Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is The Female) (1950)

Obsessed with guns, a gun fancier (John Dall) falls in love with an amoral carnival sharpshooter (Peggy Cummins). As he says, they go together like "guns and ammunition" and they get married living off his savings. When the money is gone, she makes it clear she wants to live the "good" life and they go on a spree of robberies but her trigger finger causes her to make them more than robbers ..... murderers! Based on a short story by MacKinlay Kantor (who co-wrote the screenplay with blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, writing under a pseudonym) and directed by Joseph H. Lewis (MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS). A marvelous crime film noir, it's one of those B movies whose reputation keeps growing through the ensuing decades until its current classic status. Peggy Cummins and John Dall have never been better but it's Lewis's expert direction that propels the movie forward. The sense of doom that permeates the film is there right from the beginning and director Lewis feeds that throughout the movie until the inevitable finale. It's clear from the moment they meet that guns are an aphrodisiac to them. With Russ Tamblyn, Morris Carnovsky, Barry Kroeger and Anabel Shaw.