Last week, we caught the last of the Gary Cooper/Barbara Stanwyck movie, “Ball of Fire” from 1941 on TCM. Interesting enough to try and chase down and watch in its entirety.

The last scenes involved the villain, mob boss Dana Andrews’ henchmen hold ing Cooper and his comrades hostage. The hoods were carrying a long barreled, stocked Luger carbine and a stocked Broomhandle Mauser.

Those two choices were a head scratcher for me, especially since the Thompson submachine gun is the nominal choice for any gangster movie. Perhaps that this movie was a comedy, it might have influenced the offbeat choice of weapons.

Any insight from the film knowledgeable would be welcome. Also if you have any other odd movie armament examples, chime in!

Probably in much the same way as many guns are chosen for modern films, the armorer presented a selection of guns and the director/producer says "that one looks cool... we'll use that".

Or perhaps they wanted the iconic Thompson, but didn't have any available, so they chose other options with offset wooden buttstocks as being "close enough for the average viewer".