Watched: 01/08/2025
Format: HBOmax
Viewing: First
Director: Max Nosseck
A biopic of famed gangster John Dillinger, Dillinger (1945) is really a crime drama that feels pulled from a "true crime" pulp magazine - the sort where facts will not stand in the way of a good story. I can't tell you what's real here or not as I know two things about Dillinger - that he once broke out of jail with a fake gun, and something I can not print in a family publication like the Signal Watch.*
Anyway, this is the movie that broke Lawrence Tierney, for good or ill. And he's solid in the movie - maybe singularly good here playing a (checks notes) absolute cold-blooded monster. I won't get too much into Tierney as a person, but apparently he was a real asshole - like in a way you or I can't comprehend putting up with.
That said - the movie is really watchable. I won't say it's *great* - I don't know if it reaches those levels. But it's a King Bros. feature, the guys who brought me my fave-rave, Gun Crazy, and it *is* arguably well-shot for a cheaper production. Folks put in solid performances, including a mid-1940's Elisha Cook Jr., and kudos to Anne Jeffreys as Dillinger's moll. (She'd play Tess Truehart in Dick Tracy that same year, and I can totally see it).
The heists are so numerous, they're done mostly in montage. Also, they don't get into too much detail how the heists are carried off. Maybe for time, maybe for accuracy, maybe not to give anyone any funny ideas.
It's worth noting that the movie never plays up (directly anyway) Dillinger as a Depression-era anti-hero, which is sort of what he was portrayed as in contemporary news. Banks were seen as the enemy by many people as they foreclosed on homes, farms, etc... and Dillinger was walking in and taking what he wanted at the end of a gun.By 1945, the Hayes Code was being enforced, and while we could still spin a yarn about a notorious gangster, this one portrays Dillinger as a psychopath. He's the central figure, but he's no hero.
While the facts of the film don't match what little I knew or what's on Wikipedia about Dillinger in real life - something I find odd as the movie was just ten years removed from Dillinger's death, and people would remember details - if you treat it as a pulp story, it's fine. They knew everyone knew about The Lady in Red and have his girl wear a red dress (in a black and white movie so they have to be pretty specific), and that Dillinger was killed coming out of a movie. And even *which* movie he'd gone to see. But, yeah, a *lot* is changed.
Anyhoo, worth a watch. Just... not as a doc.
*supposedly the man was just deeply gifted in the wang department
No comments:
Post a Comment