Guns Girls and Gangsters (1959)

I've written a review for this movie two times and two times my computer has crashed. I'm not doing it again, so I'll be brief.I enjoy this movie much more than I should. It's got a ton of problems, the worst of which are plot holes big enough to drive the armored car in the movie through. But, it's too much fun not to like. Being a movie with Mamie Van Doren, she's quite naturally the center of attention. With two songs, platinum blond hair, quotes like the one I put in the title of this review, bullet bras, and skin-tight skirts - what's not to like? The rest of the cast, Gerald Mohr and Lee Van Cleef in particular, are also good. Van Cleef's crazed killer is an over-the-top blast. Add some real suspense toward the end of the movie, enough plot points for two movies, nice cinematography and locations, and noirish style dialogue - you've got a fun, 50s B-quickie that fans of this stuff should really check out. A 6/10 from me.

They called her the "Platinum Powerhouse" and while she was prettier and more talented than her rival, Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren seemed to be mired in exploitation movies. She wasn't able to capitalize on her success in an A "Teacher's Pet" but after a brief sojourn in Italy she was back in Hollywood where she met talented director Edward L. Cahn but the result was more exploitative quickies. He had started in 1926 as a film cutter for Universal but in the 1950s was behind some cult movies such as "The She Creature" and "Dragstrip Girl". Their first collaboration was "Guns, Girls and Gangsters" guaranteed to have teens flocking to the drive-ins and while Mamie got to show her musical talents in two sexy numbers for the remainder of the film she seemed to act like a cat on heat!! With enough plot complications for 3 movies, let alone one of only 70 minutes in length, this starts off like an Ed Wood Jnr. movie - more voice over than actual acting!! Chuck Wheeler (Gerald Mohr) is trying to recruit a gang to pull off an armoured car heist and of course every gang must have a moll - and who better than Mamie as Vi Victor, a slinky entertainer at Club Toreador, who is introduced singing the sultry "Anything Your Heart Desires" and then encouraging patrons to put their money in the slot machines!!! The robbery is planned to the nth degree - then disaster strikes when Vi's psychotic husband (Lee Van Cleef) escapes from San Quentin and starts shooting anyone who has ever looked twice at his (soon to be X) wife!! He is only stopped as he watches from a window Vi's sexy song "Meet Me Half Way". Thanks to the young couple who are the proprietors of the "Stage Coach Inn" and who dream of white picket fences and little cottages in the country, Vi is a reformed gal. She now wants a home among wide open spaces where she is not constantly looking over her shoulder and Chuck is happy to reform as well. They just have to survive a shootout and her husband's angry ire!!! Can they do it - you'll just have to watch the movie!!!

With a title like "Guns, Girls, and Gangsters", the movie could be headed in only one direction— the local drive-in. Add top-heavy van Doren to the head of the marquee, and you've got a real teenage winner. So what if the result comes off like a 3rd-rate rip-off of Kubrick's classic The Killing of two years before, replete with time-ticking narration. True, there's some imagination that went into the details of the armored car heist here; too bad, however, that the imagination didn't carry over to the lame climax. It's like they were running out of film and had to wrap right away.The movie does have two of B-movies' more underrated tough guys—Mohr and van Cleef. Between them they charge the 80-minutes with some needed authority. Too bad van Cleef makes a late arrival, because their rivalry sets off sparks and could easily have replaced the awkward van Doren's screen time, which is also taken up by two of the most forgettable songs on record. A better script and more imaginative direction minus van Doren could have turned this uneven exercise into a no-nonsense Plunder Road (1958) type, which was also a cheap, but very well executed heist film.(In passing—I wonder if someone in Sinatra's so-called Rat Pack caught this obscure production since the premise looks a lot like Sinatra's Ocean's Eleven {1960}.)

I watch this movie every two years. It's a great classic grade B thriller, perhaps the greatest of the 50's; and the best picture shot by Edward L Cahn. The director usually gives us sleepy flicks, always built on the same frame, except his first ones, the 30's ones, as "Law and order". He lost his soul during the 50's and early 60's, till his death.A little masterpiece. Mamie Van Doren, Lee Van Cleef contribute much for it.A fast paced and pretty shot little thriller. If you are a caper movie lover as I am, DON'T MISS IT.I would put it on the same scale as "Plunder Road".