Gun Crazy (PG)

This modest-looking B-movie, first seen in 1949, has acquired a substantial following in the years since – justifiably.

Its tale of two "wild" killers on the run prefigures Bonnie and Clyde, and its direction (by Joseph H.Lewis) is more stylish than audiences appreciated at the time: it flopped on release. Bart (John Dall) is a decent small-town guy who happens to love guns; one look at Annie (Peggy Cummins), a trick-shot artist in a carnival, is enough to make him flip. "We go together", he tells her, "like guns and ammunition go together", and soon enough they're rampaging across the county holding up banks and businesses. The difference between them is that his outlaw stance is all bravado, while she's a real bad'un – ergo the film's revival in the BFI's "Femmes Fatales" season. Lewis handles the action superbly, and adds macabre grace-notes to heighten the fatalistic mood: fleeing a payroll office robbery, the couple make their escape through a warehouse of hanging carcasses. The film's 87 minutes race by.