dall) as the gun-obsessed Bart Tare and Peggy Cummins as the carnival sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr, whose romance turns into an interstate armed robbery spree.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031278-gun_crazy) Made independently by the King Brothers for about $400,000 in 30 days of shooting and released by [United Artists](https://www.edgepedia.org/united-artists), it failed at the box office but became one of the most celebrated B-movies in American film history and was added to the [National Film Registry](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-film-registry) in 1998.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) • [3](https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/gun-crazy/342305)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / producers | Joseph H. Lewis; produced independently by Frank and Maurice King, released by United Artists[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) • [3](https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/gun-crazy/342305) |\n| Release | 1950; initially titled *Deadly Is the Female*, changed back to Gun Crazy by its New York run in August 1950[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25944-GUN-CRAZY?cxt=filmography) |\n| Budget and schedule | About $400,000 and 30 days of shooting, by Lewis's own account[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) |\n| Cast | John Dall (Bart Tare), Peggy Cummins (Annie Laurie Starr), Berry Kroeger, Morris Carnovsky, Russ Tamblyn as Bart at age 14[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) |\n| Signature sequence | A bank robbery filmed in a single uninterrupted take from a camera in the back seat of the getaway car[5](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/26/gun-crazy-film-review) |\n| Screenplay | Story by MacKinlay Kantor; credited to Millard Kaufman, later revealed as a front for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) |\n| Recognition | National Film Registry, 1998; Metascore 74 from 14 critic reviews[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) • [6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/gun-crazy/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and characters\n\nBart Tare has been obsessed with firearms since childhood; as a boy he tells a judge, \"I like shooting them. I feel awful good inside,\" and is sent to reform school, followed by four years in the Army.[7](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf) • [8](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/gun-crazy-1950-joseph-h-lewis-ending) Home again, he meets Annie Laurie Starr, a carnival trick-shooter, when he beats her in a shooting competition, and the two join the traveling show before being fired.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031278-gun_crazy) • [9](https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/77083) What Bart does not know at first is that Laurie has already killed a man.[7](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf)\n\nAfter eloping, the couple embarks on an armed robbery spree, eluding the authorities until Laurie insists on one last job.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031278-gun_crazy) The film is notable among noirs for its treatment of the criminal woman: scholars have argued that, unlike the conventional noir pattern in which a transgressing woman is brought down and condemned, *Gun Crazy* does not invite the audience to condemn Laurie, even though more sympathy goes to Bart.[10](https://thesis.ncad.ie/T1668_The%20%27Outlaw%20Couple%27%20-%20young%20lovers%20and%20killers%20-_NC00210013.pdf) The Sight and Sound critic Beatrice Loayza describes it as singular among its contemporaries in its flagrant sexualization of violence, with the lovers undone by their own thrill-seeking in a finale that flees to the wilderness near Bart's childhood home.[8](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/gun-crazy-1950-joseph-h-lewis-ending)\n\n## Production\n\nThe King Brothers, independent producers with a background in tough crime thrillers throughout the 1940s, bought a story from MacKinlay Kantor that had run in the Saturday Evening Post as a series of fictionalized newspaper clippings about a young man obsessed with guns who shoots things, not people.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) They commissioned a screenplay from Millard Kaufman, who was actually a front for the blacklisted [Dalton Trumbo](https://www.edgepedia.org/dalton-trumbo); so complete was the concealment that director Lewis met repeatedly with Kaufman without knowing he was collaborating with the real writer only by proxy. Trumbo received two Academy Awards during the blacklist era, neither under his own name.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950)\n\n**Lewis's direction.** Joseph H. Lewis had begun in silent film as an entry-level camera loader, moved into shooting title sequences, and earned the nickname \"Wagon Wheel Joe\" for shooting quickie Westerns through the spokes of a wagon wheel; he turned ordinary exposition scenes into one-take set pieces with elaborate choreography.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) On *Gun Crazy* this style produced the film's most famous sequence, a bank robbery near the midpoint shot in a single take from a camera positioned in the back seat of the getaway car.