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Gun Crazy: The Origin of American Outlaw Cinema
GUN CRAZY: THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN OUTLAW CINEMA examines the history of the extraordinary 1950 film, from its genesis as a Saturday Evening Post short story through its tumultuous production history to its eventual enshrinement as one of the most influential cult films of all time.
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- GenresMedia Tie InFilm
Hardcover
First published November 14, 2014
95 people want to read
About the author
Eddie Muller
41 books107 followersEDDIE MULLER is a second generation San Franciscan, product of a lousy public school education, a couple of crazy years in art school, and too much time in newspaper offices and sporting arenas. No college, but he's compensated by always hanging around smarter people, an effortless feat typically accomplished in bars.
Despite repeated warnings, he followed in his father's footsteps, earning a living as a print journalist for sixteen years. No scoops, no big prizes, but he left behind a thoroughly abused expense account that got him into (and out of) various intriguing parts of the world.
His career as an ink-stained fourth estate wretch sidetracked Muller's early goal of becoming a filmmaker. A stint in George Kuchar's notorious "narrative filmmaking" class at the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 1970s resulted in the creation of a 14-minute, 16mm hommage to Raymond Chandler called Bay City Blues, one of five national finalists for the 1979 Student Academy Award. He also appeared as an actor in several Kuchar movies of the period.
Since 1998 Muller has devoted himself full-time to projects that pique his interest, ranging from the creation of a Historical Boxing Museum, to a fully illustrated history of Adults Only movies, to acting as co-writer and -producer of one of the first completely digital theatrical documentaries, Mau Mau Sex Sex. He created his own graphics firm, St. Francis Studio, which enables him to design, as well as write, his non-fiction books. He has achieved much acclaim for his three books on film noir, earning the nickname "The Czar of Noir."
His father, the original Eddie Muller (he's not a junior— long story, don't ask), was a renown sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner who earned the nickname "Mr. Boxing" during his 52-year run. The senior Muller served as inspiration for the character of Billy Nichols, the protagonist of the younger Muller's two critically acclaimed novels, The Distance (2002) and Shadow Boxer (2003).
Eddie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Kathleen Maria Milne.
Despite repeated warnings, he followed in his father's footsteps, earning a living as a print journalist for sixteen years. No scoops, no big prizes, but he left behind a thoroughly abused expense account that got him into (and out of) various intriguing parts of the world.
His career as an ink-stained fourth estate wretch sidetracked Muller's early goal of becoming a filmmaker. A stint in George Kuchar's notorious "narrative filmmaking" class at the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 1970s resulted in the creation of a 14-minute, 16mm hommage to Raymond Chandler called Bay City Blues, one of five national finalists for the 1979 Student Academy Award. He also appeared as an actor in several Kuchar movies of the period.
Since 1998 Muller has devoted himself full-time to projects that pique his interest, ranging from the creation of a Historical Boxing Museum, to a fully illustrated history of Adults Only movies, to acting as co-writer and -producer of one of the first completely digital theatrical documentaries, Mau Mau Sex Sex. He created his own graphics firm, St. Francis Studio, which enables him to design, as well as write, his non-fiction books. He has achieved much acclaim for his three books on film noir, earning the nickname "The Czar of Noir."
His father, the original Eddie Muller (he's not a junior— long story, don't ask), was a renown sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner who earned the nickname "Mr. Boxing" during his 52-year run. The senior Muller served as inspiration for the character of Billy Nichols, the protagonist of the younger Muller's two critically acclaimed novels, The Distance (2002) and Shadow Boxer (2003).
Eddie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Kathleen Maria Milne.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 30, 2020
This is a must-read if you've ever seen Gun Crazy! Eddie Muller shares his wealth of knowledge about the writing of the story, the screenplay, the producers, the director, the actors, and every little bit of detail in between. I definitely need a re-watch now that I've read this to catch some of the new things I've learned.
The King brothers, the producers, seem to be some interesting characters that are pretty entertaining. The writer of the original story in The Saturday Evening Post, MacKinlay Kantor, was quite proud of his original story and wanted little to no changes. Even though he also wrote the screenplay, as many stories are, this was re-worked by another writer (Dalton Trumbo!) and he was not happy with the changes. I actually laughed out loud reading the telegrams about the re-write between the Kings and Kantor.
If you've seen the film, you'll know the famous long shot in Gun Crazy, and the details of how that was accomplished are included here. A bright spot in the book was the all of the anecdotes from Peggy Cummings, the lead, who was friends with the author and shared many details of the making of the movie and the people involved. This is a relatively short book, but it is so well-written that you don't feel like anything is missing from the story of the making of Gun Crazy. It's as entertaining and exciting as the movie itself!
