#Gun Crazy

[inthedarktrees]

Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy (1950) dir. Joseph H. Lewis

[normasshearer]

I want things. A lot of things. Big things. I don't wanna be afraid of life or anything else. I want a guy with spirit and guts. A guy who can laugh at anything, who'll do anything. A guy who can kick over the traces and win the world for me.

GUN CRAZY 1950, dir. Joseph H. Lewis

[odettejoyeux]

John Dall and Peggy Cummins on a date at The Stork Club during the promotion of their film Gun Crazy (Deadly is the Female) in 1950.

[caffeinatedwoman]

John Dall appreciation post

John Dall (1920-1971)

I love him your honor ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

[rhade-zapan]

Gun Crazy ~ Joseph H. Lewis ~ 1950

Feat: Peggy Cummins

Follow Rhade-Zapan for more visual treats

[mudwerks]

(via Pulp International - 1950 promo image of Irish actress Peggy Cummins)

promo image of Welsh born Irish actress Peggy Cummins from her 1950 b-noir Gun Crazy

[queer-cinephile]

30 Days of Classic Queer Hollywood

Day 26: John Dall (1920 - 1971)

John Dall was an American stage actor who had success in a few big Hollywood films.

He is best remembered for two film roles: the cool-minded intellectual murderer in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948), and the companion of the trigger happy femme fatale in the noir Gun Crazy (1950).

Dall was reportedly a gay man. He never married, though he apparently lied about having a wife at one point in his career. According to music historian Phil Milstein, at the time of Dall's death, he was living with his male partner, actor Clement Brace.

[andythecorsair]

Tumblr made me think about US-Americans and guns. I haven't done that since twitter ceased to be culturally relevant. Bad tumblr, no!

[movieposters1]

[falsenote]

Gun Crazy (1950)

[charlottenewtons]

Gun Crazy (1950) dir. Joseph H. Lewis

[inthedarktrees]

Gun Crazy | 1950

[cantsayidont]

May-June 1948. One of the most brutal Golden Age Batman stories is this bleak entry from WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #34, an atypically dark tale by Edmond Hamilton and Dick Sprang, about the rise and fall of a ruthless hired killer. Unusually, the story begins by revealing that the killer is already dead, an unidentified body on a slab in the morgue, and flashes back to his earlier life:

Even if you're willing to allow that Durfee's love of guns "should have been normal and healthy," the sadism and sociopathy on display here doesn't speak highly of the parenting skills of Jim's father. Yikes.

If you watch a lot of older film noir, this flashback sequence might seem somewhat familiar. I'm reasonably certain that it was inspired by a 1940 MacKinlay Kantor short story called "Gun Crazy," originally published in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. About a year and a half after this story was published, Kantor and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo adapted "Gun Crazy" into the screenplay for a movie of the same title, directed by Joseph H. Lewis and released by United Artists in early 1950. "Gun Crazy" is also the story of a young man (called Nelson Tare in the original story) whose love of guns eventually leads to his destruction, although both the story and the film present their protagonist in a more sympathetic light than Hamilton does. As we soon see, Durfee is a monster:

Durfee decides to offer his services as a hired killer to gangster Pete Goro, being careful not to let Goro know his real name or even what he looks like. After completing several jobs for this new client, Durfee accepts a thousand dollars from another gangster to kill Goro, although to maintain his reputation, he still carries out his last commission for Goro: killing Gotham district attorney Tim Logan. Meanwhile, Batman, who has learned how Durfee's potential clients contact him, but nothing that would identify the killer, attempts to lure Durfee into the open by anonymously hiring him to kill Bruce Wayne!

Batman and Robin are unsuccessful in capturing the wily assassin, but when Durfee realizes that he's failed to kill Bruce Wayne, his pride leads him to try again on the grounds of the newly opened county fair. Batman manages to decoy him with a Bruce Wayne dummy, but Durfee knocks Batman momentarily senseless with the wooden stock of his gun and loses himself in the crowd. Then:

So, Durfee is finally shot dead by a random cop who has no idea who he is, for a crime he hasn't actually committed. He then ends up buried in an anonymous grave, and even Batman never knows his real name. A very grim drama indeed, and a story that seems more suited to the gritty crime comics of the period, like CRIME DOES NOT PAY or Simon & Kirby's JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY for Prize, than the relatively sedate WORLD'S FINEST. The cover of this issue, incidentally, sports this light-hearted Win Mortimer illustration of Batman, Robin, and Superman having fun:

(The other stories in this anthology issue aren't especially dark or violent, but it's still a little jarring!)

[rodpower78]

Still of John Dall and Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy (1950)

[odettejoyeux]

John Dall in a scene of Gun Crazy (dir, Joseph H. Lewis, 1950).