Love, guns, and crime on a low-budget. Told with miles of style by great B-movie director Joseph H. Lewis, this is the story of two gun lovers who meet, fall for each other, and then make like Bonnie & Clyde. She’s the sexy blonde carnival performer (Peggy Cummins) who wows crowds with her sharpshooting act. He’s a troubled, lonely guy (John Dall), fresh out of the Army, who happens to catch her show one night. She’s a crack shot who can light a candle from thirty feet away with a bullet. He’s even better than her. They can’t resist each other and the jealous carnival owner can’t stand it, so they hit the road and take to robbery to get by.
The big problem: John Dall’s a sensitive soul who hates the criminal life and would rather settle down with a real job, while Peggy Cummins gets a sexual charge from the excitement of it all. He has the talent to shoot a flea off a dog from across a four-lane street, but he can’t stomach the idea of killing anything, human or animal. She has fewer qualms about spilling blood.
This exciting movie’s most famous scene is the bank robbery filmed in one long, unbroken take for three-and-a-half minutes from the backseat of a car, with the actors doing their own driving on real streets and improvising their dialogue.