Gun Crazy (the movie, not us fourm members)

[sigp220.45]

Gun Crazy (1950) is currently on TCM on demand. I had never watched it before, but was aware of it and always thought it was a leather and switchblades juvenile delinquent movie in the tradition of Blackboard Jungle.

I watched it last night. About 15 minutes in I thought - this is actually pretty good.

I won't spoil a 67 year old movie here, but it was a memorable watch. They did what they could with the Hayes code in full effect. The girl's first scene takes full advantage of her assets. The script was written by a blacklisted Dalton Trumbo and fronted by a pal.

When Bonnie and Clyde was in the early stages, the producers screened Gun Crazy for the screenwriters. You can tell.

For real film nerds, there is a long (over 3 minute) single take of a bank robbery that starts with the girl driving into a town (no rear projection stuff here), parking in front, the guy going in to do the robbery, the girl getting out to chat up a cop, and the getaway, all shot from inside the car. They used a Caddy limo with everything but the front seats removed to have room to move the camera. The director gave them no dialog - he just said to talk like you are going to rob a bank. They didn't even tell anyone in town they were filming.

Standard movie thread rules apply:
- You saw it and want 94 minutes of your life back.
- Hollyweird is full of commies and libtards.
- You haven't been to a movie in the theater since the opening night of The Eiger Sanction.

Check it out...................

 

[Watchdog]

Gun Crazy achieved cult status years and years ago, and whenever noir classics are mentioned or screened at festivals and in revival houses, it's almost always included in the program.

Interestingly enough, in addition to Dalton Trumbo's screenwriting, the co-writer of the screenplay was MacKinley Kantor...noted for his books on the Civil War, especially the best selling Andersonville.

And yeah, Arthur Penn's 1967 Bonnie and Clyde really expanded on Dall's and Cummin's gun fetish/obsession in Gun Crazy. When the films are viewed back to back, the similarities just jump out at you if you're paying attention.

Gun Crazy is also preserved in the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress as a film that's "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

The bottom line is that for a "B" picture made in 1950, and filmed on sort of a shoestring budget, Gun Crazy is a certified noir classic.

Seriously...what's not to like?

 

[Alpo]

Is that the one that starts with a boy breaking a pawnshop window to steal a gun, and then runs into the sheriff when he's leaving the scene of the crime?

If so, I never finished it. It sucked badly.