Machine-Gun Kelly
                      
Director: Roger Corman
Year: 1958
Rating: 6.0
If you read about Machine-Gun Kelly, he wasn't really a bad guy. Sure, he robbed banks and kidnapped people but as far as I read, he was not a killer. And for a guy with a moniker like Machine-Gun that is surprising. There were a few times you might think he would have, but he didn't. For example, one time when he kidnapped some fellow and he could not come up with the ransom, he was just let go. Well fed. Another time he wasn't sure who his target was and so kidnapped two men. When he realized which was which, he let one of them go. He had two long sentences in jail and was by all accounts a model prisoner. But if you get a name like Machine-Gun stuck to you, it is hard to shake it off. It was his wife actually who did the PR - bought him a machine-gun and then spread the word. Probably good for business. Who wants to mess with someone with that name. Especially, if he is holding one.



Director Roger Corman makes Kelly out to be a lot meaner than he was. A guy clearly in need of Anger Management. Everything and everybody irritates him and when he is irritated he tends to smack them around, including his wife. Or feed part of them to a wild cat in a cage. Charles Bronson who plays Kelly always looks like someone has broken his piggy-bank. Angry, insulting, physical and ready to grab his machine-gun and start blasting. Not a guy you really want to spend much time with. The wrong word and you get a fistful of resentment. The real Kelly came from a good family and went to university but didn't do well and got the boot. He first turned to petty crime, got married, had two children and went to jail and divorced her. A model citizen. After he got out, he went right back into it but moved up the food chain - first by robbing banks and then kidnapping. He had married again and she joined in on the capers. That is what makes a good marriage. 



This begins with a bank robbery and ends with a kidnapping. Along the way he has to rub out a few people. Bad guys though. And feeds one of his partner's (Morey Amsterdam - The Dick van Dyke Show) arm to the wild cat but he tried to rip off the gang. He goes through a few gang members which happens when you do things like that. The big kidnapping is of a small girl and her nurse. In real life, the one that tripped him up and sent him off to jail for life was kidnapping a very wealthy man. He got $200,000 and let him go. But this guy was a smarty-pants and though blindfolded figured out where it was. When the cops came, he just surrendered.



His wife is played by Susan Cabot as a woman asking to be killed - demeaning him, flirting with other men, a scorpion let loose among a gang of men. Cabot's most famous role is as The Wasp Woman the following year. I expect this had something to do with her getting that role. A slice of True Crime. Not a lot of action which I expect is the real case - mainly sitting around till things cool off, getting on each other's nerves and then planning the next caper.