In his recent Film Comment confession of Guilty Pleasures at the movies, Martin Scorsese stated of Guns Don't Argue:

“On an incredibly low budget, this movie told the entire FBI story, with Pretty Boy Floyd, Ma Barker, Bonnie and Clyde, etc. It's very episodic, very documentary. There's a moment when Ma Barker knows she has to kill her husband. She tells him to go off in the woods; he goes; dissolve to a machine gun; dissolve back and Ma's in the car. It's an amazing film. It's to be studied, because it shows you how to make a film on a low budget. Twenty cents.”