130 – Guncrazy (1992): Drew Barrymore's Indie Crime Drama - How Do You Drew

Hey Juby, it's Ashley and Anne here to make sure you know about our Patreon. For just $1.00 a month, you'll get access to our 16 exclusive episodes deep diving every chapter of Drew's 1990 autobiography Little Girl Lost, and currently we're working our way through coverage of her 2015 book Wildflower. We also share scans of full magazine features and rare photos and content from our massive Drew Barrymore archive. Plus, we snail mail Drew Magazine goodies to those members at the $5 level for those of you who also like collecting and paper like we do.

Yeah, as independent podcasters, we truly appreciate the support and can't wait for you to join us. Patreon.com slash. Hello and welcome to How Do You Drew? This is a Drew Barrymore fan podcast brought to you by the friends, collectors, and historians behind the Druseum. We're drawing on over 25 years of Druby expertise to dive into all aspects of Drew's world, from her personal life to her professional career. Thanks to our sponsor and friends at Positive Medium. I'm Anne. And I'm Ashley, and this week, as promised, we are discussing the 1992 film Gun.

Crazy. Yes, yes, this. I'm just going to say already I like forgot how great this movie is. Yes, I feel like, I mean, I've literally been prepping this episode for a month, I think. So I've been like in the movie, surrounded by it for a while and I'm like, I have this whole new appreciation for it. This is a good movie, and this is a really cool movie in Drew's filmography. Totally, I mean, we've wanted to cover this for a while. So like, and we always say this, but like to have the excuse reason to like dive into something like this was very worthwhile.

And I'm I know it was weird to release Poison Ivy again, but like, I'm really glad to have that leading up to this. Like if you guys are watching like Poison Ivy and then watching Gun crazy, like yeah, the trajectory, the like similarities of the characters, the differences of the characters, like how different she seems, all of it. It's. So fascinating. And to think they were done just like boom boom back-to-back in. Her so weird. Acting career. I just love it. We have so much to get into. My notes are copious for this.

One, there are many notes, as there are with a lot of our movie episodes, so I guess we should dive in. So here we are going to get into Gun Crazy. The movie was directed by Tamara Davis. I know we say this a little bit later, but it was her directorial debut and it was written by Matthew Bright, who later wrote and directed the movie Free with Reese Witherspoon. I've never seen that but I remember thinking it looked cool. Yeah, I saw it once. I barely remember it, but it's very kind of edgy like this.

So I'm when I found that out, I was like, oh, that's kind of a neat thing to learn. Cool. OK, so you don't have the IMDb summary. We've got the prime summary this time. The better of the two. Yes, so this one is a wild teen helps her convict pen pal get out and find a job, but they wind up as lovers on the run. Sure. Yeah, that works. So kind of has you were teasing at the beginning. This is right in the middle of Drews not only her comeback, but her bad girl era. This is how she made her comeback happen.

Was like, let me be this, I hate to use the word sexy. Yeah, she's a teenager, but let me be the sexy bad girl. So you can see our episodes. We've already covered Poison Ivy, of course, we re released that last time. And then Doppelganger, which is like definitely the outlier as far as like quality level. And then we also covered the Amy Fisher story with our friends at movies that made us gay. So those are like the big, I mean, I've obviously bad girls is a bad girl role, but I feel like it's a little separate from these.

It's not as much of the lethal Lolita thing that we're going for in all these other. Movies, right? Yeah. Drews just 16 years old at this time, like you know, I have a 16 year old. It's absolutely insanity to me to imagine her doing these things. Yes, but she did film this just a few months after Poison Ivy and a few months before Doppelganger. And just a quick little aside, it's really interesting to me that she went from like this, which I feel like it's just it's like a film. It's like a very good movie to like Doppelganger.

I'm like, oh man, what a misstep, you know? I also feel like she was probably just like taking so much nook, anything she could get, but sort of like OK, regardless of the quality. If I'm interested in like the character, I guess, but like I just imagine like she booked Doppelganger and then she was like, OK, I'm adding like higher quality stuff around it. I don't know, I'm just like. Making up some narrative in my head, but like, not surprising that there are like different qualities of things that she was like, OK, I just need to fit my fill my schedule.

Yeah, I don't know. And also like how different she looks in each of these character. I mean, literally all four of those, if we're kind of like Amy Fisher's story. Yeah, I mean, that was a priority to her back in the day, to look different for every single character, and she really did it. That's true by 1983, Drew had said. I'm moving away from playing nymphettes and for now I don't want to do anything sexual on screen. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to be selective and I'm going to choose wisely.

And then she also said later, I think after Poison Ivy and Gun Crazy and playing Amy Fisher, I did get all these bad girl scripts and I was like, well, that's nice. You think I do that well as a compliment in itself. But it's not the only thing I can do, and it's not the only thing I want to do. Yeah, I felt, I really liked like just thinking like, this is how she's going to get back in the public eye. This is how she's going to shed the child star image. But then, you know, after doing a few of them, she's like, OK, that's enough.

No more type casting. Yeah, time to shift. Yeah, yeah. Like I don't have only this one lane. Yeah, OK. But now we're back into the time where she really was in that lane. So Tamara Davis had first read the script for this movie in 1985. She was friends with Matthew, I think from film school, and she presented it in a meeting with who executives, I don't know who as part of a package. And she was, like, laughed out of the meeting for being, you know, trying to be a woman director, which just disgusting.

But then the men in the room later went back to the writer and optioned the script like they were going to make it. Like, they like the script. They just kicked Tamra out of it. Luckily, it never got made with those jerks. And six years later, producer Diane Firestone connected with Tamra, and she got her gun crazy to make. So I love that it came back to her like she was the one that was meant to make this film. Yeah. That's so cool. Those stories don't happen always when people are like, they get attached to stuff and then they just go away.

Yeah, this is an important thing to point out because this has come up a couple times when I've been talking to other people about this. So this film Gun Crazy is not a remake of the 1950 film Gun Crazy, which is 2 words instead of 1. Gun space Crazy. Yeah. Though it's often mistakenly reported as a remake, the screenwriter Matthew Right, was somewhat influenced by it, so I'm wondering if that's why they use that name. I don't know. I think he just liked the sound of it and he was just fascinated with the American public, like how some people really had like a gun fetish, but he thought gun fetish sounded stupid because.

It does.

So Tamara herself was influenced by Terrence Malick's film Badlands. And then the inspiration for that movie was the true Crime Story of Carol Ann Fugate and Charles Starkweather. And interestingly, I was like listening to old My Favorite Murder episodes and he covered that case. And I, when listening to it was like, wow, this is giving me gun Crazy vibes because it's about a young teenage girl who hooks up with this older guy that goes on this crime spree. It's much more complicated than that. Much more complicated than gun Crazy, actually by coincidence.

Maybe not. It's just in my mind watching a documentary about her right now called The 12th Victim. It's really fascinating. Definitely recommend. But yeah, so I just think it's kind of notable in this documentary, they kind of talk about all the 90s movies that used the same sort of storyline where this couples on the run committing crimes and they show like True Romance in California and Natural Born Killers. But all those came out a couple years after Gun Crazy. They didn't they didn't show Gun Crazy.

You know, it's a little lesser known. So that totally makes sense. But I just thought that was kind of interesting, that Gun Crazy at this time in the 90s, was sort of on the forefront of like, let's explore the same sort of story over and over again. Interesting. Super interesting. And I didn't think I didn't know about like connections to these, like other true Crime Story or another connection that you mentioned like later that was also like what? And we had no idea. So an attorney who had remake rights to the original Gun Crazy from 1950 threatened Gun Crazy this movie.

But they said, like, fuck it, we're not changing the title. And I guess that ended up fine. Drew said that that she watched the original Gun Crazy with Tamra before the production started. So they clearly probably wanted to at least like be aware, right? Of like what that was. And I want to see it. I do too, and the storyline does sound like close enough that I understand why I like. Some journalists would say it's a remake, but it's. It's it's also like a woman, like I think it's like woman centric.

But anyway, yeah. So Drew said about the story. She said this story is very powerful because it's about two people no one's ever cared about who meet and fall in love and will do anything to stay together. The whole thing is like, no one's ever cared about. When I read this, reading your notes, I was like, oh, but like, yeah, they, you know, they found somebody. They have no one else, basically. Yeah, she also said of the characters. They're both very similar in the fact that they've both been hurt and they're both very strong, and it's a very passionate love that they have for each other, which is incredibly unconditional.

In a nutshell, it's basically about two people who are willing to go to any lengths to be together. I think she has a very romanticized vision of this movie because definitely me, I don't see it as like this unbelievable love story. Like they barely know each other, you know, and she's so much younger than him. Like, there's, we'll get into all that. But yeah, I it's funny to know that 16 year old Drew was like, that's how she perceived the story. Right, and that's how she, like, continuously describes it throughout things.

James Lagrosse. He said the characters are both somewhat childlike due to the trauma they've endured and can only process so much. Which like his character seems even more immature than her. I mean in other ways but like childlike for sure. Yeah, I love that quote. Yeah. And then the final thing that we have, as Drew said, in 1992, I did this film called Gun Crazy, which I'm Gung. How about it's been described as kind of a Bonnie and Clyde meets Badlands, and it is accurate. Cool. I like it. All right, let's jump into the cast and crew a bit.

