"Guns, Girls, and Gangsters" not only has a great title, but this inexpensively made film works well for lovers of film noir. While it doesn't have all the great lighting and camera angles of some of the best noir, it does have a cold, nasty edge to it that makes it a standout picture.When the film begins, Chuck Wheeler (Gerald Mohr) boldly approaches the nightclub singer, Vi Victor (Mamie Van Doren*) and insists she introduce him to her boss...a sophisticated hood. When I say insists, I pretty much mean he forces her with threats and intimidation. Why would Chuck take his life in his hands this way? After all, this boss ALSO is sweet on Vi. Well, it seems that Chuck and his cellmate in prison came up with a great plan to steal $2,000,000 and if they keep their heads, they'll all be rich.Unfortunately, like almost all film noir movies, there is a glitch that gets in the way of this can't miss plan...that cellmate, Mike Bennett (Lee Van Cleef) escapes from prison. Mike is a sociopath and is mostly concerned with killing anyone who is involved with Vi- -even though she divorced him long ago. Without even bothering to find out what was going on, he starts killing folks! In fact, killing people is like eating potato chips with this guy...he can't stop at just one! So what is the clear-thinking and slick Chuck going to do? And, will this great plan STILL work?I appreciated a lot about the film. Despite Mamie Van Doren, Gerald Mohr and Lee Van Cleef all being B or C-list actors, they are all excellent and very convincing. Additionally, the script is very tough and gritty. An exciting little film...one not to be missed by noir nuts like me!*I have no idea HOW she's done it, but I've seen recent pictures of Miss Van Doren. Despite her age, she is incredibly sexy and not the least bit apprehensive about posing in the nude. Heck, most 30 year-olds would be thrilled to have a body like hers....and I can only assume she has some sort of Dorian Gray sort of pact with the Devil that allows her to be so timeless.

"Eat, drink, be merry, and play the slot machines, everybody, because tomorrow, they could set off another bomb at Frenchman's Flats and blow Las Vegas off into a state where they don't allow gambling!" So quips that brilliant songstress, Miss Van Doren, after singing a fairly decent (if tacky) "Anything Your Heart Desires" as a Vegas showgirl that Elizabeth Hurley would envy. After getting a message from her jailbird husband's ex-cell-mate (Gerald Mohr), Van Doren emotes in a way that was absolutely no threat to Monroe, Mansfield, Dors (Diana) or half the other blonde bombshells who invaded the cinema in the 1950's. Mohr's message is a simple slap which is so phony looking on film that it looks like it had the impact of a kiss. The script has such fabulously bad "B" movie lines such as "Take it easy baby, No fuss, no muss" and "I hope they feed you to the fish!", spoken so dramatically that you'd think that the actors believed that they were quoting Shakespeare.While this really isn't a full musical (2 Vegas numbers) and only has minor elements of film noir, it is definitely one of those deliciously bad "B" movies that sometimes gets classified as noir but is one of the type that true noir aficionados argue over. With the already campy name of "Vi Victor", Mansfield seems to grin every time she has to spout one of those deliciously bad lines. Perhaps she was thinking of the oh, so dramatic narration over the action, the narrator sounding like the newscaster from "Gilligan's Island". If you took a sip of a drink every time that "Vi Victor" was mentioned by the narrator, you'd be drunk after 2 or 3 reels! The film also adds in a holiday spirit with such lines as "Drunk all year, and Santa Claus on Christmas!" as it plays Christmas carols in the background.This is a plot line that's been utilized over and over again, the robbery of an armored car truck, and this one surrounds casino money, a plot device also used, and certainly much better. "Vi Victor" is used as a lookout, and it all seems to be going well until "Vi Victor's" jailbird husband (Lee Van Cleef no less!) escapes from prison (on New Year's Eve no less!) and threatens to louse up the whole scheme! I have to categorize this as one of those films that so bad that it's good, the films that drive-ins clamored for and probably never had a sit-down theater showing outside the second run or theaters desperate for a booking. "Make plenty of room. I take deep breaths!", Mansfield shouts to her drunken audience as she breaks into her second number, "Meet Me Half Way". It's just too bad that she lacks the sensuality of Monroe and Mansfield (and certainly their natural ability to be funny), and in her efforts to be sexy just comes up an empty bottle of peroxide.And remember, "There can't be a tomorrow for those who only live for today!" Truer words were never more badly acted.

There is a scene in this movie that totally sums up the 1950s. Mamie Van Doren, bleached hair flowing in the wind, glamorous sunglasses glinting in the sun, drives a 1958 Edsel Citation Convertible, no doubt pink, that is pulling a horse trailer. It doesn't get any more 1950s than that!!!!Enjoy this movie for its 1950s clichés. All the good girls are brunettes, and the bad girls are blondes. Men in tight suits and skinny ties. Crappy Rock-n-Roll. Cops save the day. Bad people get punished. People talk tired Film-Noir-speak. Mamie Van Doren's Bullet Bra and wide hips encased in an iron girdle.Show this movie at your next 1950s party.

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}.)