The distributors at United Artists thought so highly of the film that they decided the title Gun Crazy was too pulpy and, against Lewis' objections, released it early in 1950 under the title Deadly Is the Female. It did not do well at the box office and was pulled from distribution. In August of that year, it was re-released with its original title, but exhibitors balked that they were being fed a stale older picture. Ultimately, the film made little money.

In 1998, Gun Crazy was chosen by the National Film Preservation Board to be one of the films preserved in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

In his book of conversations with filmmakers Who the Devil Made It (Knopf, 1997), Peter Bogdanovich asked Joseph Lewis what his favorite film was. "Gun Crazy," Lewis replied. When asked his second favorite, Lewis replied again, " Gun Crazy."

"After a slow beginning, it generates considerable excitement.... Because of so much establishing footage, the picture seems long. Latter half, however, races along under Joseph H. Lewis' direction, being a continual chase broken only by new holdup jobs pulled by Dall and Cummins. Script points up the physical attraction between Dall and Cummins but, despite the emphasis, it is curiously cold and lacking in genuine emotions. Fault is in the writing and direction, both staying on the surface and never getting underneath the characters." - Variety, December 31, 1949

"The performances of John Dall and Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy suggest the vitality of the American action movie despite its relative obscurity." - Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema (Dutton, 1969)

"One of the best American films ever made." - Filmmaker Paul Schrader, 1971. In 1972, Schrader helped introduce British readers to film noir with an article he wrote in Film Comment and a film series with ten titles he picked to be the best representatives of the style. Gun Crazy was one of the ten.

"Few films are more singularly preoccupied with externals to the exclusion of attention to interior states. ... This makes for good visceral cinema, wherein characters express themselves exclusively through their actions. ... Of the four great renditions of the 'Bonnie and Clyde' tale (Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once, 1937; Nicholas Ray's They Live by Night, 1948; and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, 1967), Lewis' is paradoxically the most impressive and the least important. In choosing to render the story down to its leanest elements, Lewis achieves unique originality at a slightly lower level of profundity." - Myron Meisel, 1974, reprinted in Kings of the Bs (Dutton, 1975, edited by Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn)

"There is no point in overpraising Lewis. The limitations of the B picture lean on all his films. But the plunder he came away with is astonishing and-here is the rub-more durable than the output of many better-known directors." - David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film (Knopf, 1994)

"Joseph H. Lewis's direction is propulsive, possessed of a confident, vigorous simplicity that all the frantic editing and visual pyrotechnics of the filmmaking progeny never quite surpassed." -Eddie Muller, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (St. Martin's Griffin, 1998)

"The codes of the time prevented Lewis from being explicit about the extent to which their fast-blooming romance is fueled by their mutual love of weaponry (Arthur Penn would rip off the covers in Bonnie and Clyde, which owes Gun Crazy a substantial debt), but when Cummins' six-gun dangles provocatively as she gasses up their jalopy, it's clear what really fills their collective tank." - Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper, 2004

"Some people might call Citizen Kane the great American movie. I might just opt for Gun Crazy instead." - Gary Johnson, Film Noir Reader 4 (Limelight Editions, 2004, edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini)

"While 1940s cinema was packed with devious dames, few can match Peggy Cummins's hellcat sharpshooter Laurie Starr for sheer manipulative allure. ... Gun Crazy is a magnificently enjoyable film, distinguished by Joseph H. Lewis's restless, catch-all directorial style; visually, the film ranges from classic gritty noir to hyperstylised modern gothic, to a startling single-take hold-up sequence shot on crowded streets. The filmmakers never miss a chance for a sly Freudian aside: from Bart's little problem with guns (he can point, but he can't shoot) to Laurie's zealous lust for control, Gun Crazy is awash with hysterical symbolism. A genuine treat." - Tom Huddleston, Time Out London, March 2009

by Rob Nixon