So you've heard us mention a few Drew James Legrouse, but let's jump in a little bit more. So we had mentioned Tamara Davis as the director. As we said it earlier, it's the feature film debut as director, other first time directors that Drew's worked with. I love this little tidbit. Side note McGee, Richard Kelly and George Clooney Do we need to say what movies? Probably not. And I couldn't think if there were any others, but those are like on the top of my head. And I was like, wow, that's really neat that she's done that.

And she's raved about all of them, too. Right, right, I'm sure had like a big influence on them getting the work, maybe less so gun crazy. She had less influence at that time, but also like really cool. Right, she would Drew would work again with Tamara Davis on a shelved version of Bad Girls as it was like started and then scrapped then Best Men and skipped parts. This meant I I know I kind of enjoyed skipped parts. I don't remember at all. Yeah, we skipped that part. Yes, we skipped skipped parts and a season one episode of Santa Clarita Diet which I also forgot about and love to think about that.

I know. Which Speaking of Santa Clarita diet, we're going to get into that some more this summer, guys, so keep your eyes out. It'll be so fun to watch the Tamara's episode and see if there's anything that like comes up for us. Yeah, I totally. Tamara had a different vision from the original production designers ideas. So she ended up kind of doing the production design herself, which is also like, what? It's so cool. That's really cool. It's. I love it. OK, so Drew's character, she's the lead and her name is Anita Mentier.

And this is wild. Like, I was like, texting you. Like, what the hell? So the character of Anita was inspired by a girl that the screenwriter Matthew went to school with. And once, when they were in 4th grade, he saw this girl trying to kick a teacher in the face. My God. So her name was Nancy Pittman. She later went on to join the Manson Family, where she was renamed as Brenda. OK. She's like, like you can Google her. There's A and I was like, she doesn't seem anything like Anita to me, but maybe it was just this, like he said it, he was inspired by her fearlessness, which is wild.

So. Strange. So strange. Actress Gabrielle Anwar was in the running for the part of Anita, but producers got really freaked out because she did a tape of herself doing the part with her boyfriend in the part of Howard. And for some reason that, like, really turned them off that she was like, trying to cast their movie. And so they just like said, no, she's not doing it. Interesting, I wondered when I read that note like what about it like? I know like there's no like explanation, they just did not like it.

Interesting. The producer Zane W Levitt said that he was watching Firestarter and had the idea for them to reach out to Drew for the part. So I love that like a movie with young Drew, but a very powerful one. Like, she does show a lot of like rage in that movie. Hey, that's a good point, yeah. Tamara recalls getting to Drew through Justine, her friend, her good friend Justine, but Tamara wasn't interested in at first due to Drew's reputation, which I also find. I know. Very interesting to think about, but think about the time right?

Like I'm not super surprised Drew got the script and then called Tamra saying I want this part stop looking I'm her. That's true. And then we just have a nice little collection of quotes from Tamra about Drew. This one comes from our favorite celebrity profile. What was so amazing was Drew called me personally. She called me on the phone while I was casting and, you know, I answered and she said, this is Drew Barrymore. I read the script and you have to see me. I love this character more than anything.

I have to play this character. I just like met with her and I just like completely couldn't get her out of my mind. I drove home from the interview like totally in love with her, just madly in love with her. She completely bewitched me. We get it, Tamra. Same Tamra. Yep, Tamra said. I saw her and knew she was perfect. You could see she's been through a lot and the world has not been easy to her, and yet she has this incredible vulnerability. She's so determined to prove that she's worthy of the Barrymore name.

Oh. Love. And then just a couple years ago, she said Drew did not have a good reputation. But she came in and said nobody takes me seriously. I want to prove that I can come back. And I just melted. I immediately was like, Oh my God, I love you. I will do anything I can to help you out. I also kind. Of love it. It's like these young women in Hollywood feeling like underdogs, and they're like, yeah, let's do this together. Lift each other up. Yeah, like, so cool. There's something really cool about that.

So we have a few quotes from Drew herself about the character of Anita and this one we have audio for. Anita, she's incredible. I mean, when I read the script, I just fell so in love with her. She is so like me emotionally, you know, she's extremely vulnerable and she's been through so much in her life. That one looks like it's on the set. Is it? Yeah, I think so. Drew also said about the character. Anita was very close to home for me. Not that I was so much like her, I'm not, but I had the best understanding of her than any character I've ever played in my life.

Makes sense? Yeah. Like who else would she relate to more? Right before, like before she's an adult or something, I don't know. She also said Anita is a very vulnerable person who's been hurt very much in her life and has an incredible capacity to love, but it's sort of been pushed into the back of her because she's been hurt so much. Do you think? Like, that does sort of sound like Drew, doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, she definitely has pushed back trauma. Yeah, yeah, definitely has. She also described Anita as having a natural tendency to want to accept love from others to validate her feelings.

That makes a lot of sense, too, right? Tamara said that Anita and Drew have connections and that they both made poor choices because of their circumstances. Also, that, like, framing is interesting. It's not like Gary, I mean, Drew's always trying to take like so much ownership for every choice she's made, but like, you were placed in a position for those things to happen to you. Yeah, so just just like all knowing all those things and then you watch the movie, it just gives her performance a whole nother layer.

It's really great. OK, so James Legrow plays her opposite her as the male lead as Howard Hickok. That last name is so weird. So he signed on after Drew did and he thought that her involvement was very appealing. But he also said that their age difference seemed enormous. And I looked it up and it was cuz she was 16 and he was 29. Don't love that. I mean, I guess it's an improvement from Tom Skerritt in the last movie, but. Good point. That's a big age difference. He even remembers her like learning how to drive during filming.

It's funny how like at this time I feel like so many people described her as like an old soul when she was like a kid. I know some people did at this point too, but she's like both really young and not really young. Yeah, what is that thing? She just told Lena Dunham. I felt like I was old, young. I was born old young. That's pretty much what she is, yes, totally. So James had described that there was some tension between he and Drew for reasons that he didn't really recall, but like, peace was ultimately made.

Tamara said James always felt in character. Whereas Drew, when Drew was done, she'd be like, let's go play cards in the dressing room and she'd be Drew as if nothing happened. Drew would think that like, James didn't like her, but Tamra's vision was that he was like just in character the whole time. It's so interesting. But I bet it was just like awkwardness. Like he didn't probably want to engage with her in that way being 13 years older. Tamra said. Like she could very much see that he was like this criminal.

Like that's what he felt like he and he was like, I was probably way too serious and method actor at that. She said that Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she's. But Drew did say they got along very well. That's how she received it. And that he's an incredible actor and I've seen him in a few things. I mean, I think we're going to talk about it in a second, I guess. Yeah, put in some things together. Yeah, so this is the first of three movies they've done together. It's so funny how she has so many people she's done like 3 movies with and the other two are bad girls, which was just a few years later.

And I wonder, I've never thought about this. I wonder if Tamara got him involved. I didn't even think about that till this. Moment that's a great question to maybe ask her one day and then also wishful thinking, which was just like the following year after that. So really kind and they play, you know, like will well, she has a crush on him in that movie. I guess they're not a couple, but she wants them to be. It is sort of like a will they won't they sort of, though. That's how they're framing it.

Yeah, a wishful thinking. I can't wait to talk about that one. Yeah, we. I really love it. It's the weirdest movie. And then James said about Drew in the year 2000. She's very instinctive as an actor. Drew comes with a full complement of options, and she's always very comfortable to work with. I love that had a happy ending. Even if they he's almost 30 and she's 16. Like yeah, I can't. Of course they can't relate this. Is going to be a little weird. A little bit. Totally. OK, so let's talk about another person that she's been in a couple movies with.

Weirdly, Ione Skye, who plays a character, Joy Anita's only friend. It's really the only person that we see her talk to really, other than like crappy people or totally character. What is his name? Howard Ione Skye knew Drew from hanging out at the Zappas in the 80s. There's a little part in her book Say Everything where it talks about it. Oh, she describes the 12 year old Drew as always telling tall, provocative tales that she made sound really sweet, like a swearing toddler. I love that, like envisioning that so much.

But then she says we're all protective of her, which I like that, that theme, like of Tamra. I know that I only was talking about years before, but that's a thing in Drew's life. Her character in this movie is protective of Drew's good point. Yeah, that's a cool through line, like a real life to character. Totally. I only got involved through her shared Beastie Boys connection as she was. Was she married at the time too? I think? She was right before she got married. OK. I don't know if either of them was married to their respective Beastie Boys at the time they were dating for.

Yeah, yes, with them. And Tamara, of course. Long time marriage to one of the Beastie Boys. Yeah, Mike Dean. And she really admired Tamara, so that connection was made. Drew said that she loved Ione's ecstatic energy and was so sad when Ione rapped. Of course we both. I think you showed me this because you had read Say Everything Before Me. Ione like expressing how she really like wanted them to become besties. I know. Yeah, I love this. But I mean, I like how she phrased it. It's like it didn't really happen.

But she said like, Drew was in a great phase of her life. She wasn't this little girl lost anymore. She'd risen from her traumatic childhood like a phoenix. Hell yeah. So, she said on set, Drew quietly compelled everyone around her to rise up to. But Drew and I never became close friends, sadly. Sometimes I wonder if I remind her too much of her chaotic younger days and she'd rather look forward. It's very introspective. Yeah, it is really cool. But they did get to play friends again 13 years later in the movie Fever Pitch, so love that.

