Dillinger

In preparation for Michael Mann's film Public Enemies, which stars Johnny Depp as legendary bank robber John Dillinger, I thought it would be fun and instructive to take a look at some other films that were about the man, both of them simply called Dillinger. One was from 1945, starring Lawrence Tierney, directed by Max Nosseck, and the other is from 1973, with Warren Oates and directed by John Milius.

In viewing films like this, the first thing you have to do, unless you want to drive yourself crazy, is to realize that they are not documentaries. Neither of these films bears much resemblance to the truth, although they have enough scraps to make it interesting. Both, for example, include what ordinarily would seem a very fictional scene of Dillinger escaping from jail using a gun carved out of wood. Apparently this did really happen, and Woody Allen used it to great effect in Take the Money and Run.

The 1945 film is reminiscent of the gangster films of the 1930s, which were rooted in sociology, and sought to explain why men turned out bad. A great deal of the film explores his early days, when he was sentenced to a long stretch in prison for robbing a grocery store and basically learned how to be a criminal while in lock-up. The film begins with Dillinger's father speaking to audiences, which is also based in truth.

The script is mostly fantasy, though, even though it was approved by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. This is no doubt why Dillinger was portrayed as nothing but a bad apple.

The '73 film is also of its time. One can instantly tell it's a 70s film by its gritty, muddy look. Oates looks a lot like Dillinger, and he portrays him without an ounce of glamor or romance, in contrast with the principles of Bonnie and Clyde, which in many ways influenced this film. For example, Oates "seduction" of his girlfriend, Billie Frechette (Michelle Phillips) is basically a kidnapping.

Dillinger's pursuer, Melvin Purvis, is played well by Ben Johnson, but he and Oates are both too old to play the parts (Dillinger and Purvis were both 31 in 1934, Dillinger's last year on Earth). Johnson has a key scene in which he tries to persuade a young boy to grow up to be an agent, but the boy is more interested in being Dillinger. "Dillinger's in jail!" Johnson cries, to no avail. This angle, focusing on how bank robbers of the day were major celebrities (and even had dashing names like Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson) is well handled by Milius.

Also in the cast are Richard Dreyfuss as Nelson (who was the real psychopath of the bunch), and Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter, who has some wry lines while he's being pursued by police--"This just isn't my day." We also learn some things that may or may not be true, such as it was Machine Gun Kelly who coined the term "G-Men," and that Purvis killed himself years later with the gun he shot Dillinger with (this bit is not true).