Guns Girls and Gangsters

1959 "A Cheating Blonde... A Crazed Con.... The Biggest Armored-Car Robbery in History!"
6.2| 1h10m| en| More Info
Released: 01 January 1959 Released
Producted By: Edward Small Productions
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Chuck Wheeler gets out of the Pen and sets up an elaborate heist of Vegas casino money travelling by armored truck. He enlists the help of shady club owner Joe Darren and his ex-cellmate's wife, Vi. Vi's husband Mike is a trigger happy and jealous hothead and will not grant her a divorce. Mike escapes from prison right before the armored truck job goes into motion and promises trouble as he tries to locate his associates and his wandering wife.

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Reviews

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.
WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
calvinnme 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.
kidboots 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!!!
dougdoepke 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}.)
GUENOT PHILIPPE 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".