Fun little yeah, fun little return.

Michael Ironside plays Mr. Kincaid. He's Joy's dad and Howard's parole officer. And for whatever reason, I think she said it was in like overseas in Asia somewhere, his involvement allowed them to double their budget because he was just that well liked over there, I guess. Wow. But he did teach Tamra like some cool money saving shot ideas, which I really love because this is like a low budget. We'll get into the details of that in a little bit. But like there's a certain shot where he like looks over his shoulder and he like for the idea to do that because then they wouldn't have to move the camera something like that is.

Really. Oh, that's cool. I like that. Like that's like him being in their corner. And he was like the professional on set, Like everybody was like, oh, he's like a real actor. He was like the one who's like, experienced he's doing. We've talked about both of these guys in different and various ways. Rodney Harvey and Jeremy Davies play these shithead schoolmates of of Anita's character named Tom and Bill. It's Jeremy Davies first movie which that's also like interesting. I didn't even remember that he was in it.

So the movie starts and I like sent you a text like is Jeremy Davies in this? Movie like, yeah, he's so horrible and he probably blocked it out. Yeah, Drew had been rumoured to be romantically involved with both of these guys at different times, but maintains that they were just friends. But yeah, there's two of her life. Maybe, possibly boyfriends, whatever. Yeah, that play total jerks. Like the worst. Like so unlikable. Yeah, we'll talk about them. Another surprise. Yeah. So Drew's mom, Jade Barrymore, plays woman with dog, and this is the first time that she and Drew ever appeared on screen together.

And it only happened one more time the following year in Doppelganger. And it was Tamra's idea to have her in the movie. So that's kind of fun, I wonder. How that like proposal came about? Yeah, she doesn't really get too much into it, but it sounds like Drew sort of felt like she was having sort of a reconnection with her mom at this time. OK, so it was just Tamra's idea to throw her in here. So funny. I mean, I know we'll mention it briefly later, but I love when they have like the camping pictures that they show.

I can't wait. Back to some of the crew. So Lisa Rin was the cinematographer? Love that got a female director, female cinematographer. Drew's the start. Like yes, really cool. A lot of credit is given to Lisa's beautiful lighting, colors and angles in the film. I do think it's really wonderfully shot. It's gorgeous. I don't think I would have appreciated that the last time I watched it. So like watching it again? Same, Yeah. And then one more thing about the crew that we got to mention. So Tamara's sister, Kim Davis Wagner did casting on this film.

She would work with Justine, who was mentioned quite a bit in the years following this, and she would do go on to do casting for many flower Films projects. So if you haven't heard us talk about Flower Films projects before, we've got some episodes. Where have you been? Yeah, that's so neat. Like they must have met on this because Drew didn't know Tamara before this, and unless she already knew her through Justine, like, the timeline's a little interesting to me. All right, let's talk a little bit about Anita's look in the movie.

So prior to filming, she had been inspired by Patsy Kensit in the movie 21 and decided to chop her long hair off because she thought like this long Poison Ivy hair was making her look too sexy and she needed to look uncool. Tamara said. The producers freaked out, but I thought it was great, a stroke of genius. It was so messed up looking, this dorky looking haircut. It was perfect for the character. And yeah, Can you imagine her with the long hair? No, that would not have worked. It it wouldn't seem right.

Also, I kind of love the hair. It is cute, but it is dorky at the. Same. It is kind of chopped like there's some points when I'm like, oh, it's giving like adjacent to mad love. Like as far as the length and stuff. I know what you're, but I can't. I mean, obviously just like anything that like we've lived with it the way it is, but it would be weird for her to be more poison ivyish than she is like. She needs to be a little goofy, a little awkward. Yeah, a little bit at least. This is so weird. The key hair and makeup artist was Lori Jean Swanson, who did the makeup for Doppelganger.

Interesting. I know like Drew must have enjoyed her and brought her along but like those looks are so different. Like this journal is crazy. That's true. I guess maybe just like the basic, like non, I don't know. I guess when I think of Topplinger, I'm thinking of like stuff with like the actual horror of the film, something like special effects. But that is that's cool though. And also like that, they were back-to-back. Yeah, I. Love that the costume designer for the film was Mary Lawson and she did her research by studying girls at the Eagle Rock Plaza shopping mall in Pasadena.

I left that tidbit in for you. I love that I was just. An Eagle Rock today. Oh cool, Mary Lawson said. We were looking for a real life gutter image. We didn't want it to look like Hollywood. We wanted a little girl living without a mother who only can buy clothes every few years. I got everything from the Salvation Army, Saint Vincent's de Paul's and Goodwill shops. That's kind of a cool thing too. I would thought about like Mona Mae talking about going to like thrift stores and stuff for never been kissed.

It's like not the same, but I was like, Oh, it's neat that way. Also like her outfits were Oh, you, you wrote a note later too. But like, they're fun. They're so cute. Like in a first green sweater at the beginning of the movie I was like. I'd wear that. I actually really enjoy all of her outfits. There's like a really cute dress when she goes to pick up Howard for the first time. And Mary Lawson, the costume designer, said that she specifically chose dresses that were a little small for Drew, as if they were years old.

And all of a sudden, she, like, grew a bust and she tea dyed everything down to the socks to give the image of someone who doesn't do laundry very often and does it all together. So those details, like, I just love them. They really come through I feel like. Yeah, it's not something you think about, like it's done subtly enough that you don't think about it. But I think it's really believable that the character of Anita is in the state that she's in. Like she doesn't look like overly primed or like anything in any way.

This is a cool detail. So the necklace that Anita wears in the film, Drew's character is it belongs to Tamra. It's that like, long, like silver chain. And it's got Saints, like little charms of Saints on it, which I thought that's what it was. And I saw that. I was like those little St. Charms that you always see, and it's very similar to the necklace that Drew wore with crosses all the time in 1992, which I was like, yeah, I love that. Comparison I will like, first of all, when I found out about it being Tamara's necklace, I was like, whoa, like that's the kind of tidbit that I get really excited about for some reason.

But I do wonder, like I haven't looked closely enough, but I'm like the little charm that she wore with the crosses in 92, like. Right. Is that the? Same, one of them the same. Like I would like to look at it a little more closely because I definitely, you know, I have a theory that the crosses came from Jamie Walters cuz she only wore them constantly when they were together and then they disappeared. But yeah, I'll dig into it a little more. Yeah, one other fun tidbit about Drew's look. So Tamara and the producer Zane had commented on how Drew looks like an old movie star or Betty Davis in the film, which I love that too.

She's beautiful in this. And then like as we said, it's understated. She's not being a Poison Ivy glamour vixen, but there are so many beautiful close-ups of her face, so many profile shots. I took screen caps like I've never taken them before. You even told me like, don't don't worry about taking any. I took a lot. I meant to look. I meant to look because there were so many times, like, towards the beginning of the film, I almost wrote like, cool profile shot. And then like the next line was like you saying profile.

I was like, yeah. OK so the movie was filmed in November 1991 in just 23 days for $800,000. Wow. Like we said before, the original budget was 400,000, but Michael Ironside got that doubled for them. But Tamra, you know, that's still really low budget. So Tamra had to get creative with all these ways to save money. So she mentions like, oh, we use a forklift here instead of a camera crane because it was cheaper to rent. And she says how she would just do as few camera setups as possible and have the actors moving instead of moving the camera so much.

So it's like if you watch with the commentary which I'm going to talk about. Later on. Yeah, and you really do see, like the shots are very long and it's kind of cool, but it's not, it's never like tedious, you know? Yeah, so cleverly it worked very well I guess. Yeah, so the opening credits, all the shots from that and then various location shots shown later on in the movie, they were filmed in Ely, NV and that is where my boss is from. Yeah, I've never been. It's not. I think it's like 3 hours from Vegas but I actually might go this summer for like an event.

So the main reason I want to go is to go see these locations because they haven't changed much this. Is like a small town I assume. It's a very small town very and I put like some screenshots in our notes, which I will also share, but the buildings all look the same. It's very kind of historic looking. So it's really neat, but not much has changed. But basically when they filmed just a small crew, they flew all to Vegas and then they drove to Ely and they only had one day to shoot everything before it snowed because it.

Does wow. Yeah, so really fun to see. Wow, I love these comparison shots. I love. I know that like in one of the shots from the film like this, like part of the building is being built and then and then in the new shot, like it's there and it's completely built and like. I know it's really fun. That's cool, really neat. I, I keep meaning to ask him if he remembers anything about filming because he lived there at the time. You would think he would, but he's like. Oh yeah, I have this picture with Drew Barrymore I never told you about.

I'd kill him. The rest of the movie was filmed around LA County. They had to stay within that 30 mile radius. A lot of it was near Magic Mountain, according to Tamara. And it was a fairly easy production. And they just had a lot of friends on the crew helping out. And it was just like a small little let's get this done in 20-3 days. I love it. So cool. To think about like the little production. The producers wanted to give Drew a driver, and she refused. Instead, she said that she would drive herself.

Tamara said that Drew viewed the car and driver perk as a sign that the producers were worried about her past. Oh, that's kind of like interesting that that she's like, they think I need to be watched. Yeah. Tamara said that Drew said no, you're not going to treat me like a baby, I can get to work on my own. She also said the producer said OK, we have to have blood tests and give her rides to set. And Drew was like, no, you have to trust me. She took a stand and they let her do it. I love that. So cool.