[5](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/26/gun-crazy-film-review) • [11](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf) The National Film Preservation Board essay describes the film's two strategies, expressionistic, near-minimalist settings and sustained takes that approach documentary realism, as invigorating rather than clashing.[7](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf)\n\nThe crew included cinematographer Russell Harlan, production designer Gordon Wiles, composer Victor Young, and editor Harry W. Gerstad; the theme song \"Mad About You\" had lyrics by [Ned Washington](https://www.edgepedia.org/ned-washington) and music by Victor Young.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) • [12](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/public/upload/print/5d6fcf0da48ff.pdf)\n\n## Reception and influence\n\nThe film sank at the box office but was later repeatedly hailed as a film noir classic.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) In 1971 [Paul Schrader](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-schrader) called it \"one of the best American films ever made,\" and his 1972 periodization of film noir placed *Gun Crazy* in the final phase, \"the period of psychotic action and suicidal impulses,\" alongside *They Live by Night*.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) • [13](https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3238323) In 1998 Congress placed it on the National Film Registry, reserved for films deemed \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,\" and Richard Schickel later named it one of Time's All-Time 100 Movies.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950) Contemporary aggregate scores remain strong: 91% on the Tomatometer from 67 reviews and a Metascore of 74, with critics such as the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter calling it \"quintessential film noir.\"[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031278-gun_crazy) • [6](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/gun-crazy/)\n\n**Influence on later filmmakers.** Lewis's low-budget freedom to experiment made him a major inspiration for the [French New Wave](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-new-wave).[8](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/gun-crazy-1950-joseph-h-lewis-ending) In 1964 [François Truffaut](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-truffaut) arranged a screening of *Gun Crazy* for Robert Benton and David Newman, the eventual writers of *Bonnie and Clyde* (1967), who did not know that the kinetic outlaw style they wanted to imitate came from Hollywood's B-movie backlots rather than France.[8](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/gun-crazy-1950-joseph-h-lewis-ending) AFI Silver calls the film an early variation on the [Bonnie and Clyde](https://www.edgepedia.org/bonnie-and-clyde) theme and a major influence on Jean-Luc Godard's feature debut.[14](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100000594/) Lewis himself, asked by Peter Bogdanovich in 1994 for his favorite among his films, answered \"Gun Crazy,\" and gave the same answer for his second favorite.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Gun Crazy (1950), TCM article by David Kalat](https://www.tcm.com/articles/noir/313738/noir-gun-crazy-1950)\n2. [Gun Crazy, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031278-gun_crazy)\n3. [Gun Crazy, Eye Filmmuseum](https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/gun-crazy/342305)\n4. [Gun Crazy (1950), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/25944-GUN-CRAZY?cxt=filmography)\n5. [Gun Crazy, review by Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (2009)](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/26/gun-crazy-film-review)\n6. [Gun Crazy Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/gun-crazy/)\n7. [Gun Crazy, Richard T. Jameson, National Film Preservation Board](https://lcweb2.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf)\n8. [Killers in the mist: the final scene of Gun Crazy, Sight and Sound (2021)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/gun-crazy-1950-joseph-h-lewis-ending)\n9. [Watch Gun Crazy, TCM synopsis](https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/77083)\n10. [The 'Outlaw Couple': young lovers and killers, NCAD thesis](https://thesis.ncad.ie/T1668_The%20%27Outlaw%20Couple%27%20-%20young%20lovers%20and%20killers%20-_NC00210013.pdf)\n11. [Gun Crazy, National Film Preservation Board (loc.gov copy)](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/gun_crazy.pdf)\n12. [Gun Crazy, Harvard Film Archive notes](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/public/upload/print/5d6fcf0da48ff.pdf)\n13. [Film noir periodization, TOJDAC](https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3238323)\n14. [Gun Crazy, AFI Silver Theatre](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100000594/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Film noir and neo-noir films › Released 1940 to 1975*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Gun Crazy\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Gun Crazy](https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy](https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Gun Crazy\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/gun-crazy. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Gun Crazy is a 1950 film noir by Joseph H." }