It's too bad that the first film tribute to the baddest bandit of the last century was done by Poverty Row Monogram Pictures. And while Lawrence Tierney is certainly brutal enough to portray that aspect of John Dillinger's personality, the charm that was also part of Dillinger was left out. It's possible a good deal was left on the cutting room floor of Monogram.
Both Johnny Depp's Public Enemies and even more so the film Dillinger that starred Warren Oates in the title role were far closer to the truth than this was. To be sure Dillinger's legendary escape from an Indiana jail with a fake wooden gun and the matter of his demise were included if not completely accurately. You couldn't have a film about Dillinger without them.
No deep psychological insights into John Dillinger here. He was just a mean anti-social individual who took to a life of crime. In most other times he would have not been glamorized. But this was The Great Depression and bankers were not popular back in those days. They were foreclosing left and right and when they weren't doing that they were failing, robbing people of life savings. So if Dillinger and his kind were taking out withdrawals their way, who really cared?
Dillinger while in prison for a two bit convenience store stickup meets up with old time bank robber Edmund Lowe and the rest of the gang which consists of Eduardo Ciannelli, Elisha Cook, and Marc Lawrence. Tierney as Dillinger bust them out of the joint after he's finished his sentence and takes over the mob from Lowe. He also meets up with Anne Jeffreys who becomes the infamous lady in red.
Certainly Depp and Oates got more out of the Dillinger role than Tierney did. But what Tierney got was a career and in a limited way he did capture part of the Dillinger mystique. Sad this film was not done at a major studio though.
Both Johnny Depp's Public Enemies and even more so the film Dillinger that starred Warren Oates in the title role were far closer to the truth than this was. To be sure Dillinger's legendary escape from an Indiana jail with a fake wooden gun and the matter of his demise were included if not completely accurately. You couldn't have a film about Dillinger without them.
No deep psychological insights into John Dillinger here. He was just a mean anti-social individual who took to a life of crime. In most other times he would have not been glamorized. But this was The Great Depression and bankers were not popular back in those days. They were foreclosing left and right and when they weren't doing that they were failing, robbing people of life savings. So if Dillinger and his kind were taking out withdrawals their way, who really cared?
Dillinger while in prison for a two bit convenience store stickup meets up with old time bank robber Edmund Lowe and the rest of the gang which consists of Eduardo Ciannelli, Elisha Cook, and Marc Lawrence. Tierney as Dillinger bust them out of the joint after he's finished his sentence and takes over the mob from Lowe. He also meets up with Anne Jeffreys who becomes the infamous lady in red.
Certainly Depp and Oates got more out of the Dillinger role than Tierney did. But what Tierney got was a career and in a limited way he did capture part of the Dillinger mystique. Sad this film was not done at a major studio though.