That she was like, no, I'm legally an adult. Yeah, the blood testing too. That's like, just so insulting. That's a lot. I'm glad that dude didn't make her do that. Me too you. Probably would have still stuck with it even if they made her, but like, yeah. Yeah, I'm really glad that. She was able to be like, no, like that's bullshit. She wasn't being treated nicely and either is Anita, so maybe they she pulled from that a little bit. So during and somewhat after filming, Drew temporary lived with Tamara and her husband Mike D of the Beastie Boys at their house in Silver Lake after a breakup.

And I have to think timing wise, this must be that cinematographer Faden Way, who worked on. Place in Ivy. Older than James Legrow even, right? Way older. Yeah. So that's kind of interesting just to think about. But Drew said I showed up at Tamaras House late at night with my laundry basket and she said I could stay in her guest room and then I didn't leave for eight months. Tamara said that she said my husband and I are very much in love and I think it was good for Drew to see what a healthy relationship look like.

On the weekends, she'd sleep really late, nothing could wake her up, and we'd peek in and see her tucked in with all her white pillows and her white comforter and she looks so sweet. There's something about her you just want to take care of her. And if she disappeared for a weekend, my husband got really worried. Then she'd show up on a Sunday evening and be all excited to show us a new tattoo. It's so cute. And I love the screenshot you pulled literally from gun crazy of her curled up and sleeping.

I know. There's Tamara. Like, inspired by what she was seeing in her house. Yes, and you pulled this extra little tidbit that the Blu-ray on the Blu-ray, Tamara said the weekend that Drew was gone. It turned out that she had spent it with her mom and gotten her jade tattoo. Yes. So now we have more of a like timeline for when that happened. I guess we can say N91, I think we thought early 92, but that's so cool. Cool. That also means she did not get the Jade Cherub and the Jamie, Jamie Walters one at the same time, which is kind of fun to learn, right?

She's done an Angel kick, I guess. Yeah. Interesting. And then just one more cute quote about this, Tamra said. It felt like she was kind of our daughter. We provided the surreal stable family for her where she lived with us and she just got to focus on being an actress. So I love like Tamra showing up as another sort of like parental figure which we really didn't have much of 1. What an amazing gift to draw, you know. You know, I really made it a point to everybody to show them that I was Anita, you know, and now that I'm being her, it feels so great because I'm, you know, it's like I really fought for her.

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OK, are we ready to get into the movie itself? Yeah, let's go through it. I have so many things to say. I really like this movie. It's really good, you guys. It is really good. I will say I always just give this little thing like we're not going to go through every beat of the movie. We're going through a lot of the beats of the movie, focusing on Drew. Yeah, which is most of the movie, yes. That's very true most of the movie. So let's get into the very beginning. So immediately we see Anita walking around town, and I think this is outside and Eli Alli.

Heeley. And she looks so pretty right away. You can tell that she's supposed to be like somewhat of an outsider. They're like kind of illustrating at that, right or right or Ray, I mentioned the green sweater. It's in the very beginning. It's very, it's very cute. Tamra has a small cameo at the very start of the movie, basically, and can be seen from the back when the school bell rings. No face. So you must have said this in the commentary, right? She's in a flannel in a beanie and she's shown from the back like I, I was looking for it after I saw your note and I was like, what?

And then I when I saw the screen Cam, I'm like, oh, OK. Yeah, it just shows how like little she was too, I think. I mean, she was in her 20s when she directed this. So cool. Right? So Anita is getting an assignment in her class. I think it's maybe it's like a geography class or something that they're going to find pen pals to learn about the world. And now we get these two dip shits, Rodney Harvey and Jeremy Davies, characters that are such assholes to her, So inappropriate in the classroom. At first, the teacher doesn't even acknowledge what one of them says something awful.

And then they get like a warning, oh, you're going to go to the principal's office? I'm like, get these guys out of here. This is horrific. Take them right now. Take them immediately. There was a deleted scene right around here where the these same boys are harassing Anita during lunch and Ione Skye comes in and like defends her and she's wearing a Princess costume. So there's a few photos of this flying around out there. And there's also even like some sort of low quality footage of it on the Blu-ray where you can see Ione like coming in in the back.

I actually messaged her on Instagram to see if she remembered what it was and she didn't. She's really sweet about it. And she's like, you can ask Tamra, but I found out in the commentary Tamra says originally this was supposed to be on Halloween for some reason. And there is a girl in the classroom who has like cat whiskers on her face. Funny. Yeah, but it's like it was such a half assed thing. I guess they just like decide not to pull any attention to it. Oh that's really funny because I I vividly remember seeing this still many times of Drew and Ionian being like I don't know what this is like totally.

Like Drew's look is so distinctly a gun crazy. But like otherwise like what movie is this from? So Anita starts walking home and here come these dipshits again. And it's just so hard to see like how they treat her and she just wants to be accepted by them. And they get her to basically agree to come along with them in the car. And it just like breaks my heart. It's so real and they're so disgusting. This. There's a really cool moment here where there's a Beastie Boys song, Gratitude, that plays in the background during their drive to the dump.

So I kind of like that. And she's like, I can get that one for cheap. Let's get that song in here. Yes, and I know we probably don't want to talk about how gross this is, but like the guy is like groping Anita and saying they only tease her because they like her. Yeah, gross. Disgusting. And then are we to believe that she had sex with both of them in this like tube in the desert? Or whatever I think so. It's just awful. And she just want they're like, oh come on, you like us? Like we won't tell anyone.

Like wants to be accepted, right? That's what she says. As long as you don't tell anyone. Yeah, it's just the epitome of disgusting teenage boys and. Totally your heart. For her, we get to see after that, she goes home to this trailer that she lives in. It's very depressing. And then here's another disgusting man. Her mom's boyfriend lives at the house. Mom is still alive, but she's taken off. So now Anita's stuck with this nasty guy Rooney, who's just as horrible as the guys at school. If not more.

Yeah, and there's a very sad shower scene. I was like, well, at least there's no blood this time, like in Doppelganger, but put a pin in that. Yeah. And then it's just awful. She has to share a bed with this disgusting guy, like, and she, like, gets up when he falls asleep and she goes and lays outside. But, you know, like a mattress. Oh, it's. Just I was like, oh, little Cinderella. Oh, totally. Oh, it's like by choice, she'd rather be out there than her dad's boyfriend who's coming. Dad's boyfriend.

Oh, sorry. Probably better. And probably better if it was her dad's boyfriend. That's very true. Her mom's boyfriend just like constantly coming on to her. It's really sick. OK, so we mentioned this pen pal, you know, thing in the class that where she was supposed to find a pen pal. So. So we're now we're back in class and Anita shares that she has found her 2424 year old male pen pal named Howard, who's been in prison for three years. And it's so sad how she just seems to have no awareness of how inappropriate it is.

She like reads his letter and it's everyone in the classroom's like what? Yeah, and I think the teacher says something like, that's not quite what we were thinking, you know? I don't know. I mean, do we want to hear any of the letter?

Now I spend my days painting and reading. Before I only knew how to do one thing good. Shoot guns. I always dreamed of a girl who like guns. Perhaps it was you I was dreaming of. It's so. It is cringy, so sad, but the Anita seems excited. I know. But of course, of course it's just like the nicest anyone's ever been to her. And it's literally one letter from a dude in prison who's way older than her. Like, great, right? One positive thing about this letter is that it gives her some confidence and so she's like ready to stand up to these assholes at school.

And this clip. I totally downloaded this from an old Drew fan site. When I hear it, it like takes me back probably before I even saw the movie. I totally knew the clip before I like heard it and played it. But let's let's hear this little gem. Don't bother me anymore, I have a boyfriend now. Oh, and then her friend Joy comes in and gets rid of these dip shits, which I love that. So it's kind of interesting because like that scene that they cut, it looks like she was doing the exact same thing. So maybe it just started feeling redundant.

Yeah, true. That's a good point. They're like, OK, how many times can she be saved by her friend? When? Until she gets a gun. At least she's got someone in her, Horner. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of guns, Anita wants to learn how to shoot. She's like, after this thing with Howard, she's like, yeah, I guess I got to become his dream girl. Yeah, Drew was already familiar with guns and how to shoot. Very weird to me. Yeah. She's Drew said that it's something that she and her friends would do for fun, which I guess I'm not like that surprised by considering she would just want to try things.

I guess it's interesting because I remember when we were covering a certain magazine article from like 93 and she was talking about having A and we were like, that is so weird. And we kind of blamed it on Jamie Walters. We thought maybe he got her into it, but this predates that. So I guess we were wrong. Sorry, Jamie. It just doesn't seem like her, but you know, no drill. Yeah. We do get a peek of Drew's cross tattoo on her ankle here. And I was like, I forget how like, early it was when she got it.

So like, I don't know, I was surprised. I don't know why. I love that they left all her tattoo all. I think she only had a handful but. I know that we get to see more than one, right? Yeah. Yeah. A letter from Howard reveals that he has a chance of getting out on parole if he has a job lined up. So it's almost like here's a job for you, Anita. Yeah. Yeah. Convenient for him. Yes, and I, this is such a fun little part. Anita records an audio tape to send to Howard, which we'll play a little bit of because it's really cute, actually.

