![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/giphy-1.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\nIt’s her birthday today. <\/p>\n
5 Things About Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy<\/i><\/h1>\n
\n Joseph Lewis’ brilliant, erotic, and influential Gun Crazy<\/i> was originally called Deadly Is the Female<\/i> (which could be an alternate title for almost every film noir ever made). Peggy Cummins, as Annie Laurie Starr, is definitely deadly. She’s a sharp-shooter, and she makes her living with a traveling circus, daring good shots in the audience to come up and take her on. Although she is obviously a deadly shot, the “female” isn’t the deadly thing in this movie. What is deadly is the pairing, the alchemy of Barton (John Dall) and Peggy together. A classic folie a deux<\/i>. She picks Barton out of a crowd at one of her shows, and they engage in a blatantly sexual shooting competition. They cleave to one another almost immediately. What is love to these two is not tenderness or communication, but how close they both can come to blowing the other one’s brains out. How far each is willing to go … now THAT’S love.<\/p>\n \n \nAnnie Laurie would never have been an upright citizen, she’s too wild, but she may have continued in an unremarkable way, breaking men’s hearts probably but nothing too out of the ordinary, if she hadn’t met Barton. History is full of murderous duos, those who perhaps would never go off the rails alone but who require that “other” to push them over the edge. Leopold and Loeb. The Papin sisters. Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme. And, of course, Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn’s movie references Gun Crazy<\/i> at almost every turn – even down to Faye Dunaway’s beret, which makes her look like a svelte revolutionary). Literature is filled with deadly duos too. Lady Macbeth hissing to her husband, <\/p>\n We fail? In other words, “Don’t be such a pussy.” There are certain types of men who are not susceptible to this kind of thing (try it with John Wayne, you’ll see), and then there are those who ARE. They have a faultline in their characters, a vulnerability, an uncertainty, a desire to prove themselves, a fear they are not enough. Macbeth required his wife to push him. Two elements combine. The alchemy brings forth monsters. <\/p>\n And so I believe Gun Crazy<\/i> is the perfect title for this dark sexy noir: it’s an attention-getting title, but it’s far more accurate than Deadly Is the Female<\/i>, which puts the blame on the woman. Gun Crazy<\/i> describes, at heart, what is going on between these two characters. <\/p>\n Peggy Cummins gives one of my favorite performances of all time as Annie Laurie. The female in film noir is often the “other”, the mysterious force-of-nature strolling into a man’s life, knocking over all his chess pieces. She is often ruthless. Her blood pressure doesn’t rise like other humans: she remains calm and in control. Her surface may be sexy (Barbara Stanwyck’s blonde bangs and anklet in Double Indemnity<\/i>), but her heart remains uninvolved. Annie Laurie has those elements, but Cummins adds to it a hot-blooded soul. She’s not cold-blooded. She experiences a surge of fear and panic when her finger is on the trigger. Fear at her own power? Fear at having to shoot her way out? Without that fear, she could be a high-paid assassin, but as it is, she trembles in the face of confrontation. She’s human. While she does use Barton in order to free herself from the circus, you also get the sense that she needs him, she can’t even breathe without him. It makes for a truly disturbing film, because you get caught up in their weird violent little belljar, and you start to root for both of them, even with the havoc they wreak. <\/p>\n \n \nAnnie Laurie knows how to play Barton. She’s got him by the balls, so to speak, and here, in Gun Crazy<\/i>, the sexual nature of deadly duos is made explicit. I get the feeling that Barton has never been laid before, at least not how she does it. She knows sex is one of the hooks for him, so she uses it. However, I get the sense that it’s a hook for HER as well. This is what Peggy Cummins brings to the noir table. It is unique. <\/p>\n These two characters drive each other crazy<\/i>. <\/p>\n Here are 5 things about Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy<\/i>, a performance for the ages.<\/p>\n Movie actresses didn’t eat like that back then, and it is rare to see them eat like that now. Movie actresses delicately twirl their fork in a plate of linguine, and take tiny neat bites. Eating is awkward in films, and I know some directors who try to avoid showing it at all, because it’s such a hassle. Does Julia Roberts have parsley in her teeth? Is there a bit of tomato sauce on the side of Charlize Theron’s face? Forget it, let’s just cut the scene. I was in love with Gun Crazy<\/i> from the opening shot, but it was at the moment in the diner when she digs into that hamburger that I felt that tell-tale prickly-goosebumpy feeling on the back of my neck. The goosebumps when you know you’re in the presence of something real.