John Dillinger

Dillinger is a film noir from 1945 based on one of, if not the most famous gangster in American history. This film was released 11 years after John Dillinger’s death and is the first film based on his exploits. Though Dillinger’s likeness appeared as fictional characters a few times before this film, including Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra of which the book by the same name was loosely based on Dillinger. Here is a look at that film:

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This is a film that Robert Mitchum wanted to star in, but the studio thought it would be a perfect fit for their new talent, Lawrence Tierney. I’m not sure if this would have been a better film if it starred Mitchum, but it sure was a good fit for Tierney. In only his second credited role, Dillinger launched Tierney’s star.

This film starts with Dillinger at a bar with a woman. When the bartender will not take his check, Dillinger excuses himself and holds up a store. He doesn’t make it very far before he is arrested. In prison he soon befriends some criminals with a better track record than himself. He is soon released from prison and comes up with a plan to break his new friends out. Once he is successful at this, the gang goes on a bank robbing spree which would capture the American imagination.

This film is only 70 minutes long, so it has left out key elements of this story. Public Enemy from 2009 starring Johnny Depp is probably the film to watch to get a more accurate historical prospective. That said I would say Tierney’s more brutal portrayal of Dillinger doesn’t hint at any sympathy for this criminal.

Look for Edmund Lowe, Marc Lawrence and the always great Elisha Cook Jr. as members of Dillinger’s gang.

This isn’t the greatest film noir, but is worth watching for Tierney’s performance. You can see a noir great in the making in this film. This was a successful B-noir at the box office as well as being a censored film at the time of its release. In fact it took two years before it was shown in Chicago.

G Men stars noir bad ass James Cagney in the role of “Brick”. A new lawyer and new recruit for the F.B.I., Brick must go through training to become a Special Agent. This film was not liked by J. Edgar Hoover at first, because Brick was insubordinate in part of the film. He finally approved the script and was very happy with its huge success. G Men made over a million dollars at the box office, a huge return back in 1935. This film also portrays two incidents that where true in F.B.I.’s early history and where both pivotal in the formation and popularity of them. The first is the “Kansas City Massacre” where the F.B.I. were unable to have guns and one agent died along with 3 police and Frank “Jelly” Nash, who they were transporting. The second indecent was the famous shot out at the lodge against John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and their gang. The lodge shooting was a big scene also in the more true telling of the story, Public Enemies in 2009. The other interesting thing about this movie is that the good guys, the F.B.I. Agents could use Tommy guns and other automatic weapons while the gangsters used revolvers and lever-action rifles. This was due to censorship at the time. This also starred Margaret Lindsay as the sister of Brick’s boss as well as Brick’s love interest. Ann Dvorak plays the wife of one of the gangsters, but helps the G Men catch them. Robert Armstrong plays his usual hard nose character and boss to Brick. This is a fun film noir with some historic events portrayed, and lets face it, Cagney is great. This was also re-released in 1948 with a new intro, here is the trailer for that with most of that new intro:

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Review: Dillinger

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