Hi, Howard, this is Anita. Do I sound like you thought I would? And that surely was the nicest thing I've ever read. And you said you love me. I love you more than warts could ever know, my darling. It goes on. It's very cute, but you're right, it's very like, geez, now we're in love. We've exchanged a couple letters. It's like the equivalent of meeting some old dude online and you know it's awful. Yeah, a little bit. There's a really cool like close up of her mouth when they're like, she's like recording this part.

It's beautifully shot. I love the screenshot you got of this. She also sends a really cute Polaroid of herself to him that comes in the same letter as the as the. Yeah, it took me by surprise. Yeah, and we love real. Photos, like, I know I've kind of forgotten him. When I saw it, I was like, that is so cute. We need that. Share that on the episode page. Yeah. Where is that? Where is that photo? It's clearly a Polaroid. Yeah. And then I don't remember, does he like, respond? But basically there's these little fantasy visions that he's having of her.

There's two. And they're very different from the rest of the movie. They were actually shot after filming it wrapped. And Drew's hair is shorter and like almost like lighter or brassier. And this is like, fun little piece of info. They were filmed at G Sun Studios, the Beastie Boys recording studio. That's fun. I like that little tidbit right away. I don't know. I don't know why there's one little part where she's wearing this like rodeo style shirt and she's like going to shoot a gun gun or like pretending to shoot a gun.

It's it's a fantasy and it reminded me of when this is so random, but I know you knew of when Drew was on the Letterman on the David Letterman show in like 1999 doing a dog trick with Flossie. And she also like has sort of like a rodeo style thing and goes bang. I totally see it. Flossie plays dead. Very cute. Also like I am positive that probably I don't know when I look at this like the screen cap I don't immediately go gun crazy. Like it almost looks like a photo shoot. Well, and again, like you can tell, yeah, Tamara even says something like even though it only been a very short amount of time, she'd already changed her hair cuz that's what she used to do back then.

Yeah. So Howard writes a letter claiming that he has accepted God so that Anita can get him a job with a preacher as sort of like an assistant. So that all works out. He's going to get out. Everything's going great for these two, except. So we get a little scene here where Anita's starting to really feel like good about herself. She's really good at shooting. She's just like a natural at it. But then she has a horrible encounter with Rooney, her mom's boyfriend. It's implied he rapes her and she shoots him in the trailer living room.

And I'm like bye bitch. Yep, see ya. We don't need you. No. You're being of no positive service to this this young girl. You could go. Yep, so and then perfect timing 'cause now it's time for Howard to come. Yes, come on over, it's all free here. Tamara intentionally kept Howard James Lagro's character mostly off screen until now. So you don't meet him until Anita does, which I think is cool because like you don't really have any sense what he looks like or anything. And then you meet him and he's very non threatening.

I don't think that that character looks like scary. I mean. He really comes across as sort of like he's trying to be like a gentleman. Like Tamara said, that was sort of one of the things that she was intrigued by was this idea of like these criminals, but like they can also have like good sides to them, like exploring that psychos. Maybe, or like kind of they are, but I don't know. Yeah. So Anita's character picks up Howard from the bus stop. She like, drives herself in her in Rooney's car. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She actually looks her age in the scene, I think, cuz she's like nervous or something. But they're so awkward together at first, which like of course they've exchanged a couple letters like. Right. No. Makes sense. But I do think it's played. It is played well. You can feel the awkwardness. Very real. This part is very weird. So she takes him to the church, I guess is like with the guy who he's going to be working with. And there's this creepy sermon in process where it involves snakes and banjo music.

And what's funny is that like, Drew's character, Anita, like they have Drew like laughing. She's sitting in the back, kind of like laughing. It's almost like, yeah, this is what I grew up around. Like, doesn't faze her, but it's such a, like, weird part of the movie. It creeps. Me out it is odd. So he's going to work there, great, but she's not allowed to stay there with him. But then she comes and knocks on the window at night to his bedroom and it feels very mad. Love to me it. Does it's really cute feels like when she's knocking on the classroom window.

I also I wrote this down. It feels funny to like read this out of context, but the reveal of her like having a gun in her pants is so cute because it shows her like bare midriff and she's got like these red like corduroys on and she's gun tucked, this huge gun tucked into. Camera said something about that shot. I can't remember exactly what, but I think like she'd like storyboarded it like she. Really liked that shot. Cool. I really like it too. Like there's something also the color in it I think is also like.

The color in this movie? Now really cool. It's really cool. Like, surprisingly so. Anita takes out Howard to shoot and she tries to seduce him, and she's really confused when he's uninterested. She's so used to using her body as like, the tool to get pain to like her, except her, you know? And so she's just like, I don't get it. So we get a scene where Howard goes to his parole officer and it's revealed that that's Joyce, dad. So just this little small town, of course, that works out that way. And he wants Joy to stay away from these two, which is understandable.

Anita just casually drops here that she has left school. She's done with that. Yeah. And anyway, Joy ends up giving them a ride back to the trailer when their truck isn't working, so they have this cute little girlfriend's moment at the trailer. I just love seeing Ione and Ruby so like, cute and silly and they're drinking and dancing. They do this like, little choreography. It's just adorable, Ione said. Like, she sort of felt like she and Drew were overwhelming James. She's like, that's kind of the point, but like, it felt like it was happening in real life too.

Not surprising. Like now you're like very, very cute. Like giggly giggly high energy girls. Yeah, So Joy's dad comes in and, like, breaks up the party. And Tamara said it was really hard to get this scene shot because once Drew gets the giggles, it's hard to stop her. And then there's, like, this moment after Joy's dad leaves that wasn't scripted where she says something like, I guess your parole officer doesn't like you. And she starts cracking up again. And Tamara said that was like, totally Drew actually laughing, which you can see.

You can see it. Actually, like that specific part, I was like, as this was coming up, I'm like reading your notes as I'm watching. I'm like, OK, where? And it was like so clear. Like that is a real giggle. I do like hate that Joyce Dad makes like some really gross remark to Anita because like, you kind of want to root for him in parts of this movie. But after that, I'm sort of like, oh, you suck just as much as everyone else. Because he seems to want to like, write her off. Oh, yeah. But like, you think he's like trying to, you think he's like a good guy at some point, but then yeah, he's he calls her trash or something.

It's awful. Yeah. It is, it is. It is rude for sure. Nobody seems to like, want to pay attention to the fact that Anita is like a 16 year old girl and they're just like writing her off as like, whatever. She's with everyone. Yeah. It's. Awful. So in this part of the movie Howard and Anita are just like hanging out outside on a blanket and the preacher like comes up assuming that they are messing around. But we find out that Howard is still isn't ready for sex and he doesn't really get it. Howard is like adamant that nothing has happened, but the preachers also adamant that they need to get married.

Well, yeah, he says something like you can't be caught with an underage girl. It's like, yeah. Yeah, no kidding. So let's get married. Anita is really excited about this prospect. Oh, she looks so cute as a bride. You know, I love bride Drew on screen. It's like one of my favorite things. And she has a little Daisy bouquet so love that it feels early for a Daisy reference. It does. I also wonder like every once in a while when I've seen daisies, I think about how they're like a cheap flower and I'm like, I wonder if that's supposed to like, in this case, be like up.

They just got like an inexpensive flower just. To these that makes sense. We love to think that there's actually a connection to being Drew's favorite flower and that she had something to do with the decision. So Howard is once again unable to perform sexually that night, and Anita says that they can get together in another way by telling each other their deepest secrets. So his is that he's never been able to be with a woman. He's basically impotent, frigid and impotent. And her secret is showing him her mom's way.

Dead boyfriends, rotting corpse out in like a freezer. Frigid and impotent. They really are. They really are. I like how she presents it too. And she's like, this is how I'm or this is my consummation. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And it's nasty. Like Tamara says like wow, I thought this like wouldn't hold up like the special effect body, but she's like, it actually looks really gross. I wanted the body to not be so rotted because it was in like a fridge but I'm like OK I guess the fridge was not.

Probably not plugged in. Yeah, at this place. That makes a lot of sense, actually. They live in, like a junkyard. Yeah. So they Howard's like, oh, shit, now we got to deal with this. This isn't good. You know, I, I definitely feel for him a little at this bar. Yeah, 'cause he's like, OK. Yeah, OK, we got to, we got to figure this out. So they take the body to this like random furnace at the dump that just runs all the time, I guess. And Anita has a nice little thing to say as their the body.

Here lies pig, may he roast in hell for all eternity.

Yeah, girl. So there's this really sad speech from Anita here about how she's been abused, and now that Howard's here, he's like, set her free and no one better ever mess with her again. And this one really got me. So Tamra said that Drew, unexpectedly to Tamra, changed the dialogue here. And she was supposed to say, like, ever since I was 13, men have only one and one thing for me. And Drew changed it to 9. I just was like, I hope there's no reason for that besides just it felt true to the character.

I feel like there's probably a reason for it. I know it's just icky. Sad is icky to think about. Speaking of Vicky, Speaking of Vicky, those assholes from school show up again and they're harassing them. Howard, though, ends up shooting and killing them both. Kind of by accident, but kind of like it's like he has no control over himself. He doesn't want to do these things. Right. So he's like, you're making me do this kind of Anita, though, says at one point to one of the guys, it'll be OK Tom, just think about Jesus.