I read this for the summer #classicfilmreading challenge on the Out of the Past blog.
The King brothers, the producers, seem to be some interesting characters that are pretty entertaining. The writer of the original story in The Saturday Evening Post, MacKinlay Kantor, was quite proud of his original story and wanted little to no changes. Even though he also wrote the screenplay, as many stories are, this was re-worked by another writer (Dalton Trumbo!) and he was not happy with the changes. I actually laughed out loud reading the telegrams about the re-write between the Kings and Kantor.
If you've seen the film, you'll know the famous long shot in Gun Crazy, and the details of how that was accomplished are included here. A bright spot in the book was the all of the anecdotes from Peggy Cummings, the lead, who was friends with the author and shared many details of the making of the movie and the people involved. This is a relatively short book, but it is so well-written that you don't feel like anything is missing from the story of the making of Gun Crazy. It's as entertaining and exciting as the movie itself!
I read this for the summer #classicfilmreading challenge on the Out of the Past blog.
February 23, 2024
Eddie Muller knows noir, so if he devotes a book to a single movie, we know it must be a special movie.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know something about the movie. Gun Crazy is unique in a lot of ways. It does not follow any worn noir storylines. In fact, it doesn’t even follow its own original storyline. Muller traces its evolution from a story about an abused boy growing up to become a gun-obsessed criminal to a femme fatale-infused story of sociopaths in love.
It’s also shot uniquely, as Muller points out. The director (Joseph Lewis), writers (MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo), and the director of photography (Russell Harlan) deserve team credit for the combination of long shots, unique perspectives (especially the long car chase sequence toward the end of the movie), and the show-it-don’t-say-it approach of the movie.
As Muller also points out, those and other elements became deeply influential on succeeding movies like Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde.
Muller mixes commentary about the movie with a history of its development. When you learn about the path a movie’s development has taken, it’s rarely a straight line from story to script to filming, editing, and release. But this one had more than its share of stops, starts, left turns, and right turns before its 1950 release.
Three things really stand out — the script’s evolution, the obstacles associated with the Motion Picture Code, and the casting.
The first was the evolution from the original script by the story’s author MacKinlay Kantor. Kantor published the story in the Saturday Evening Post in 1940. King Brothers Productions (headed jointly by the three King brothers) wanted to adapt the story to film and paid Kantor to write the original script.
Although the King brothers lavished praise on Kantor’s work, the script was unfilmable, both on story grounds and by the strictures of the Motion Picture Code. Kantor’s story centered on the character Nelly Tare, whose criminal adult life grew out of his abused childhood.
That’s not what the Motion Picture Code, headed by Joseph Breen, liked to see. Criminals are just bad people, not the products of bad parenting.
The script was also just too long and slow.
Dalton Trumbo, although blacklisted and working behind a front-man, was hired by the King brothers to fix the script. He did a complete rewrite, fixing not only the pace and dialogue, but also refiguring the story as a tragic romance between two sociopaths, leaving the abused childhood theme behind, along with much of a round-trip in the story involving the boy’s childhood friends.
The main characters were renamed, from Nelly Tare and Toni McReady to Bart Tare and Annie Laurie Starr. And the casting decisions were interesting. Ideas for the male lead had originally hovered around John Garfield/Robert Mitchum (or actors of that type). But, given the new storyline, the King brothers and the new director, Joseph Lewis, steered in the direction of a more vulnerable lead who could attract audience empathy, even to a sociopathic character.
They chose John Dall, a relative unknown, who could carry that vulnerability. And for a female lead, they originally had Veronica Lake in mind, for her ability to present both very tough and very vulnerable sides, but chose Peggy Cummins, a British actress with much the same presence. It worked well. Audiences, probably much to the dismay of the Motion Picture Code folks, empathized with the criminals.
I’ve gone on a little long — it’s because Muller’s story about the movie is engaging and interesting. I got caught up in it as a reader. And of course now I want to go back and watch the movie with new eyes.
One thing I will say Muller does not do much of in this book, although I know he can, is talk about the place of the movie in a broader social and historical context — the evolving role of guns in America, postwar American life and values, and so on. It’s very much a book about the movie within the context of movies themselves.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know something about the movie. Gun Crazy is unique in a lot of ways. It does not follow any worn noir storylines. In fact, it doesn’t even follow its own original storyline. Muller traces its evolution from a story about an abused boy growing up to become a gun-obsessed criminal to a femme fatale-infused story of sociopaths in love.
