My Recommended Noirs

Bang Bang - You're in Love! Gun Crazy (UA 1950) directed by Joseph H. Lewis and starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall is a tremendously influential noir about a guy, a gal and some guns. The movie starts whith the male lead, Bart, stealing a gun and getting caught and sent away as a teen. Yes folks, MULTIPLE FLASHBACKS are used to show that though Bart loves guns, he will never use them to kill. That would be his code till he met Annie Laurie Starr! Bart and Annie hook up at a carnival where she is the female sharpshooter - he beats her in a shooting contest and they are instantly smitten. He wants her, she wants him and THINGS. Thus begins their fast but tragically short life of love, bank robbing and death.

This is another noir, from the middle of the cycle, where the leads are just playing the cruel hands dealt by fate. As you can tell from the brief set-up, this flick was monumentally influential on movies ranging from Bonnie and Clyde to Natural Born Killers and numerous other crime films.

Dig it.