Gun Crazy (1950)
Which is the way I feel today, honestly. Yes John Dall is probably the worst actor who ever existed anywhere. He played one of the two smart killer homosexuals in Hitchcock’s Rope opposite dreamboat and actual homosexual Farley Granger — even Farley Granger is a better actor than Joh Dall, and that’s not saying much. As soon as I started watching this movie I thought: “I know this actor ruined another movie for me, what was it? Oh yeah, Rope.” But this is Gun Crazy and it is a bad movie treat, it’s sexist in only the incredibly sexy way that film noir can be. Apparently the director Joseph H. Lewis told Peggy Cummins to play her part ‘like a dog in heat.’ (‘Oh thanks, yeah, I’ll give that a try!') Peggy Cummins was too good an actress to obey that asinine directive. In fact she is so good watching her scenes with John Dall is kinda surrealistic as you keep bouncing between ugh, and wow. The movie begins with John Dall’s character — as a boy — being obsessed with guns which we’re supposed to think is okay, because well, boys like guns, right? Oh yes, digression, Russ Tamblyn (who later to grow up to be a teen idol who played the achingly hot Norman Page in Peyton Place - my fave movie of all time) plays one of the boys. So that’s all fine and good, a boy and his bb gun. So we start out all Christmas Story in cute boyhood territory. But then unbeknownst to himself the innocent boy meets a girl who ruins it all because, well, women always ruin it don’t they, with their damned desire? She’s hot for him, so hot — and cool, and calculating, and fiercely manipulative. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, he doesn’t even want to rob banks (now I know why they say this movie was the template for Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde) but every time he vacillates she’s climbing all over him and cooing in his ear. It’s all very Lady Macbeth without the poetry. Dalton Trumbo — who was blacklisted in Hollywood for being a communist — wrote this lousy screenplay under another name. But I wonder sometimes. Will I be blacklisted? For writing this? Because yes I feel kinda gun crazy today and my friend and I were just talking about women and how powerful their vaginas are and I said ‘Well I’m gay…’ and she said “But you know about the power of vaginas — everyone knows…” and I said “Yes…” because it’s true. So my friend has driven me to Toronto in the middle of Coronavirus and we’re having a drink at my air b and b and we’re just going to get drunk and yell about Corona. I guess we’re not supposed to do that, and I’m certainly not supposed to write about it. But Gun Crazy, bad as it is, does have Victor Young’s music and he’s as good as Max Steiner or Alfred Newman. it swells when they are in the car kissing again (what is it about kissing in cars in these movies?) and the theme keeps coming back, it’s like Dr. Zhivago or something. And John Dall, acting anguished, badly, says “Two people dead? Just so we can live without working?” But she kisses him and the angst disappears. My problem is I think I am Peggy Cummins and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (do you remember that scene when they go shopping in a grocery store and they wear dark glasses because they don’t want anyone to see them together and they look so damn conspicuous— very Corona-like behaviour). I know you think I’m just a spoiled brat -- but I have an anti-authoritarian personality. And I am not the only one in the world who does, let me tell you. And we anti-authoritarians are completely triggered by this whole self isolation ‘sheltering’ thing. And of course we shouldn’t be, we should just be good corporate citizens — but me and my friends are the type of people who have always done what everyone has told us not to do. And I wanted to resign from being gay eight years ago because being gay wasn’t rebellious enough for me anymore. I can’t help it that’s just the way I am. If someone tells me to do something I do just the opposite, and I’m trying to modify my behaviour, and wash my hands, and that’s why I’m sitting here drinking with my best girlfriend. The way I look at it is -- we both have dangerous vaginas -- but please don’t blame us. We’re like Peggy Cummins — someone gave us this part, and now we just have to play it out as best we can, even if it means acting with John friggin’ Dall.
