Guns Girls and Gangsters (1959)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Absolutely Fantastic

A different way of telling a story

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

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.

This film about an armored car heist has a script with more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but just forget all that and enjoy the action and fun.It's about that late 50's production code busting vibe, about gangsters who, like James Cagney's Cody Jarrett, now found themselves made obsolete by police with high tech methods, and about musical numbers that are inserted into the film that are half old-style production number half coffee-house beatnik stuff.Don't think too hard! Don't ask yourself why the best-of-the-bad gangsters (Gerald Mohr as Chuck Wheeler) in the film manages to win the heart of nightclub singer Vi Victor (Mamie Van Doren) when the first thing he does when they meet is slap her and paw her like she has no say in the matter or how he endears himself to her for only killing three people instead of five. Don't ask yourself why Vi bothers to put on a robe when she answers the door in the middle of the night when that robe is practically transparent and then she lets it "all hang out" by not closing the robe. Don't ponder why Vi's estranged convict husband (Lee Van Cleef as Mike Bennett) breaks out of prison just three months before his parole and then ruins a heist that was his idea in the first place by killing two of the three people involved in the heist the day before the job. By the way, Bennett would have been up for parole, not just automatically released. I can't believe that any parole board would have taken one look at that snarling animal and done anything but send him back to finish his sentence.Finally, don't ask yourself why when the heist finally comes off that the crooks just didn't leave the easily identified armored car in the garage in the first place and take off with the money in a "civilian" car or why when things went bad they went BACK to the garage where the armored car last reported its status - flat tire - where they had to know the cops were headed.The ending is a hoot with a voice over reminiscent of the old "Highway Patrol" series in which the film has to make a hero out of....the armored car??? ... with the announcer saying "it did what it was designed to do". A real hoot and highly recommended for the fun of it all.

There is a scene in this movie that totally sums up the 1950s. Mamie Van Doren, bleached hair flowing in the wind, glamorous sunglasses glinting in the sun, drives a 1958 Edsel Citation Convertible, no doubt pink, that is pulling a horse trailer. It doesn't get any more 1950s than that!!!!Enjoy this movie for its 1950s clichés. All the good girls are brunettes, and the bad girls are blondes. Men in tight suits and skinny ties. Crappy Rock-n-Roll. Cops save the day. Bad people get punished. People talk tired Film-Noir-speak. Mamie Van Doren's Bullet Bra and wide hips encased in an iron girdle.Show this movie at your next 1950s party.

Chuck Wheeler (Gerald Mohr) gets out of prison and heads to Las Vegas to enact an elaborate heist where he plans to steal an armored car carrying over $2 million in post-New Year's gambling money. He enlists the aide of local gangster Joe Darren (Grant Richards) and his lounge singer fiancé Vi (Mamie Van Doren), who just happens to be the wife of Wheeler's old cell mate. They plan everything out and it looks like it will go smoothly until Vi's ex-husband, Mike (Lee Van Cleef), breaks out of jail. This is a quick moving B-picture and director Edward L. Cahn never lets it lag through its 70 minutes. Van Doren isn't as much of a bad girl as in the previous feature I saw, VICE RAID. Here she is more of a good girl caught in a bad situation. To show how good she is, Van Doren gets two musical numbers in this one. Surprisingly, they don't play up her curves as much as VICE, but the swelling horn section is still abused plenty on the soundtrack. The supporting cast is all good and it is funny to know that even when he was young, Van Cleef still looked old.