Dillinger (1945)

Things like this are usually better if they stick more or less to known facts. In this case it's so garbled that it's difficult to tell exactly what these peoples' intentions were.Dillinger is a cartoon character with limited social graces and seldom without some inept business or something awkward to say. It would have been nice - and seems to me particularly film-worthy - to include the part about the amazing plastic surgery that enabled him to avoid capture for a while. But then Wikipedia doesn't include that either, sticking strictly to a well known "after" (as opposed to "before") picture, to ensure implementation of their propaganda goals. Ditto this movie as to intentions.The result is that the requisite gratuitous violence is so implausible it turns into a cartoon, about a mild-mannered guy who goes around shooting a lot of people without explanation. The criminal characters are so gaseous and dull! Except the one mentor guy, but he's not believable either, due to the stilted Affekt of almost every line and directorial detail. Of course all their names have been changed... to protect the guilty, I suppose.In real life it was not his long-time squeeze but a hooker working for the FBI that finally lured him into the staked out movie theater. It took her about a year as I recall from reading about 10 years ago. The intentions of the present cinematic squeeze are garbled as well in this regard. (To protect the innocent?) And he didn't die in a pile of back ally garbage, but right in the middle of the sidewalk: Great, if your intentions are in the lines of gruesome noirishness.There's certainly little that's sinister or noirish about it.

The bargain-basement movie studio, Monogram Pictures, managed to crank out a tough, exciting action picture based (very loosely) on the life of John Dillinger and made a sensation out of its star, Laurence Tierney, who at one point turns to the audience and fires his gun (shades of the 1903 shocker, "The Great Train Robbery"). Looking into Tierney's cold, cruel eyes, we don't doubt he could have done it to us for real. "Dillinger" strains hard against its tiny budget, taking a lot of obvious short-cuts, including the liberal use of stock footage, but we nevertheless get a well-told story with plenty of action and violence. 1945 movies couldn't be as explicit as today's, but lots of horrible things take place just off camera. Meanwhile, good things take place on camera. Anne Jeffreys, as the blonde femme fatale, did a lot of low-budget stuff, but she's very good. Dillinger's gang includes the top-notch character actors, Edmund Lowe, Elisha Cook Jr., Eduardo Ciannelli and Marc Lawrence.

John Dillinger (Lawrence Tierney) was an Indiana farm boy who had a thirst for cash, once realising where the cash was, Dillinger rose to become the 1930s public enemy number 1. This portrayal of a man who not only terrified the public, but also captivated them wholesale, benefits from an excellent screenplay courtesy of Philip Yordan. The picture's strength is not in purely aiming for entertainment values in guns and robbery rampage, it begs the questions of what made Dillinger the man he was? Was it an early stint in the big house that marked his life out for him? was his unison with Specs Green merely igniting a murderous rage within? or was Dillinger just a greedy bastard who was rotten to the core?Running at only 70 minutes, and filmed on a "B" movie budget, Dillinger comes out as something of a triumph within the gangster genre. Posing questions and providing moments of genuine unease, it may just be one of the best gangster films that does not starg Cagney, Bogart or Eddy G. Stirring stuff, from a vengeful return to a bar, to the ripper of a finale, Dillinger is to me holding up considerably well in this day and age of pictures over killing violence for violence sake. 7/10

Although it would have been much more appropriate as part of a subsequent Gangster DVD Collection from Warners (rather than the Film Noir in which it was included), DILLINGER is a solid B flick buoyed by a fast pace, a bevy of familiar character actors (Edmund Lowe, Eduardo Cianelli, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook Jr.) and a terrific turn by Lawrence Tierney in the title role. Although John Milius' 1973 remake is much more factual and despite an over-reliance on stock footage from bigger-budgeted films - like Fritz Lang's YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937) - the film is also notable for an unusual narrative structure for this type of film in that the events are "told" to a theater audience by John Dillinger's father as a warning against the perils of living life on the wrong side of the tracks! This film also proved to be Monogram's most prestigious production as Philip Yordan received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay!