as Bart Tare at age 14 Paul Frison as Clyde Boston at age 14 David Bair as Dave Allister at age 7 Stanley Prager as Bluey-Bluey Virginia Farmer as Miss Wynn Anne O'Neal as Miss Augustine Sifert (office manager shot dead by Laurie) Frances Irvin as Danceland singer Robert Osterloh as Hampton Policeman Shimen Ruskin as Cab Driver Harry Hayden as Mr. Mallenberg, the plant manager Production The screenplay was credited to Kantor and Millard Kaufman; however, Kaufman was a front for Hollywood Ten outcast Dalton Trumbo, who considerably reworked the story into a doomed love affair. The picture originally was slated to be released by Monogram Studios. However, King Brothers Productions, the producers, chose United Artists as the distributor. Gun Crazy enjoyed wider exposure because it was a United Artists release. The King Brothers originally announced they wanted Veronica Lake for the lead. In an interview with Danny Peary, director Joseph H. Lewis revealed his instructions to actors John Dall and Peggy Cummins: I told John, "Your cock's never been so hard", and I told Peggy, "You're a female dog in heat, and you want him. But don't let him have it in a hurry. Keep him waiting." That's exactly how I talked to them and I turned them loose. I didn't have to give them more directions. The bank heist sequence was shot entirely in one long take in Montrose, California, with no one besides the principal actors and people inside the bank alerted to the operation. This one-take shot includes the sequence of driving into town to the bank, distracting and then knocking out a patrolman, and making the get-away. This was done by simulating the interior of a sedan with a stretch Cadillac with room enough to mount the camera and a jockey's saddle for the cameraman on a greased two-by-twelve board in the back. Lewis kept the onscreen conversations fresh by having the actors improvise their dialogue. Reception Critical response In his 1998 book Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, critic and film historian Eddie Muller commends the production. "Joseph H. Lewis's direction", he notes, "is propulsive, possessed of a confident, vigorous simplicity that all the frantic editing and visual pyrotechnics of the filmmaking progeny never quite surpassed." Sam Adams, media critic for the Philadelphia City Paper, wrote in 2008: "The codes of the time prevented Lewis from being explicit about the extent