Crime Time

GUN CRAZY/THE BIG COMBO Irish Film Institute, Dublin Fri-Thurs www.irishfilm.ie

Gun Crazy, a key exercise in dirty noir from Joseph H Lewis, began life as a serious- minded, 200-page meditation on the discontents of modern youth by MacKinlay Kantor. When the writer, co-creator of The Best Days of Our Livessaw what Lewis had done to his script, he vowed never to speak to the director again.

Still, Gun Grazy, first released in 1950, shook off Kantor's disdain to exercise a formidable influence on post- war cinema. Starring Peggy Cummins as a carnival sharpshooter and John Dall as the villain who joins her on a crime spree, the film points towards Godard's Breathlessand from there to Bonnie and Clyde and the subsequent re-invention of US cinema.

Martin Scorsese, one of the key directors to emerge in that era, has long championed the virtues of Lewis's other great noir, The Big Combo(1955). Following Cornel Wilde's troubled cop as he seeks to bring down a crime syndicate run by nasty Richard Conte, this fine film joins Gun Crazyin the IFI for a very welcome reissue.