Gun Crazy

""Two people dead, just so we can live without working!""

- Bart

The quintessential "B movie" Gun Crazy, also known as Deadly is the Female, dramatizes the criminal escapades of a Bonnie-and-Clyde-like couple on the run. John Dall plays Bart Tare, an emotionally disturbed World War II veteran with a lifelong gun fixation. He meets a kindred spirit in carnival sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins), who is equally disturbed -- but a lot smarter, and hence a lot more dangerous. They embark on a crime spree, with Annie as the brains and Bart as the trigger man.

Appreciation for this low-budget film noir, directed by onetime editor Joseph H. Lewis, has grown since its release thanks to its bold, stylized look and an objectivity that approaches cinema verite.

Gun Crazy was added to the National Film Registry in 1998.