Directed by Joseph H. Lewis, with a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo (credited as MacKinlay Kantor), Gun Crazy is about husband and wife outlaws. After a stink in reform school and then the Army, Bart Tare (Dall) is smitten with Annie Laurie Starr (Cummings), a sharpshooter at a traveling carnival show. Bart challenges Annie to a shooting contest, wins and begins a tempestuous relationship that leads to marriage and a life of crime.
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| John Hall and Peggy Cummins |
The film is noted for its innovative camera work and improvisational script. Gun Crazy is credited with influencing director Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde some 17 years later.
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.”
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This will be utterly fabulous on the big screen. Am a little jealous.
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