No, right before he like is die, like dies or is shot again or whatever it is. I mean, I don't think it's intended to happen. But it does. Happen and they're gone. I like that you point out that there's another yellow car for Drew and the reason they take that yellow car is because they're trying to take their truck and it won't start and she's like, we can't leave this here. The police will know, and they're like, let's burn this one. Got to have Drew in a yellow car. As they bury the bodies, Howard tells Anita if they get caught to say that he made her do everything, that it was like he that he was the impetus for every bad doing that happened, which.

Semi true, sort of, but she did. Start a lot of it herself. Yeah, so then I was like, oh, I guess we're going to get a bloody shower scene after all, cuz they show them showering together after this and they're the blood is going down the drain. Tamara was a little worried about this because of the wet tank top shot of a 16 year old Drew, which I'm like, yeah, I don't think we needed that. I. Don't really know. Why we probably not, no. But we do get another tattoo peek here of her little toe moon and it's very cute and I love that her like toenail polishes chipped like of course this girl.

That's just true. In fact, she even puts on nail Polish, right? Well, that is true too. It's. Probably just true, but I like that you like the character. And then this is wild. So James has a memory that during filming of this scene, there was like, it was one of those moments where he and Drew had some tension between them, but then Drew just went over to him and gave him a hug to, like, make peace. And then this glass plate that was above them to protect the camera from the water fell and shattered right where she'd previously been standing.

Kind of a try it magic. Magic Drew or magic James calling you over. What was that? Thank goodness. Thank goodness. OK, so this is just like a weird aside, but it takes us to where it takes us. It's fine. Yeah. So the preacher, the one we mentioned earlier who likes to use snakes in his in his sermons, gets bit by like a rattlesnake. And they say that they're like whatever D poisoned or whatever, right? I'm like, what? They take him to the hospital. You figured out that it's the Linda Vista Community Hospital in Boyle Heights in neighborhood in LA, supposedly super haunted and a frequent filming location.

OK, you've got a little tidbit here that I bet. You have, well, I recognized it once I because they don't show it from the front. But when I did see what the front looked like, I was like, oh, it's Sunnydale Memorial Hospital in Buffy. I was so excited to see that. But it's used to lie. Of course. Our friend Lindsay Blake has a whole post about it, but she didn't know about Gun Crazy, so I told her about that, which was fun. They also used it for the jail scenes and for Kincaid's office, which is really neat.

Oh, OK. And then I've like, you know, I was putting it on our locations map. And funnily enough, is this less than half a mile, so extremely close to where the whole doppelganger scene with the train tracks in the tunnel where that was filmed. So it's like just a few months later, she's back there filming again. It's just so funny. Like, I feel like nothing's filmed in LA anymore, right? But like, back then, it's just like, yeah, I was just here across the street a couple weeks ago, right? That's so fun.

I love those little things. And that's the, that's the strength of the map, right? We never would have like put those things together without like, like our archive have that, that thing there to do that to help us make that connection. Mr. Kincaid comes to talk to Howard and of course, we have more chaos. Anita ends up shooting a different cop when Mr. Kincaid pulls a gun and this is crazy. I love this info. That shot of like Drew shooting the cop almost gave this an NC 17 rating. Was it just because like the number of shots or the?

Gruesome because it's like gruesome, like kind of splatter on the wall behind him. Tamara had to, like, really fight the interesting. What do they call the MPA? Yeah.

Anita and Howard take Kincaid hostage, which seems like such, like, bad planning. They drive him off into the desert. And of course, he's going to know who they are either way if they release him, you know, Right. So. And Howard, like, really starts kind of losing it. And Anita pleads with him not to kill Mr. Kincaid because it's Joy's father. And I love this line that you pointed out. He says, you see that girl, the one you called trash? Well, she just saved your life. Yeah, it's such a good ending on that scene.

Yeah, I felt vindicated because I was so mad when Mr. Kincaid was rude to her. Yeah. But yeah, this is, like, to me, it's sort of Howards like, really trying to hold it together up until this scene. And then it's just like, let's go berserk. Yeah. So they got to go on the run, right? Here's our lovers on the run. And Howard has the idea that they go see Anita's mom in Fresno. And Drew, like, Drew herself just looks so cute here because she gets all excited. Yeah. She's like, yes. Like, oh, yeah, let's do it.

Like that's a great idea. She's so going to Mexico. I know it kind of reminds me of that. And then I love this little line that she says while they're on their little road trip.

I'm hungry. Well, maybe we see a rap or something, we can shoot it. Fuck that. Hey you need it. Do you have to use that language? I need cereal or something.

I like this, so relatable. Sometimes they just need cereal. Same on a rabbit. I love cereal. I think you and I are both cereal. Lovers, right? Cereal, but they don't have any money for food. And Anita's also missing her trailer. She's like, it wasn't much, but it was mine. And yeah, you know, maybe she's sort of starting to realize, like, maybe I'm not in the best situation here. Maybe so. So at this point, they almost hit a dog in the road and they get out to help it. You made a note here that this might be close to where your husband's family lives.

Yeah. Yeah, it's so Tamara says it's near Agua Dolce, which is where my mother-in-law lives. And there is another town like nearby. I can't remember off the top of my head what it's called, but I showed the picture to Jason. He's like, Oh yeah, this is totally that area, but I haven't found the house yet. OK, Just give me time, you know? I won't rest until I do. Yes. So this doggie turns out it belongs to Jade Barrymore. Woman with dog. Look at woman with dog. Yes, exactly. I thought that Jade was much more natural in this.

Like I mean it's literally 5 seconds but way more natural than in doppelganger where we were both like Oh no her acting is. So. Bad, but in this she felt like a normal woman. Kind of. But she also seemed like so unlike unworried about her dog. Like she's like. There it is. There she is. Oh, she's always getting out. Like, you were not looking for your dog. Totally. This dog was like way down the street. And at this point, we see that Jade's character is packing up to go camping. And they, like, make a point to ask, oh, are you going camping?

Definitely like setting something. Yeah, we are. Yeah, we're going camping. Did you find, like, there was an interesting kind of symbolism here where Anita is like on this journey to go find her mom and then Drew comes to the door of her actual mom? Like, it's kind of a neat thing to think about. Didn't even really think about that. Yeah, well, that's like the mom thing is so prevalent as a theme in the movie, right? Like for her real mom to show up, it's just like, that's interesting. So they stop into a bar planning to rob the patrons of their cash.

And this kind of goes awry because pretty quickly, Anita's like, struggling with it. She's like, she's like, starts to take money. And as it like, one guy says, I've got kids. Can't you like, not take all of it? And that immediately like triggers this response from Anita.

I can't do this, Howard for. Christ's sake, don't say my name. Drews face becomes like, immediately kind of like puppy dog, like, like vulnerable. Yeah. And Tamara had noted specifically that she loved Drews little face. She is so little, she's just a little 16 year old. It's crazy. Just a little 16 year old. She gets real tough in this movie, then like immediately gets vulnerable. That's true. And that's true, right, right. I have like a really cool quote for our next episode from someone about basically the thorn and the flower of drew.

Oh, this is a that's a great way of that totally works in this movie. Cool. So they they leave without any money and then they head to this really cute. Like I was immediately like, where is this? It's very 60s looking place and they're going there to like get some food. It was called the Walk in but spelled WALCK back then. It's in Simi Valley and now it's called the Old Susanna Cafe. It still has this like triangle shape to it, but it doesn't look as like kitschy and cute as it does in the movie.

And I didn't recognize it, but I recognize the name and I've been here. That's crazy. Oh my God. I know. That's so neat. What were you there? For Simi Valley is not that far from where my boyfriend lives and so we were meeting some friends there. This was like 3 years ago. But well, if you go again, take, I know that's your location stage. Totally, totally. I love how you were able to find it because it's so distinct. Too. It took me like 2 seconds. That's awesome. But this is interesting 'cause it was definitely a restaurant, and I'm guessing it still is, yeah.

Right. But they make it look like they're going here and that it's a convenience store, so they must have just used the exterior and then done the convenience store scene somewhere else. And I love this scene. It's just so like, like I wrote like, oh, it's kind of like a shaky handheld camera. And it turns out that Lisa, the cinematographer was literally sitting in a shopping cart with the camera for this scene. And they're just like, so happy to be eating this junk. Like they literally are stealing food and eating it in the store.

And nobody's like stopping them, which is actually kind of funny. Drews like eating a big stick popsicle for like multiple parts of it. Like it doesn't James put one of those like, gross, like apple pie, Like he puts like the whole thing in his mouth, like they're starving. Yes, they're definitely shoving things in their mouth. Yeah, for sure. And it is cool. Like right away when I read that note about the shopping cart, I was like, there's another creative like, you know, they didn't bring a train in.

They just, you know, or a Steadicam. There's their. Steadicam Yeah. So they make it to Fresno, and it's kind of funny because I guess I've never been there, so I shouldn't speak out of turn, but I feel like Fresno was not thought of as like a great place. Fresno is like one of those, like middle of nowhere, you know? But in the movie, they're like, it's so nice and clean. Here, the people are so fancy. I'm like what Fresno? It was actually filmed in Glendale and there's this really cool shot where they sit in front of this fountain and it has a statue, like a face statue, and it's a profile and Drew's profile is right next to it.

