Gun Crazy

The bank heist sequence was done entirely in one take, with no one outside the principal actors and people inside the bank aware that a movie was being filmed. When John Dall as Bart Tare says, "I hope we find a parking space," he really meant it, as there was no guarantee that there would be one. In addition, at the end of the sequence someone in the background screams that there's been a bank robbery - this was actually a bystander who saw the filming and assumed the worst.

To get the shot entirely from inside the car, the back of it was stripped out and replaced by boards and a jockey's saddle. The boards were greased so the camera could easily slide and change angles. Director Joseph H. Lewis and several crew members were crammed into the back. The only lights they had for the actors were two small key lights operating off batteries. The sound was recorded with microphones hidden in the sun visors. To get the dialogue on the sidewalk when Laurie gets out to distract the cop, Lewis placed two sound men with boom mics on the roof; they were strapped up there the entire time the car drove up to the bank and sped off.

The screen credits indicate that the script was written by MacKinlay Kantor and Millard Kaufman. However, it was revealed in 1992 that Kaufman had acted as a front for blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo.

John Dall and Peggy Cummins did all their own driving in the film, and according to Joseph H. Lewis, only one process shot (i.e., rear projection behind the actors pretending to drive) was used in the entire film.

The 17-page bank robbery sequence was scheduled for a three- to five-day shoot with numerous camera set-ups, but director Joseph H. Lewis decided he didn't want to do it the conventional way. He told the producers he could pull it off in a single day with one shot that never entered the bank. Since that would cut down on production time and eliminate the need for a bank set, the idea appealed to their budget consciousness, but he still had to prove to them it was possible. So he did a test run with extras using his own 16mm camera.