The Surrealists saw Gun Crazy's lovers united on "the road which leads from l'amour fou to la révolte folle" (Ado Kyrou); "...a rigorous love poem...and the overpowering smile of Peggy Cummins is there to prove to us that they aren't going to perdition blindly or under torture" (Gérard Legrand). Barry Gifford places it on the outré edge of the femme fatale m.o. in film noir: "This is a bizarre story of a boy who falls in love with guns, and then in love with a girl who loves guns who drives him absolutely nuts...The camerawork is wicked, like Peggy's mind; the eye is unblinking, relentless, raking across everything its sees like a claw. It's a hard, mean focus, and I suppose that's Joseph Lewis's trademark: the screen pulsates like an injured nerve...It's a damned nervous picture...all the more so for (John) Dall's transformation at the hands of the witch from a decent, easygoing good fella to a sweating, fatigued fugitive...All in all, a remarkable little movie: sexy, violent, stupid, sad, pretty, tense, strange. More than enough."