I was, I had to have been intentional, but Tamara doesn't comment on it. But anyway, after you kind of pushed me because I could not find this, this does not exist in the same format anymore. But you pushed me to like dig a little deeper and I did find where it was filmed. It is right there on Brand Blvd. in Glendale. It totally makes sense. I found an article that described those sculptures so they used to be there but they aren't anymore. There's still a fountain and you can even see like the let the levels of the fountains too.

But the weird little sculptures are gone. So still neat though. We could go visit it for sure. Nice finds. Thank you. You know me, once I get determined, I love it. I love it. And yet another one that you found. So they stop, I guess at right after this, they stopped to get directions at the Great White Hut Burger stand in Glendale, which is still around. Yeah, it looks different, but it's still there, which is fun. Yeah, it is really fun. The producer, Zane W Levitt, is randomly playing the guy behind the counter here.

I love those little things. They're. Probably just like we gotta get somebody. I know that the Diane Firestone producer is also has a cameo as like a newscaster later on in the movie. I didn't make a note of it, but like, you know, they're just pulling what they can. Right. Or they're like, let's put me in. Yeah, their car is getting towed, so of course, here comes the gun. Of course, the solution to everything at this point in the movie. Yes. And it works. The guys like, OK guys, they go to Anita's mom's place where they're a bunch of people just like doing drugs and, and she's not there.

Yeah, it's like a bad scene. Yeah, they're told the mom is gone and owes money, so they just cause more violence and chaos and they're out of there. I mean, basically somebody's like, oh, you can like, like work off your mom's. Dues and stanks. So gross. And this, again, like, when I was watching it, I know that gun crazy was kind of hazy in our memories when we did our episode about parentless characters. We just knew that my mom, like, wasn't around. So it really, like, brought on another interesting level to me to know like, oh, she was really trying to find her mom and it's just not working out.

It's bad news. Yeah, so we're at the finale of the movie. They decide they're going to go back to Woman with dogs. Empty house. She's on camping, so let's go use her house. Drew is so cute with the dog. It feels very natural. Drew. I love that so much too. And they get all dressed up for dinner, and there's this sad, sort of sweet, sad little moment. We look like nice people. We are nice people.

You know, it's Anita. It's true. Like, it's not her fault. She's in this horrible situation that she's been basically born into. Yeah, You know, she is a nice person. She's just life has been. Shitty for her. They're convincing themselves that they're not like doing bad things. Yeah, totally. Yeah. That's kind of that thing that James said about how they're both sort of childish and they can't really, they can't really understand like what, what kind of horrible things they're doing. And like the consequences of their actions.

Totally. Right. Like they're not paying attention to that. The look though, is so different than everything else in this movie. Yes, in her little dress up with these she has almost that little Poison Ivy French twist. I had actually posted a picture of this in our stories and I was like what movie is this from? And only one person guessed it right. Everyone else gets Poison Ivy. Yeah. And I knew that you were getting ready for this, but I replied to you and I was like, I don't think I would have known.

Like I would have definitely questioned like, yeah, but it's so funny we did mention these vacation. Slides. Yeah. So they're looking at woman with dog and her husband's vacation slides. And they're. I don't know, we just, it's just funny. We we kind of laugh about Jade sometimes. And these definitely cracked me up. I mean. Definitely. But I just love thinking about these being taken for the purpose of being used in the film. And like, Jade's, like, dorky, like, I just. I just love it so much, Yeah.

Anita calls Joy because she just wants to talk. And I was like, no, girl, bad, bad, bad idea. They're going to find you. But she's not. Again, she's not thinking about that. And they get all excited because they're on the news and they're like, we're on the news. But then they see footage of Howard's dad essentially saying that he hopes Howard dies. Yeah. So that sucks. But very importantly, the news report says it's unclear if Anita is an accomplice or a hostage. And that, like, brings me right back to that true Crime Story of Carol and Fugate because that was totally a thing with her as well.

Yeah. Then we get this super out of nowhere. It's pretty surprising. Like I kind of forgot it actually happens. There's a sex scene. I was not expecting it at all. Totally forgot about. That I think it's, it's really, it's really pretty tame. Sort of like it's very suggestive and like not, I don't know, they don't really show anything, but you know what's happening. Tamara was nervous, of course, because of Drew's age, but Drew did say it was. It was like a beautiful and natural scene and you feel like you're looking through a keyhole at them, which is true.

It kind of feels like they have their like, privacy in this moment. And it's like I said, suggestive, but I didn't remember it. I kind of thought that like they didn't ever. Have sex. It's very surprising, yeah. I think it almost would have been just as impactful if they hadn't, but they would have had to probably like make a point or something about that. I don't know. close-ups of Drew in this scene were filmed later as pickups. And once again, the hair is brassier, so you can kind of tell in the makeup looks a little heavier and different.

Like I was like I was. Like her brows way darker. Like once you knew, once you know, you can't like, Unsee. It's kind of funny. She does like gorgeous of course though of. Course. So finally, they're starting to realize there's no way out of their situation. Just sad us all because they're going to catch us. Well, if we play our cards. They're going to find us and they're going to shoot us. And if they don't, then the state will later Howard. I guess that's pretty. Predictable.

I never really minded dying before.

What I didn't realize is that I was never really alive until I hooked up with you. Oh my goodness, I need Yeah. Sad, but also like you could do a lot better. Yeah, and that she's realizing, like the danger that they've put themselves in. That's good. Yeah, because we see Joy's dad. He's heading out to wherever they are. And before he goes, Joy reminds him that Anita saved his life, which I love that. So Anita and Howard see the cops pulling up to this house where they're at, and they get dressed.

Anita says, well, if I'm going to die, I want to have my clothes on, like, again, sort of like, immature and cute. Yeah. And there's a really cool shot where Drew is reflected in three mirrors, and then James walks in and he's reflected in, like, 2. And Tamra said that her and Lisa were really into mirror shots when they were filming this movie. This. One is particularly cool and it's just such a short like few seconds, but it's cool. It's like right away you're like, oh look, I can see Drew in like 4 different angles.

Her face is even in the little mirror. That's all I know. They're so cute. They're cool. So then randomly smoke bomb comes and, like, is shot into the house and Howard tells Anita he's going to make sure she gets a chance to get away. Like, he's like, I'm watching out for you. And it's immediately chaotic. Yeah, he basically like he also said to them like she's a hostage and then gives her a little wing. I know he's like, I'm going to shoot her a killer. And then he's like, wink, kidding girl. There's something so cute about it.

It actually is kind of cute. There's like some like warmth in that, like very chaotic momentarily again, it's like he's like this little boy. Like you're about to die. And he's just like, hey, I'm. Just kidding. Yeah. They each just casually shoot a couple of cops when they come in. Tamara said that that part always reminded her of ET when the scientists come into the house. And I was like, that's interesting because I feel like the gas masks add to that because each of the cops, I think because they were throwing that bomb in smoke bomb, that they were like, OK, we need to protect ourselves from this.

But I could see that it's. Kind of neat. Yeah, I love that little connection. Howard coaches Anita on what to say after it's all over. Like he was before. Like tell them I told you to do all of it. Yeah, they have a really sad goodbye. It's really cool how it shot, like, through that banister. And Tamra said that Drew wanted to make sure that she was, like, really crying for real. She didn't want to fake it. So Tamra had to, like, work with her on that. And it made Tamra so sad to have Drew crying.

I know. Howard says, hey, maybe tonight we made a baby. And I was like, oh, no, I hope not. That is the last thing this girl needs. Yeah, Yeah. And then she has to watch him die in this shootout, which is like, intense. It's intuitive. It's. Insanely like gruesome for no reason. He's shot like 10 times by each cop. Like it's like kind of crazy and they make it so like action movie dramatically totally shot on a like, on like a stairwell. Like, yeah, it's, it's, it's a bit much. Right in front of her.

It's just so sad. But then I noticed during this like sad moment, she's laying on her stomach and you can see the guest jeans logo on her butt. And I was like, she totally looks like she's practicing for her future ad. And I love that when you pulled this one, it's like the same kind of like hip movement with the other hip. I know you gotta share this like I will. It's too funny the. Comparison for sure. It'll be on the gallery. Yeah. And then Joy's dad comes in to get Anita as she's crying over Howard's body, and she says he made me do it.

So she's going through with the plan. Yep. And then these very end shots where like the sun is coming up and there's all these emergency vehicles in front of this farmhouse. Felt so scream. And when I did a Google image search to find this house, it was trying to tell me it was the house from screen. I was like, no bitch, it is not. I like that. It's like, I also see it, AI is like, I also see the same thing you do, Ashley, totally. And that's our movie. It's good, you guys. If you haven't watched this one in a while, highly recommend you revisit.

It's free on Amazon Primes. And like on YouTube right now. The whole thing is on YouTube, so guys, go check it out. We'll link to it on the episode page if you don't want to try to find it yourself, but it's easy. And I, you know, we'll get into it a little bit, but like, Drew got some accolades for this and it's not surprising. Yeah. OK, so let's talk a bit about the release before we leave you. So the movie was brought to Can in May of 1992. Tamara and Drew, of course, both went. I think Jamie was there with her, right?

