# Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy is a 1950 film about a well meaning crack shot husband who is pressured by his beautiful marksman wife to go on an interstate robbery spree, where he finds out just how depraved and deadly she really is.
    Directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Written by Dalton Trumbo and MacKinlay Kantor, based on a short story by Kantor.

## Bart Tare

* We go together, Laurie. I don't know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition go together.

## Dialogue

    Bluey-Bluey: You're gonna see her again tonight, aren't you?
    Bart: What's wrong with that?
    Bluey-Bluey: Nothing, but she ain't the type that makes a happy home.
    Bart: Alright, out with it. What's on your mind?
    Bluey-Bluey: It's just that some guys are born smart about women and some guys are born dumb.
    Bart: Some guys are born clowns.
    Bluey-Bluey: You were born dumb.
    Laurie: If you lay your hands on me like that again, I'll kill you.
    Packet: Like that guy you killed in St. Louis.
    Laurie: You're gonna hold that over my head for the rest of my life, aren't ya?
    Packet: Yeah, 'cause you're mine. Where do you think you're going tonight, all dressed up like that?
    Laurie: You don't own me, Packy.
    Packet: I told him I did. I saw him comin' over this way. I told him plenty. I saw the two of ya. The way you were lookin' at each other tonight. A couple of wild animals. Almost scared me.
    Laurie: It should. He's a man.
    Packet: Honey, I'll make money like you want me to - big money. But it takes time. You gotta give me time.
    Laurie: You'll never make money. You're a two-bit guy...No guts, nothing. I want action.
    Bart: I can still get that job at Remington.
    Laurie: Forty dollars a week?
    Bart: We can get by on that.
    Laurie: Yeah, maybe you can, but not me. It's too slow, Bart. I want to do a little living.
    Bart: What's your idea of living?
    Laurie: It's not forty bucks a week.
    Bart: Tell me, when did you get this idea?
    Laurie: Oh, I've always had this - ever since I can remember. If I don't get it one way, I'll get it the other.
    Bart: I didn't think we'd had it figured out that way.
    Laurie: Well, so I changed my mind. I told you I was no good. I didn't kid you, did I? Well, now you know. Bart, I've been kicked around all my life. Well, from now on, I'm gonna start kicking back.
    Bart: What is it you want?
    Laurie: When are you going to begin to live? Four years in reform school, then the Army. I should think they'd owe you something for a change. What's it got you, being so particular?
    Bart: Let's not argue. I'll hock my guns. It'll give us enough dough to make another start.
    Laurie: There isn't enough money in those guns for the kind of start I want. Bart, I want things, a lot of things, big things. I don't want to be afraid of life or anything else. I want a guy with spirit and guts. A guy who can laugh at anything, who will do anything, a guy who can kick over the traces and win the world for me.
    Bart: Look, I don't want to look in that mirror and see nothing but a stick up man staring back at me.
    Laurie: You better kiss me goodbye, Bart, because I won't be here when you get back. Come on, Bart, let's finish it the way we started it, on the level.
    Bart: [about his time in the Army] ...that's when I was a fairly honest guy.
    Laurie: You mean, before you met me?
    Bart: I don't know. It's just that everything's going so fast. It's all in such high gear, and sometimes it doesn't feel like me. Does that make sense?
    Laurie: When do you think all this?
    Bart: Nights. I wake up sometimes. It's as if none of it really happened, as if nothing were real anymore.
    Laurie: Next time you wake up, Bart, look over at me lying there beside you. I'm yours and I'm real.
    Bart: Yes, but you're the only thing that is, Laurie. The rest is a nightmare.
    Bart: Didn't you ever think of this? Didn't it ever occur to you that once we started, we could never ask anybody for help no matter if we were dying, for the rest of our lives. We're all alone, always will be? Didn't you ever give it a thought?
    Laurie: What's the matter, Bart?
    Bart: That last job. That car full of cops. I was scared.
    Laurie: But we're safe now, darling.
    Bart: Laurie, listen to me, listen close. Something happened when I was scared. All the time I was shooting that tire, I kept thinking how easy it would be to shoot the driver instead. I kept fighting myself. I'm not a killer. I don't want to be a killer. I don't like this kind of life. I've had enough.
    Bart: I've just been reading a story about funerals.
    Laurie: Oh.
    Bart: The funeral of Miss Augustine Sifert, for twenty-three years office manager of the Armour Meat Packing Company, and William Bechtel, company guard, were killed last Friday when bandits made off with a company payroll. Well?
    Laurie: Well?
    Bart: Two people dead, just so we can live without working. Why?! Why did you do it? Why do you have to murder people? Why can't you let them live?
    Laurie: Because I had to. Because I was afraid. Because they would have killed you. Because you're the only thing I've got in the whole world. Because I love you.
    Bart: We're killers.
    Laurie: You're not. I am.
    Bart: No, we both are. You go into a racket like this to get something at the point of a gun. You have to be ready to kill even before you start a job. I'm as guilty as you are. I've just let you do my killing for me.
    Laurie: Bart, we're in real trouble this time.
    Bart: Laurie, no matter what happens, I wouldn't have it any other way. [They kiss]
    Clyde: Bart, Bart, this is Clyde. We're coming in to get you, Dave and me. Answer us, Bart. You haven't got a chance. There are too many guns around this swamp.
    Dave: Bart, this is Dave. We're comin' in, Bart. We know you won't kill us. You're not a killer, Bart.
    Clyde: You might as well give up, Bart. It's all over. We're coming in, Bart.
    Laurie: [rising with a crazed, psychotic, homicidal look in her eyes and pointing her gun] One more step and I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you!
    Bart: Laurie - don't!
    Laurie: [shrieking defiantly] I'll kill you!
    Bart: Laurie! [He shoots her] Laurie!

## Taglines

* Thrill crazy... Kill crazy...
* SHE BELIEVES IN TWO THINGS...-love and violence!
* Notorious LAURIE STARR! ...wanted in a dozen states... hunted by the F.B.I.!
* She was more than any man could handle!
* The Flaming Life of LAURIE STARR (The Lethal Blonde)
* Her Violent Loves! Her Vicious Crimes! Her Wild Escapes!
* Nothing Deadlier Is Known To Man...

## Cast

* Peggy Cummins - Annie Laurie Starr
* John Dall - Bart Tare
* Berry Kroeger - Packett
* Stanley Prager - Bluey-Bluey
* Morris Carnovsky - Judge Willoughby
* Anabel Shaw - Ruby Tare
* Harry Lewis - Sheriff Clyde Boston
* Nedrick Young - Dave Allister
* Russ Tamblyn - Young Bart Tare, age 14

## External links

* Gun Crazy quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Gun Crazy at Rotten Tomatoes
* Gun Crazy at Filmsite.org