<\/p>\n \n \nPeggy Cummins attacks<\/i> that hamburger, voraciously, you can even hear her breathing through her nose as she eats. It’s actually kind of gross. It is just right<\/i> for the character. Actresses often avoid looking unattractive, and it’s easy to see why. They are judged so harshly on their appearances already. Why open themselves up to criticism? Or if they play “unattractive”, they keep one foot back through the Glamour Door, so that we in the audience know that “that is not really them”. Peggy Cummins has none of those defense mechanisms. She digs her front teeth into that burger, oblivious to the world, chewing hard but not waiting to swallow before going back in for another giant bite. It is a metaphor for the character, obviously, but not the way she plays it. She plays it on the level: “Dammit, I’m freakin’ STARVING<\/i>.” <\/p>\n \n \n \nThere are a couple of scenes where the duo has to make a run for it. They rob the payroll office at a meat-packing factory and have to flee with the loot. Then, after their crime spree across the country, they realize, while dancing at an arcade in Santa Monica, that they have been discovered. We see the two of them barreling down a sidewalk together. She drops her purse. They hustle back for it. Annie Laurie and Barton have been in this thing together from the beginning. They huddle over floor plans, smoke cigarettes, and argue over tactics. They hold each other close, breathing in one another’s breath. And here, they run for their lives. Often, in movies, when a male and female run from something together, the male maintains his alpha-status, while running<\/i>, and holds the hand of the female (as though she can’t run without his assistance. But wouldn’t you both be able to go faster if you didn’t hold hands, Sir and Madame?) Barton and Annie are too desperate for such niceties. As happened in the first scene when they met at the circus, she drives him on, and vice versa. Peggy Cummins, in heels, barrels down the sidewalk, leaps off the platform into the parking lot, and her urgency, her adrenaline, is part of what makes the character so damn memorable, so herself<\/i>. She is a femme fatale, but she’s also a grubby dame in heels running for her life.<\/p>\n … and woman’s too. Cummins’ most frightening moment in Gun Crazy<\/i> is not during the scenes where she manipulates Barton sexually and emotionally, or when she suddenly pulls a gun out on some unsuspecting citizen. Her most frightening moment is the chilly look she gives to Bart’s sister, while the duo is hiding out at her house. The sister is a harried mother of three, with a mostly-absent husband, and she loves her brother. She is willing to let them stay with her for a night, but that situation quickly goes south. It is too dangerous. Too many people know they are there. Cummins walks into that small domestic world, looks down at the kids with an expression totally lacking in warmth, and immediately starts sizing up what she needs to do to get the hell out of there. The key for Annie is keeping the sister in her cross-hairs at all times. The cross-hairs of her eyes. She stands in the kitchen, filing her nails, but she never looks down at her hands. Her eyes remain trained on Bart’s sister. <\/p>\n \n \nFinally, Bart’s sister can no longer take it, and says, “Why are you looking at me like that??” Flatly, Cummins tosses the nail file down and says, “To make sure you won’t go to the phone.” This dame can hit a target from out of a moving car. But she doesn’t need to point a gun at the sister to keep her in line. All she has to do is look<\/i>. <\/p>\n In one of the most amazing scenes in Gun Crazy<\/i>, the two decide to separate, thinking it would be safer if they were not together. It is a wrenching decision. By this point, they are breathing and thinking as one. They barely need to speak anymore. This is a unique element Peggy Cummins brings to her noir anti-heroine. Annie may be smarter than Bart, that is almost certainly true, but she, unlike, say, the ice-cold Jane Greer in Out of the Past<\/i>, merges completely with her man. She’s as hooked on him as he is hooked on her. We may always keep Annie Laurie at arm’s length, but we never doubt she is connected to Bart on a primal level. Maybe she’s connected because she can so easily control him, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I think she is so hooked into him she couldn’t stop if she tried. The word “love” doesn’t even come into it. One can live without love. But Annie Laurie cannot live<\/i> without this man, quite literally. <\/p>\n So, after a tormented and rushed goodbye, they flee to two separate cars on a quiet street. Director Joseph Lewis films it in a rush of movement, his camera following the two cars as they pull away from separate curbs, the couple looking back at one another, devastated. They both drive away. At the same moment, they both put on the brakes, and turn to stare back at each other. Then, they both turn their cars around and barrel back towards one another. Brakes screech as the cars come to a halt. Bart jumps out of his car and runs toward her car. She moves over, he gets behind the wheel, and the two doomed lovers drive off, exhilarated to be back together after 5 seconds of being apart. This flurry of circular movement occurs in one shot, with no cuts.<\/p>\n \n From what we have seen of Annie Laurie up until this moment, we may not be sure about her. We may think that she, like so many noir dames, is out to double-cross her lover, the innocent man with the wide grin. She may be ready to kick him to the curb. He was dead weight anyway. But she plays this rushed scene with an abandon that almost borders on the embarrassing. She is serious, grim, and in survival-mode, as they go through the process of separating, but as they drive away from each other, she can’t bear it. When he runs towards her car, she nearly leaps into the frame, leaning out of her seat from her need to be close to this man. Her need to be close to him, to merge with him, is life or death, and that is what Peggy Cummins plays in the frenzied moments when he gets into the car beside her. She nuzzles him, laughing out loud, head thrown back, a voracious portrait of need, desire, and satisfaction. It’s rather scary. It’s totally right.