Yeah. The movie originally aired on TV on Showtime on October 17th of 1992. The producers were somewhat bummed that the movie premiered on cable rather than in theaters, which makes sense. Especially back then. I was just going to say like now things in like TV and movie are way more blurry. Like TV is respected is just as much as film these days in some ways. Totally. Back then especially like a premium cable channel where a lot of people wouldn't even have had access to see it, right? We've got a couple like rave reviews for Drew, so let's jump into this a little bit.

I love these. So this one was like, supposedly really important, Vincent Camby of The New York Times say. He said Drew Barrymore gives the kind of performance that can transform A sweetly competent actress into a major screen personality. Miss Barrymore's Anita is an important part of the way the movie works. She's enchanting to watch, both angelic and monstrous. There's that thing again. It's Miss Barrymore, whose presence illuminates the screen. She's come a long way since ET the Extraterrestrial, and possibly she has much further to go after she graduates from her Lolita roles.

I love that. It's great. Yeah. The Angelica monstrous is a perfect way to like talk about that juxtaposition. It's also like Doppelganger. Yeah, it's kind of funny. Literally monstrous. Yeah, Drew said that when Vincent Camby wrote about Gun Crazy, saying it was greatest film, she said I didn't even think he'd see this movie. Yeah, like amazing to her that that person would even have encountered the movie. A lot of people involved with the movie said this specific positive review had made a big difference and gave the movie more opportunities.

That's so interesting. I wonder if reviews are as important as they were at one time like. I don't think so. Probably not as much. Weight, like, for one guy to have the power right, for his words to matter that much, it's kind of amazing. But he's not the only one. So the Los Angeles Times, they said Barrymore, who was allowed to drift over the top in Poison Ivy, is much more in control here. And her portrayal of someone so deeply in need of even artificial affection that she allows herself to be sexually coerced is genuinely moving.

Well, sad. Yeah, and then we've got Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. He's one of those guys we always like. We always laugh about laugh about something he said about Charlie's Angels or something that cracks us up, he said. This performance should dispel Barrymore's unfair Rep as the Linda Blair of the 90s. She's a dynamite presence and a credible actress, as she proved in Catches, Poison Ivy and on TV as the best of the three, Amy Fishers.

And then in Newsday, it says Barrymore has played several teen tramps in low budget movies, but this is her first substantial screen character and she does wonders with it. Wow. And then finally, LA Weekly said nobody is better equipped to represent her lost generation than Drew Barrymore. With her bruised gash of a mouth and a Born to Sid Bod, Barrymore could probably get this message across just by sauntering across the screen. But she's also a deceptively casual actress who brings oceans of nuance to bear on each and every bad seed.

Hell yeah. Wow. These are all, like, written very, like, poetically, Yeah. Maybe that's the art of the review as well, right? Awesome. We love when Drew was, like, recognized. Yeah. I know it's our favorite. Yeah. In December 1992, Drew received a Golden Globe nomination for best performance by an actress in a Miniseries or telefilm. And you made a note that that, like, wording has changed a little bit. But at the time, that's what they were calling. Yeah. I know Telefilm. Yes, and we do have a little clip of Drew like talking in response to her nomination.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I know that we're all shocked. I'm shocked most of all, and I'm really grateful. Oh, like it's a big deal at this time. Like, she just went from blacklisted to Golden Globe nomination. Yes, she also said, I was shocked when I was nominated. It's a real honor. And much of the credit goes to Tamara because she's easily the best director I've ever worked with. Sorry, Steven Spielberg, I just threw that part in. The award went to Laura Dern. But it's also funny that Jessica Lange was nominated in that same category.

Like, so cool. Like the future, Drew would be Jessica for their shared film Grey Gardens. Yes, the movie did receive a limited theatrical run starting on January 20th of 1993, and Tamara's pretty sure that the movie was one of like the first to go from cable to theaters. I'm very curious if that's true. But also like, it's unusual. Yeah, that, like I wouldn't be surprised. Like that's crazy. It's really neat that that happened. Yeah, and the movie was released on VHS in February of 1993, on February 24th.

And I'm going to let you kind of take this talk about like the incredible Blu-ray that was released in 2020, because this is so weird. It's so weird. So in December 2020, this company called MVD released a Blu-ray of the movie as part of their rewind collection. And I remember seeing it and I was like, this can't be real, right? Like, yeah, gun crazy. No one ever talks about gun crazy. Like there's no way there's this brand new amazing DVD. Well, it is real and it is amazing. It is full of features, like way more than any movie that comes out these days.

Yeah, there's an entire 90 minute documentary brand new called The Making of Gun Crazy with interviews from tons of the film makers and cast. And I use that massively as the source for this episode. Like without this, I would have so many less notes. There's tons of amazing behind the scenes footage. Like I wish I had a way to digitize this for you guys. I was like sending pictures of my TV to Anne because it's just crazy the stuff that they have. Because I do not have this Blu-ray. Yeah, there's also the commentary that was done by Tamara around 2003 for the DVD.

And then they they say like commentary with Tamara and Drew, but really they just like intersplice. Every once in a while they'll insert this like audio of Drew from 1991 on set. So it's kind of like, it's not really common, Terry, but it's kind of cool. That's a lot of work for them to be like if you're splicing that. Also whoever put this together like. I'm telling you, there's also this like very cool making a featurette from 1992 and it literally looks like it was shot on a camcorder, like on set like this stuff like you would never see this for most movies.

It's very, very neat, but sadly it's really hard to find now. I didn't realize this until you went to go look for a copy. Went to go look for it and like on Amazon it was like $80.00 and I was like what is going on? So my understanding or my thought is that it was a very like small production, like run run Blu-ray. I, I mean, if you're out there and you have it, like cherish it or send it to us. Yeah, you need. You need a. Copy, but I'm so glad that you have it. I know. You were able to like access it for this.

I'm so glad to have be able to take all of those Nuggets of info from this and share it with you guys because I feel like otherwise they're just sitting on this Blu-ray that nobody can find. Yeah. One last thing I do want to say is that the podcast Hollywoodland, which is I think a pretty big podcast, they just happened to recently release a really good episode on Gun Crazy like that's. So weird. And they even did like this curated mixtapes of songs that they felt would have been inspired by the movie.

So go listen to that. It's very short and fun. But the guy who hosts that was also just like, this is a cool movie. Like this is a really neat, great movie that more people need to know about. And I think you said they said something like the movie that no one's talking about. Yeah. And I was like, wait, we're talking about it in like a couple weeks. I. Feel like we gotta like send them a thing like we were working. On this, I did actually. The host actually started following our podcast account, which was like, oh cool.

That's really, really cool. So I said we'd give a shout out. Oh yeah, yeah, that's, that's cool. I've got to listen to it because, like, there's not that much about this out there. No, there's literally I searched like in Spotify podcast gun crazy and I think I found two other things ever discussing it. So I feel like this is the big one, guys, this is your jackpot of gun crazy info. Unless you have that Blu-ray, you're not going to have all this info. Yep. And a lot of this comes from like our personal Drew magazine archive too.

So right, I'm really excited to do this love letter to this movie that I'm so glad Drew did. Yeah, me too, me too. And I'll never stop saying I'm glad we had an excuse to watch it. Yeah, absolutely. I've just like totally fallen in love with it again. So yeah, yay. Thanks you guys for being here. If you enjoyed this work that we did to give you all of this really cool tidbits galore on this really neat movie, just go leave us a rating. You could do five stars on Spotify. You can do five stars and a written review on Apple podcasts.

One of those in a long ass time. You can follow us on Instagram at how do you Drew pod. Also, you can follow us at Jerzium and join the literal. I bet you if I look right now, I think we're up to like 700 new followers today because Drew's Instagram gave us a little shout out because we shared some photos of young Drew that they were able to use. And it's been bananas. I every time I open my phone today I'm like wow. And this was just like yesterday. So join those hundreds, hopefully by the time that this comes out, thousands of people who are now following us.

If you're not, go over there. Go over there and you don't forget. You can also leave comments if you like to do that, you can do that on Spotify and YouTube and we will reply to you. I'm always checking them guys. Yes, OK and also visit [email protected] to see the episode gallery for this episode. We do them for every single one. I'm sure this one will be a nice rich one because. I'm already done with it and I, I mean, I'm going to add more. I always find that there's more to add after we do our discussion, but we have a lot of cool photos from this one.

Please go to hadiyadrew.com. While you're there, peruse thedrewzium.com, our Drew Barrymore Online Museum. And we haven't really mentioned it yet. Sign up for our Patreon. I guess we maybe did, maybe we didn't. Guys, sign up for our Patreon. We did not patreon.com slash.

Yeah, we can tease here that we filmed little something right before we started this episode recording. We filmed something for the Patreon of a really neat little box of goodies we got from The Drew Barrymore Show itself, so if you want to know more about that, go to Patreon. Yes, for our newest acquisition. And also don't forget to send listener mail to [email protected] or any of the other places we've mentioned. And we'll see you all next Drew's day, everybody. Hey, Bang, Bang. Thank you.

This episode of the How Do You Drew podcast was researched and produced by Ashley and Anne from thedrezium.com with help from our sponsor, Positive Medium. Special thanks to Matt Costa for our lovely theme song, Roxy Prima for our adorable logo, and last but not least, Drew Barrymore and all the Drewbies who love her. We do this for you. Thank you.

130 – Guncrazy (1992): Drew Barrymore's Indie Crime Drama

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