Gangster films had been all the rage back
in the 1930's with a plethora of films coming out of Warner's and other studios,
but by the end of the decade they had gone a bit out of style and with the
war those films disappeared for the most part. They were a part of the Great
Depression when times were tough and people turned to crime. By 1945 the
major studios had an agreement not to make these sorts of films. But Monogram,
a Poverty Row studio, was not a part of that agreement and so produced this
film about John Dillinger and his crime wave. It was one of Monogram's largest
hits. And perhaps led the way to an increase in violence in films. After
the war violence was back in style.
Dillinger was basically a psychopath who
began his criminal aspirations in the early 1920's at the age of 21 to his
death outside the Biograph Theater at 31 in 1934. The film doesn't hold back
from that portrayal - they don't soften him up or give him an excuse. He
is just a bad guy gone worse. In the film he goes to jail, meets some fellow
criminals of the finest caliber, breaks them out and they go on a robbery
spree. Dillinger is reputed to have robbed 24 banks and 4 police stations.
Four police stations? Did he just rob them of their dignity?
In the film his girlfriend sets him up
and wears red to the movie so the cops can identify Dillinger - thus The
Lady in Red - the title of a 1979 film about Dillinger (played by Robert
Conrad of all people). Another Dillinger film was Dillinger in 1972 where
Dillinger is played by Warren Oates. And then there is yet another film from
1991 titled Dillinger where Mark Harmon plays the criminal. The interesting
thing is that in these three other films his girlfriend is Billie Frechette,
which was the name of his girlfriend in real life. She was also a prostitute
and it was her Madam of the brothel who fingered Dillinger. And by fingered
I mean informed that he was going to the theater. And her nickname was The
Lady in Red. In this one The Lady in Red is a long term girlfriend. If that
makes any sense at all.
There is a lot of violence in this film
but all of it takes place off camera - lots of shooting but no shots of the
consequences. These were still the days of the Breen Office and that sort
of graphic violence just could not be allowed on screen and even Poverty
Row studios had to abide by it. A good cast here - Laurence Tierney in his
first big role - the writer said he picked him because he looked like Dillinger.
But a young Tierney looks an awful lot like Ben Affleck to me. So maybe Affleck
looks like Dillinger. I have certainly felt I was robbed watching a few of
his films. The Dillinger Gang all have familiar faces though the only name
I could attach to them was Elisha Cook Jr. The scriptwriter Philip Yordan
went on to write a hell of a lot of scripts for some well-known films - El
Cid, The Fall of the Roman Empire, 55 Days at Peking caught my eye but there
were so many more. He also allowed blacklisted writers to use his name.