It’s also shot uniquely, as Muller points out. The director (Joseph Lewis), writers (MacKinlay Kantor and Dalton Trumbo), and the director of photography (Russell Harlan) deserve team credit for the combination of long shots, unique perspectives (especially the long car chase sequence toward the end of the movie), and the show-it-don’t-say-it approach of the movie.
As Muller also points out, those and other elements became deeply influential on succeeding movies like Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde.
Muller mixes commentary about the movie with a history of its development. When you learn about the path a movie’s development has taken, it’s rarely a straight line from story to script to filming, editing, and release. But this one had more than its share of stops, starts, left turns, and right turns before its 1950 release.
Three things really stand out — the script’s evolution, the obstacles associated with the Motion Picture Code, and the casting.
The first was the evolution from the original script by the story’s author MacKinlay Kantor. Kantor published the story in the Saturday Evening Post in 1940. King Brothers Productions (headed jointly by the three King brothers) wanted to adapt the story to film and paid Kantor to write the original script.
Although the King brothers lavished praise on Kantor’s work, the script was unfilmable, both on story grounds and by the strictures of the Motion Picture Code. Kantor’s story centered on the character Nelly Tare, whose criminal adult life grew out of his abused childhood.
That’s not what the Motion Picture Code, headed by Joseph Breen, liked to see. Criminals are just bad people, not the products of bad parenting.
The script was also just too long and slow.
Dalton Trumbo, although blacklisted and working behind a front-man, was hired by the King brothers to fix the script. He did a complete rewrite, fixing not only the pace and dialogue, but also refiguring the story as a tragic romance between two sociopaths, leaving the abused childhood theme behind, along with much of a round-trip in the story involving the boy’s childhood friends.
The main characters were renamed, from Nelly Tare and Toni McReady to Bart Tare and Annie Laurie Starr. And the casting decisions were interesting. Ideas for the male lead had originally hovered around John Garfield/Robert Mitchum (or actors of that type). But, given the new storyline, the King brothers and the new director, Joseph Lewis, steered in the direction of a more vulnerable lead who could attract audience empathy, even to a sociopathic character.
They chose John Dall, a relative unknown, who could carry that vulnerability. And for a female lead, they originally had Veronica Lake in mind, for her ability to present both very tough and very vulnerable sides, but chose Peggy Cummins, a British actress with much the same presence. It worked well. Audiences, probably much to the dismay of the Motion Picture Code folks, empathized with the criminals.
I’ve gone on a little long — it’s because Muller’s story about the movie is engaging and interesting. I got caught up in it as a reader. And of course now I want to go back and watch the movie with new eyes.
One thing I will say Muller does not do much of in this book, although I know he can, is talk about the place of the movie in a broader social and historical context — the evolving role of guns in America, postwar American life and values, and so on. It’s very much a book about the movie within the context of movies themselves.
January 23, 2024
I forget how I first heard about the film Gun Crazy, but the first time I saw it I was hooked. It is fantastic and laid the foundation for so much of the cinema that followed, a crucial link between American B movie noir, French New Wave, and the American auteur movement of the '60s (particularly Bonnie & Clyde). This book is a delight and feels definitive, covering all aspects of production, analysis, and its place in cinema history. See the movie, read this book, thank me later.
October 19, 2022
Another fine slice of film noir history by Eddie Muller, this time an in-depth look at one of the keystones in film noir, Gun Crazy (1950), the landmark film that presaged films such Breathless, Bonnie & Clyde and created the genre of outlaw cinema.
February 21, 2022
Just a wonderful story about the making of "Gun Crazy," an iconic film noir. Fascinating and fun.
March 20, 2024
An entertaining book about a great movie and a lost era in filmmaking.
April 17, 2015
4.5 stars - Another excellent work by Eddie Muller covering all aspects of this important film noir. My only quibble is in wishing that the book had covered a bit more about how the book influenced films like Breathless, Bonnie and Clyde, and beyond.
February 23, 2016
Lots of good information and scans of script pages, publicity photographs--the works. My one complaint (and I agree with another reviewer here) is I would have liked to see more about the films influence, especially as regards to New Hollywood and the French New Wave.
October 18, 2015
Everything that you ever wanted and/or needed to know about the classic noir GUN CRAZY.
April 21, 2016
This is an excellent film study narrative about this iconic film noir movie. It was one of the first outlaw couple flick of the 50's. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews