I am a big fan of gangster films and so the idea
of Dillinger and Capone in the same film perked me up. Strange, I thought.
I am pretty sure these two never crossed paths. Capone was a Chicago organization
man in the Mafia while Dillinger was a lone bank robber. But Dillinger was
killed in Chicago at the Biograph Theater that was showing a Clark Gable
and Myrna Loy film - so maybe. Well, at least in this slightly revisionist
take on history from producer Roger Corman. Corman made a few gangster films
in his career - Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, the St Valentine's
Day Massacre and Ma Barker had been covered by him - so why not Dillinger
and Capone?
But in this version that wasn't Dillinger
killed by the FBI in 1934 but his brother who resembled him. Dillinger was
out buying cigarettes and when he saw that his brother was dead and the FBI
couldn't tell the difference, he decides to go straight. Sure. Sounds reasonable.
He marries a good woman under a different name and adopts her son and becomes
a farmer. Meanwhile Capone gets out of prison in 1939 with a raging case
of syphilis and moves to Florida. That part is true. Not much else is.
Capone tracks down Dillinger and kidnaps his wife and son - to force Dillinger
to do one last job. Recover his $15 million dollars hidden in Chicago. In
the headquarters of the new generation of gangsters. It is as bad as it sounds
- but Corman got himself a few good actors. Martin Sheen plays Dillinger,
F. Murray Abraham plays a Capone in the midst of insanity and prostitutes
and Catherine Hicks plays the wife. Why Corman thought the world needed
this, I can't say but then why not.