<\/p>\n The scene is not a swoon of romance. It is the companion piece to how she ate that burger. <\/p>\n Gun Crazy<\/i> works on an ultra-disturbing level, the level most memorable crime movies approach. We in the audience recognize these people need to be caught. But we get so involved in their story, we can’t help but hope it all works out somehow, even though we know it will not. <\/p>\n There is nothing calculated or manipulative about how Peggy Cummins nuzzles him and laughs, throat exposed, head thrown back, as the car drives off. She has thrown her lot in with his. For better or worse. If they’re going to go down, they will go down together. <\/p>\n The doomed standoff between the couple and the cops chasing them through the mountains calls to mind every standoff filmed, before or since. I think of Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra<\/i> huddled in his mountain hide-out, surrounded on all sides, screaming down at the cops. Then there’s Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Or Dog Day Afternoon<\/em>. What happens when two people come to the end of the line? How do they finally give up? How do they decide to “go out”? When they realize there is no way out, how do the criminals react? Suicide by cop? Suicide suicide? Going out in a blaze of glory? If the movie has done its job, we still hope for a respite, for some bargaining chip, for a deus ex machina. But the characters in the film are ahead of us. It’s over. They know it. Their time is up. There is one final decision: HOW to go out. For someone like Annie Laurie, there is only one way.<\/p>\n \n \nIn Gun Crazy<\/i>, Annie Laurie and Bart have been chased into the mountains. There is no more road. They abandon their car and take off on foot. Ferocious dogs are on their trail. The duo stumble through rivers, trying to throw the dogs off, but the altitude is so high they struggle to catch their breath. She starts to lose momentum. She leans against a tree, heaving for breath. She can’t understand why she can’t run anymore. It is a very human moment: the criminal suddenly realizes her fallibility. Altitude affects us all. They finally hole up in a swamp, as the fog rolls in. They lie in one another’s arms in the darkness, listening to the barking dogs in the distance, the echoing shouts of the cops looking for them. Night has fallen. They are filthy. Peggy Cummins’ hair is long and wild, and in this, she looks completely and utterly modern<\/i>. <\/p>\n While Bart was classified as a “juvenile delinquent” very early on, due to his love affair with guns, it is Annie Laurie who is the career criminal. Bart wants to try to do something good with his love of guns, he has vague plans of teaching others to shoot. He can’t shoot an animal. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Annie Laurie is a different story. She is a wild animal when cornered. And as we saw from the jump, fear makes her dangerous. If a man corners her, he’ll end up dead. She’ll do what it takes. She has found a couple of stooges along the way, but these men were annoying to her. The heat between her and Bart, felt immediately, is irresistible. It’s not only the altitude that proves to her her human-ness. It’s her response to Bart. She starts to make decisions that lead her to her inevitable end because<\/i> of her connection to Bart. <\/p>\n There’s a moment in the swamp, when she raises her head up a little bit and looks down at him. The terror in her eyes is the rabid terror of a fox caught in a trap. It is against her nature to surrender. To the cops, to death itself. But this is true for all of us. It is her decision, finally, about “how to go out”. She’s the one who throws herself into the void, shouting at death and those who want to capture her: here she is, HERE SHE IS, she’ll kill ALL of them before she lets them take her! You can see that knowledge in her eyes, of where she is going<\/i>, when she raises her head and looks at her lover. <\/p>\n Death is present already. It’s over. <\/p>\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun19.jpg\" "\\"gun19\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nIntroduction<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun21.jpg\" "\\"gun21\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBut screw your courage to the sticking place,
\nAnd we\u2019ll not fail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun38.jpg\" "\\"gun38\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n1. There’s something in the way she eats. <\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/guncrazytweed-bg2.gif\")
<\/p>\n2. There’s something in the way she runs.<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun61.jpg\" "\\"gun61\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun45.jpg\" "\\"gun45\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun72.jpg\" "\\"gun72\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n3. “She thicks man’s blood with cold.” – S.T. Coleridge<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun76.jpg\" "\\"gun76\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n4. The turn-around.<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun64.jpg\" "\\"gun64\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n5. The end<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ec2457ac4c71baa813a8046fca5ea323.gif\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gun83.jpg\" "\\"gun83\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n
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\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n